January 31, 2010

In the early 1960s, Jim Porter was a leader in the racial integration of the music venues in Little Rock (Pulaski County), producing Arkansas’s first integrated-seating concert. Little Rock’s main concert hall, Robinson Auditorium, operated under an unwritten policy of segregation, resulting in many African-American acts refusing to play in the city. In September 1966, once this policy was abandoned, the auditorium hosted a Porter-promoted concert by Louis Armstrong, which sold out.