Entry Category: National

Hinds, James

James M. Hinds was an Arkansas politician during the Reconstruction era. He served as a representative to the Arkansas Constitutional Convention of 1868 and to the U.S. Congress upon Arkansas’s readmission to the Union after the Civil War. During his four months as representative, Hinds helped introduce a bill for the sale of what is now Hot Springs National Park, aided in establishing agricultural colleges, and promoted the interests of black soldiers. Upon the passage of the Reconstruction Acts, Hinds advocated the measures on a state level, as well as taught enfranchised African-American men about their newly acquired rights as citizens. His assassination by a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) member was deemed politically motivated. He is one of the six …

Hodges, Asa

Asa Hodges was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives. He represented the First District of Arkansas in the Forty-Third Congress, serving from 1873 to 1875. Asa Hodges was born on January 22, 1822, near Moulton, Alabama, to William Hodges and Jeanette Daugherty Hodges. He and his family later moved to Marion (Crittenden County). After receiving his early education in local schools, he graduated from LaGrange College in LaGrange, Missouri, in 1848. Hodges also studied law and was admitted to the Alabama state bar in 1848. He then began to practice law, working first in the offices of L. P. Walker in Florence, Alabama, and later forming a legal partnership with Thomas M. Peters, who would later …

Hodges, Kaneaster, Jr.

Kaneaster Hodges Jr. served as a Democratic interim U.S. senator representing Arkansas from December 10, 1977, to January 3, 1979. He was appointed to the post by Governor David Pryor after the death of the incumbent senator, John L. McClellan. Hodges also served as city attorney and deputy prosecuting attorney of Newport (Jackson County) and held a number of positions in state government. Kaneaster Hodges Jr. was born to Harryette Hodges and Kaneaster Hodges Sr. in Newport on August 20, 1938; he was one of six children. His father, whose career path Hodges would follow, was a lawyer. Hodges graduated from Newport High School in 1956 and went on to receive his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University in 1960 and …

Hollis, Mary Cal

Mary Cal Hollis is a liberal political activist. A native of Arkansas who now lives in Colorado, she has run for national office on both the Socialist and Green Party tickets. Mary Cal Hollis was born on January 13, 1952, in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County), one of four children of Cal Hollis and Ruth Bylander Hollis. She graduated in 1970 from Pine Bluff High School. After graduation, she went on to the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County), where in 1974 she earned a BA in special education, followed in 1978 by a master’s degree in specific learning disabilities. In addition, she has studied multicultural special education at the University of Colorado at Boulder. A self-described “bleeding-heart liberal,” …

Holloway, William Judson

William Judson Holloway was an Arkansas-born politician and lawyer who moved to Oklahoma, where he became active in politics. He led the state of Oklahoma as governor in the early years of the Great Depression. William Judson Holloway was born on December 15, 1888, in Arkadelphia (Clark County) to Stephen Lee Holloway and Molly Holloway. Holloway’s father was a Baptist minister, and he sent his son to Ouachita College (now Ouachita Baptist University). After graduating in 1910, he studied at the University of Chicago. Holloway settled in Hugo, Oklahoma, and while reading the law, he also served for three years as principal of Hugo High School. He entered Cumberland University Law School to complete his legal training, earning his degree …

Houston, Sam

Sam Houston was the governor of Tennessee, twice president of the Republic of Texas, and later senator and governor of the state of Texas. From May 1829 until November 1832, Houston lived in Arkansas Territory among the Cherokee. Sam Houston was born to Samuel Houston and Elizabeth Paxton Houston on March 2, 1793, at Timber Ridge Plantation in Rockbridge County, Virginia. Moving to Maryville, Tennessee, in 1807, Houston cleared land and clerked in a mercantile establishment. As he “preferred measuring deer tracks in the forest to tape and calico in a country store,” Houston went to live with John Jolly’s band of Cherokee and was given the name Colonneh (“Raven”). Subsequently, he taught school and volunteered in the War of …

