Modern Era

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Arkansas League of the South
The League of the South was founded in 1994 with the announced intention of explaining and celebrating the Sou...
African-American woman in suit talking to white man in suit and white woman in yellow shirt
Arkansas Martin Luther King Jr. Commission
The Arkansas Martin Luther King Jr. Commission was created by Act 1216 of 1993. It is an offshoot of the Marti...
Black Americans for Democracy (BAD)
aka: Students Taking a New Direction (STAND)
aka: Black Students Association (University of Arkansas, Fayetteville)
The Black Americans for Democracy (BAD) was a group organized by Af...
Mixed crowd of people walking on street with protest signs
Black Lives Matter
#BlackLivesMatter (BLM) began as Alicia Garza’s social media hashtag protest on Saturday, July 12, 2013, aft...
African-American man in white shirt and leather jacket holding his hand to his face
Black Power Movement
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) worker Willie Ricks coined the “Black power” slogan in Ju...
List of "grievances" typed on paper
Blytheville Boycotts of 1970–1971
In the opening months of 1970, a group of African Americans in their mid-twenties sought to bring the social a...
Older African-American woman with glasses hat and dress
Evangeline Katherine Brown (1909–2001)
Evangeline Katherine Johnson Brown was a longtime educator and activist in the Arkansas Delta who served as a ...
button with African American man "Cleaver for President"
Leroy Eldridge Cleaver (1935–1998)
Leroy Eldridge Cleaver was one of the best-known and most recognizable symbols of African American rebellion i...
College Station Freedom School
While the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education marked the end of legally sanction...
White woman talking to a group of Cuban men standing and sitting under a tree
Cuban Refugee Crisis
Arkansas played a part in the international drama of 1980, when 125,000 Cubans left their homeland for a new l...
African American man and woman standing with cars and buildings behind them
Earle Race Riot of 1970
The Earle Race Riot of 1970 broke out in the late evening of September 10 and continued into the early hours o...
Afrian American man and toddler
Eugene Ellison (Killing of)
The 2010 “police-involved shooting” death of Eugene Ellison in his own apartment in Little Rock (Pulaski C...
Young African-American man with white man holding a phone receiver to his mouth
Dick Gregory (Arrest of)
In February 1964, African-American satirist Dick Gregory was jailed in the Jefferson County Jail in Pine Bluff...
Hispanic Women's Organization of Arkansas (HWOA)
The Hispanic Women’s Organization of Arkansas (HWOA) is a non-profit organization founded in July 1999 by a ...
Perlesta Arthur "Les" Hollingsworth (1936–2007)
Perlesta Arthur “Les” Hollingsworth was a lawyer whose battle for equal justice for African Americans took...
Bobby James Hutton (1950–1968)
At the age of sixteen, Robert James (Bobby) Hutton was the first recruit of the Black Panther Party. He partic...
Gertrude Newsome Jackson (1923–2019)
Gertrude Newsome Jackson was a local activist in the Marvell (Phillips County) area who, along with her husban...
Sensitive Content
Group of young white men hanging an effigy from a tree
Little Rock School Desegregation Cases (1982–2014)
aka: Little Rock School District, et al v. Pulaski County Special School District et al.
From 1982 until 2014, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern Distr...
Little Rock Uprising of 1968
What became known as the Little Rock Uprising of 1968 was triggered by the controversial killing of inmate Cur...
March Against Fear (1969)
aka: Walk Against Fear (1969)
For four days between August 20 and 24, 1969, Lance Watson (alias S...
African-American man with "Make Whites Right Keep your money no shopping" sign
Marianna Boycotts of 1971–1972
In the early 1970s, African Americans in the rural Delta community of Marianna (Lee County), lacking represent...
Interior police station black man wearing "the black santa" hat holding paper news microphone foreground
Robert "Say" McIntosh (1943–2023)
Robert “Say” McIntosh was a restaurant owner, political activist, and community organizer distinctly tied ...
African-American man with mustache smiling in suit and tie
National Black Political Convention (1974)
Little Rock (Pulaski County) hosted the second National Black Political Convention (NBPC) at Robinson Auditori...
African-American woman with curly hair wearing glasses
Annie Zachary Pike (1931–)
Annie Zachary Pike is a farmer and community activist from Phillips County who became the first African-Americ...
Adolph Reed Sr. (1921–2003)
Adolph Reed Sr. was a distinguished educator and activist. As a political scientist, he approached politics fr...
African American woman in judge's robes
Andree Yvonne Layton Roaf (1941–2009)
Andree Yvonne Layton Roaf was an Arkansas attorney and jurist. A 1996 inductee to the Arkansas Black Hall of F...
Portrait of a black man in a suit, tie, and glasses.
Roosevelt Levander Thompson (1962–1984)
Roosevelt Levander Thompson was a very accomplished Arkansan who achieved many things during his short lifetim...
Black man in suit and tie speaking at a lectern gesturing with audience seated behind
John Winfred Walker (1937–2019)
John Winfred Walker was a lawyer who emerged from segregated schools and society in southwestern Arkansas to w...
White Revolution
Headquartered in Mountain View (Stone County), White Revolution was a neo-Nazi group founded by Arkansas nati...
Leonard Lee Williams (Killing of)
Leonard Lee Williams, a nineteen-year-old African American man, was killed on Sunday, August 17, 1969, at the ...
African American woman in glass and white formal wear
Sue Cowan Williams (1910–1994)
Sue Cowan Williams represented African American teachers in the Little Rock School District as the plaintiff i...