July 13, 1941

Olly Neal Jr. was born eleven miles west of Marianna (Lee County). Neal headed up a community health clinic in Marianna in the 1970s, became the first Black district prosecuting attorney in Arkansas, and served as a circuit court judge and on the Arkansas Court of Appeals. Historian Grif Stockley described him as a civil rights activist, political agitator, Arkansas Delta advocate, and a “black devil incarnate to many of Marianna’s whites.”