June Freeman (1928–2024)

June Freeman was an arts administrator, civic organizer, and advocate for architecture, design, and cultural exchange whose work significantly influenced arts institutions and public life in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) and Little Rock (Pulaski County).

June Glory Biber was born on July 10, 1928, in Newark, New Jersey, to Irving Biber, who was a pharmacist, and Hilda Biber, who ran the home. She graduated from Newark’s Weequahic High School in 1946 and earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Chicago in 1949 and later a master’s degree in psychology. She attended further graduate school for a couple of years but did not earn a degree. In 1950, she married Edmond Wroe Freeman III, a Pine Bluff native who became publisher of the Pine Bluff Commercial. The couple lived in Pine Bluff for many years before moving to Little Rock in 1995.

In the early 1960s, June Freeman led a community effort to repurpose a former fire station in Pine Bluff into the Little Firehouse Community Arts Center. The organization later evolved into the Southeast Arkansas Arts and Science Center, predecessor of the Arts & Science Center for Southeast Arkansas. From 1975 to 1980, Freeman served as director of state services for the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock (now the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts). In that role, she developed a mobile art gallery that brought exhibitions to small towns and rural communities across Arkansas. She founded the Arkansas Artist Registry for the Arkansas Arts Council in 1989 to support Arkansas artists and later earned a certificate in arts administration from Harvard University.

In later years, Freeman focused on architecture and design advocacy. In 2011, she founded the Architecture and Design Network, a nonprofit organization that sponsors public lectures by nationally and internationally recognized architects and designers. After she stepped down as director in 2016, the organization named its lecture series in her honor.

Freeman was also active in international cultural exchange. In 1986, she founded the Pine Bluff chapter of Sister Cities International, establishing a partnership with Iwai City (now Bando), Japan. She led and hosted multiple exchange delegations and maintained longstanding connections with Japanese cultural institutions.

Throughout her life, Freeman participated in civic and social advocacy. During the civil rights era, she supported school desegregation efforts in Little Rock and was a member of the Women’s Emergency Committee to Open Our Schools during the desegregation crisis at Little Rock Central High School and the Lost Year. She helped establish the Jefferson County chapter of the League of Women Voters and spoke publicly on issues involving church-state separation and other civic concerns.

Freeman served on the boards of numerous organizations, including the Arkansas Arts Council, the Governor’s Commission on the Status of Women, the Arkansas Arts Center, the Arts & Science Center for Southeast Arkansas, the Mid-America Arts Alliance, and the Pine Bluff Orchestra. She was a lifetime distinguished member of the UAMS Psychiatric Institute Advisory Board. Her honors included the Award of Merit from the Arkansas Chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 2013, Governor’s Arts Awards in 1985 (Outstanding Patron) and 2018 (Lifetime Achievement), and induction into the Arkansas Women’s Hall of Fame in 2017.

Freeman died on July 4, 2024, in Scottsdale, Arizona, less than a week shy of her ninety-sixth birthday. Her husband of more than seventy years Edmond Freeman had died in 2021.

For additional information:
Greenberg, Brooke. “June Freeman’s Enduring Legacy.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, July 14, 2024, p. 2H. Online at https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2024/jul/14/june-freemans-enduring-legacy/ (accessed March 20, 2026).

June Freeman. David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History. https://pryorcenter.uark.edu/interview.php?thisProject=Arkansas%20Memories&thisProfileURL=FREEMAN-June-447&displayName=June%20Freeman&thisInterviewee=447 (accessed March 20, 2026).

Tate, Byron. “June Freeman, a Leading Figure in Art Scene, Dies.” Pine Bluff Commercial, July 6, 2024, pp. 1, 2. Online at https://www.pbcommercial.com/news/2024/jul/06/june-freeman-a-leading-figure-in-art-scene-dies/ (accessed March 20, 2026).

David Freeman
Salisbury, Connecticut