Hudson, Joel Carrington

Joel Carrington Hudson was a career diplomat at the U.S. Department of State who served in various posts around the world, including being stationed in Germany on the cusp of World War II. Joel Hudson was born in Ravenden (Lawrence County) on September 4, 1899. Hudson’s father was William R. Hudson, who is referred to at times as “Reverend” and at other times as “Doctor.” His mother was Ida Tanner Hudson, who died before 1910. His parents lived in Lonoke (Lonoke County) with the seven-month-old Hudson at the time of the 1900 census. In 1910, Hudson and his father were each enumerated as “roomer” in Houston, Texas, where Hudson’s father was the founding minister of the Third Baptist Church. Little …

Hunter, Joseph Boone

Joseph Boone Hunter was Director of Human Services at the World War II–era Japanese American Relocation Center in Rohwer (Desha County) and the founding minister of Pulaski Heights Christian Church; in addition, he served on the faculty of Little Rock Junior College (now the University of Arkansas at Little Rock), taught continuing education courses for teachers for the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County), and became the first administrator of the Arkansas Council of Churches. He was also an interim minister in twenty-seven churches, mostly in Arkansas. Joe Hunter was born on December 27, 1886, to John W. Hunter and Mary Frances Compton Hunter on a farm near Allen, Texas. He was the ninth of fifteen children and …

Hutchinson, Asa

aka: William Asa Hutchinson
William Asa Hutchinson first gained national attention as the youngest district attorney in the nation in 1982. He went on to represent the Third District of Arkansas in Congress as a Republican from 1997 to 2001, resigning his post on August 6, 2001, to become the director of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Hutchinson left the DEA to become the Under Secretary for Border and Transportation Security at the Department of Homeland Security, a post he held from 2003 to 2005. In 2005, Hutchinson began actively campaigning for the governorship of Arkansas but lost the race to Mike Beebe in November 2006. However, he was elected governor eight years later in 2014 and reelected in 2018. Asa Hutchinson was born on …

Hutchinson, Young Timothy (Tim)

Tim Hutchinson represented the State of Arkansas in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993 to 1997 and the U.S. Senate from 1997 to 2003. Young Timothy (Tim) Hutchinson was born on August 11, 1949, in Bentonville (Benton County) to John Malcolm Hutchinson Sr. and Coral Hutchinson; he has five siblings. His father was a grocer, farmer, and eventually mayor of Sulphur Springs (Benton County). Hutchinson attended public schools in Bentonville and Gravette (Benton County). He graduated with a BA from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, and received an MA in political science from the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County) in 1990. Hutchinson married his first wife, Donna Jean King, in 1970; they had three …

Hynes, William Joseph

William Joseph Hynes was a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He was the at-large representative from Arkansas in the Forty-Third Congress, serving from 1873 to 1875. William J. Hynes was born on March 31, 1843, in County Clare, Ireland. He was the son of Thomas Hynes and Catherine O’Shea Hynes. His father died in 1848, and Hynes’s mother brought the family to the United States five years later, settling first in Springfield, Massachusetts. It was in Massachusetts where Hynes received his early education, a program of study that included training in printing. He worked first in newspaper publishing but turned to law. He apprenticed in the office of a local Springfield attorney and then moved south, being …

Indochinese Resettlement Program

aka: Operation New Life
In 1975, the state of Arkansas was tapped by the federal government to be one of four main entry points for Indochinese refugees. The presence and availability of the facilities at Fort Chaffee, located adjacent to Fort Smith (Sebastian County), made it an ideal location for processing tens of thousands of Indochinese seeking refuge from their war-torn country. When the United States evacuated its remaining personnel from Vietnam in the spring of 1975, it left in its wake a wide segment of the Indochinese population who had assisted the American military and political effort. Without the American presence, they were left vulnerable to retaliation by the North Vietnamese government. Many fled in the days and weeks leading up to the …

