Issues & Controversies

Act 975 of 2015
aka: Religious Freedom Restoration Act
The Arkansas Religious Freedom Restoration Act (SB975 of the 2015 r...
Albert Krantz v. City of Fort Smith
aka: Krantz v. City of Fort Smith
Albert Krantz v. City of Fort Smith was a 1998 decision by the Eigh...
Anti-Catholicism
Organized prejudice against Roman Catholics was a recurring theme in American history from colonial days throu...
Anti-Semitism
Relations between Jews and the rest of the population were generally amicable throughout the South in the nine...
Appeal of the Arkansas Exiles to Christians throughout the World
The “Appeal of the Arkansas Exiles to Christians throughout the World” was a plea for assistance written b...
Arkansas Right to Life
Arkansas Right to Life is a nonprofit organization whose stated purpose is to “educate through the presentat...
Becoming Free Indeed
Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear is a 2023 memoir by Jinger Duggar Vuolo, one o...
Clergy Sexual Abuse
Since 2002, when the public became widely aware of sexual abuse of minors by clergy members, an international ...
Continental Trailways Bus Hijacking of July 3, 1982
A young couple who believed they would be resurrected died in a murder-suicide on the Little Buffalo River Bri...
Convent Inspection Act of 1915
aka: Act 130 of 1915
aka: Posey Act
The Convent Inspection Act was passed by the Arkansas General Assem...
Grannis Vigil
On September 29, 1975, in the tiny town of Grannis (Polk County), a group of approximately twenty-five residen...
Johnson v. State (1942)
Six months before the United States went to war with Japan and Germany in 1941, but as war hysteria was buildi...
Jonesboro Church Wars
The Jonesboro Church Wars were a series of early 1930s religious conflicts within the Baptist community of Jon...
The Liberator
The Liberator was an anti-Catholic weekly newspaper published in Magnolia (Columbia County) from 1912 to 1915....
Little Rock Debates on Evolution (1966)
The “Great Evolution Debate,” as it was billed, was held in Little Rock (Pulaski County) on June 28–29, ...
March on Religious Freedom (1993)
aka: March on Fort God
In summer 1993 in northeastern Arkansas, three teenagers, later kno...
Mountain Meadows Massacre
In April 1857, near Harrison (Boone County), 120 to 150 settlers, mostly Arkansans, started a journey toward t...
Parley P. Pratt (Murder of)
Parley Parker Pratt, an original member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of ...
Hay Watson Smith (1868–1940)
Hay Watson Smith, a Little Rock (Pulaski County) Presbyterian minister, was a leading opponent of the movement...