Jacoway, Henderson Madison

Henderson Madison Jacoway was an Arkansas politician who represented the state’s Fifth District in Congress for six terms. First elected to the Sixty-Second Congress, he served from March 4, 1911, until March 3, 1923. Henderson Jacoway was born in Dardanelle (Yell County) on November 7, 1870, to William Dodge Jacoway and Elizabeth D. Parks Jacoway. Jacoway attended the local common schools before graduating from Dardanelle High School in 1887. He went on to Winchester Normal College in Winchester, Tennessee, earning his degree in 1892. He then entered Vanderbilt University’s law department, where he completed his degree in 1898, graduating as valedictorian. He was admitted to the bar the same year and started a private practice in Dardanelle. In 1893, Congress …

Japanese American Relocation Camps

After Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, and America’s subsequent declaration of war and entry into World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the War Relocation Authority (WRA), which selected ten sites to incarcerate more than 110,000 Japanese Americans (sixty-four percent of whom were American citizens). They had been forcibly removed from the West Coast, where over eighty percent of Japanese Americans lived. Two internment camps were selected and built in the Arkansas Delta, one at Rohwer in Desha County and the other at Jerome in sections of Chicot and Drew counties. Operating from October 1942 to November 1945, both camps eventually incarcerated nearly 16,000 Japanese Americans. This was the largest influx and incarceration …

Jasper, Rickey Lane

Rickey Lane Jasper is the highest-ranking African American ever to serve in the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He has also had a career as a minister, serving as a pastor at his church in the United States while pursuing seminary studies both at home and abroad. He is a member of the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame. Rickey L. Jasper was born in Parkdale (Ashley County) on July 28, 1963. His mother, Louisie Mae Grayson, and her husband, Kirt Grayson, raised him and his siblings in the small town. He graduated from Hamburg High School before heading off to college. Although he had planned to join the military after graduation, the academically inclined Jasper instead decided to join his …

Jeffery, Robert Emmett Jr.

Robert E. Jeffery Jr. was a descendent of one of the earliest families to settle in north–central Arkansas. With very little formal education, he practiced law and also served as a prosecuting attorney, circuit judge, and member of the Arkansas General Assembly. In 1915, he was appointed a minister to Uruguay by President Woodrow Wilson.  Robert Emmett Jeffery Jr. was born in Mount Olive (Izard County) on January 30, 1875, to Dr. Robert Emmett Jeffery Sr. and Mary Cason Jeffery. He was the great-grandson of Jehoida Jeffery, considered by some to be the first white settler in present–day Izard County. He was the oldest of eight brothers and two sisters.   Jeffery, who was called Boyse by his family, grew up in rural Arkansas and had few opportunities for a formal education, attending local schools for no more than …

Jerome Relocation Center

The Japanese American relocation site at Jerome (in Drew County and partially in Chicot County) was listed on the Arkansas Register of Historic Places on August 4, 2010. This Japanese American incarceration camp, along with a similar one built in Desha County, eventually housed some 16,000 Japanese Americans forcibly removed from the West Coast during World War II. The Japanese American population, of which sixty-four percent were American citizens, had been forcibly removed from the West Coast under the doctrine of “military necessity” and incarcerated in ten relocation camps dispersed throughout the inner mountain states and Arkansas. This was the largest influx and incarceration of any racial or ethnic group in Arkansas’s history. The Jerome Relocation Center was in operation …

Johnson, Robert Ward

Robert Ward Johnson was an Arkansas political leader who represented the state in both chambers of the U.S. Congress and as a congressman and senator in the Confederate Congress. Born on July 22, 1814, in Scott County, Kentucky, to Benjamin and Matilda Williams Johnson, he belonged to a powerful political family, as two of his uncles represented Kentucky in the U.S. House of Representatives, and another uncle, Richard Mentor Johnson, eventually became vice president of the United States. His father was appointed Superior Judge for Arkansas Territory (predecessor of the Supreme Court of Arkansas) in 1821, and President Andrew Jackson later appointed him in 1836 as the first Federal District Judge for the new state of Arkansas. One of his …

Jolly, John

aka: Ah ludi ski
aka: Ooluntuskee
John Jolly, president of the Arkansas Cherokee, was a key figure in Cherokee affairs during and after their residence along the Arkansas River in west-central Arkansas. Born in Tennessee into an influential mixed-race family, he had a successful trading post on Hiwassee Island in eastern Tennessee, at the confluence of the Hiwassee River and the Tennessee River. Jolly’s brother Tahlonteskee was one of several Cherokee chiefs who voluntarily moved a group of Cherokee from their lands into the area that would become Arkansas shortly after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Following an 1817 treaty that promised an exchange of their lands east of the Mississippi River for an equivalent area in Arkansas, Tolontuskee and his followers moved gradually from northeast …

Jones, James Kimbrough

James Kimbrough Jones served as a U.S. senator from Arkansas for three full terms after first serving two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. During his twenty-two years in Washington DC, he became a prominent leader in the Democratic Party and a national advocate for lower tariffs and for the use of silver to back American currency. James Kimbrough Jones was born on September 29, 1839, in Marshall County, Mississippi, to Nat Jones and Caroline Jane Jones (whose maiden name was also Jones, although she was not related to Nat Jones). Jones had a younger brother who died in childhood, and his mother died when he was six. His father remarried after moving to Dallas County, Arkansas. Two daughters …

King, Bertha Hale

aka: Bertha Hale White
Bertha Hale King was a socialist activist in the first part of the twentieth century. Although born in Illinois, she received most of her early education in Arkansas before leaving the state to serve as a high-ranking official in the national Socialist Party. Bertha Hale was born in Nashville, Illinois, in 1878. Her father was a farmer, but little else is known about her parents. She attended primary school in Golden City, Missouri, just over the state line from Illinois. The family then moved to Arkansas. Following graduation from high school in Fort Smith (Sebastian County), she attended Buckner College, a small Baptist school just a few miles north of Huntington (Sebastian County). In preparation for a teaching career, she …

Kirby, William Fosgate

William Fosgate Kirby was an associate justice on the Arkansas Supreme Court and also served as state attorney general and U.S. senator. A friend and political ally of Jeff Davis, Kirby was a member of the Democratic Party and an ardent agrarian populist. His convictions led to his spirited opposition to President Woodrow Wilson’s efforts to involve the United States in World War I. Born on November 16, 1867, near Texarkana (Miller County), William F. Kirby was the son of Joseph F. and Martha (Ferguson) Kirby. His father was an ex-Confederate who moved into the state from Alabama and took up agriculture. Kirby grew up on the family farm with his three brothers. He received his secondary education in local …

Kitchens, Wade Hampton

Wade Hampton Kitchens was a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He represented the Fourth District of Arkansas in the Seventy-fifth and Seventy-sixth Congresses from 1937 to 1941. Wade Hampton Kitchens was born on December 26, 1878, on a farm near Falcon (Nevada County) to James Monroe Kitchens and Margret Sherrill Kitchens. He had eleven siblings. His formal education included the area’s local common schools, Southern Academy, and then the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County), which he attended from 1895 to 1898. With no academic legal education available at the university or anywhere within the state, Kitchens left UA and continued his formal studies at the law department of Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee, from …

Lake Dick

The area of Lake Dick, a U-shaped oxbow lake in Jefferson County, was the site of a New Deal program in agriculture during the first administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The experiment involved the “resettlement” of struggling urban and farm families. How the lake got its name has been a source of speculation. Located one mile west of Arkansas Highway 88 and four miles south of Altheimer (Jefferson County), Lake Dick was at one time the site of farmsteads for some eighty white families who had been moved into the area. In 1936, the Resettlement Administration—later to be made a part of the Farm Security Administration—acquired 3,453 acres of farmland in Jefferson County with the twin goals of establishing …