Time Period: Divergent Prosperity and the Arc of Reform (1968 - 2022)

Chowning, Ann

Ann Chowning was a highly regarded ethnographer particularly well known for her linguistic work, which featured extensive field work in four different Austronesian speaking societies in western Melanesia. She spent most of her adult life in Australia. Martha Ann Chowning was born in Little Rock (Pulaski County) on April 18, 1929, to Martha Chowning and Frank Chowning, who was a well-respected Little Rock attorney and an internationally renowned expert on orchids. Chowning attended Little Rock Central High School, graduating in 1946. Pursuing her undergraduate degree from Bryn Mawr College outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she majored in Spanish. However, she also took a large number of anthropology courses, and after her 1950 graduation with a degree in Spanish, she enrolled in …

Christensen, Les

aka: Leslie Ann Christensen
Leslie Ann (Les) Christensen is director of the Bradbury Art Museum at Arkansas State University (ASU) in Jonesboro (Craighead County), but she is best known as a sculptor who works in mixed media using everyday objects to offer a vision of universal experience and common responsibility. Her artwork has been exhibited in solo and group shows throughout the United States and in Europe. Les Christensen was born on July 3, 1960, in Omaha, Nebraska, as the second of four children (and the only daughter) of Dean and Carol Christensen. She attended the University of Iowa, where she received a BFA in sculpture in 1982. She spent a year of graduate school at the Rijksuniversiteit te Utrecht in the Netherlands and …

Christopher H. Harris v. Asa Hutchinson, et al.

The Arkansas constitution’s rule, commonly called “sovereign immunity,” that people cannot sue their government for damages has vexed the Arkansas Supreme Court for a century and a half, but particularly in the twenty-first century when a few justices began to insist that the ancient doctrine that “the king can do no wrong” flouted the basic human rights of Arkansans that were spelled out in the state constitution’s bill of rights. The dispute was keenly articulated in several cases that arose in the Republican-run state government in the second decade of the new century, notably the case of Christopher H. Harris v. Asa Hutchinson, et al. in 2020. Christopher Harris sued Governor Asa Hutchinson and Patrick Fisk, the deputy director of …

Chrystal

Chrystal is a film written and directed by longtime Arkansas resident Ray McKinnon. The movie stars McKinnon’s wife, Fayetteville (Washington County) native Lisa Blount, who played the title character alongside Hot Springs (Garland County) native Billy Bob Thornton, who played her husband. The movie was shot in and around Eureka Springs (Carroll County) in 2003 and is set in a small, unnamed community in the Ozark Mountains. It was the second project of Ginny Mule Productions, a company co-owned by McKinnon, Blount, and Walton Goggins, who also acted in the movie. The three had received an Academy Award for best live action short in 2001 for their first project, the film The Accountant. Chrystal centers upon the reunion of Joe (played …

City of Fort Smith v. Wade

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), one of the most significant governmental reform laws ever enacted by the Arkansas General Assembly, withstood many efforts in the state legislature and the courts to curtail the public’s right to know what state and local governments were doing. The efforts multiplied in the second and third decades of the twenty-first century. One such tactic that did succeed was a lawsuit, cited as City of Fort Smith v. Wade, in which the Arkansas Supreme Court altered the meaning of a public meeting so that private emails among city officials about an issue before the city board of directors did not violate the FOIA because the emails probably did not directly affect the city board’s …

City of Hot Springs v. Creviston

The Arkansas Supreme Court upended fifty-two years of financial practice by Arkansas cities and counties and numerous decisions of the Supreme Court when it ruled on March 3, 1986, that the Arkansas Constitution required the state and local governments to get voters’ approval before issuing bonds for capital improvements or any other purpose. The decision, in a case styled City of Hot Springs v. Tom Creviston, stunned local governments and financial institutions and briefly halted the issuance of financial instruments called revenue bonds, which were debts that were to be repaid from revenues generated by the project rather than from taxes. But a constitutional amendment to lift the election requirement was hastily drafted, petitions placed it on the ballot, and …

Civil War Roundtable of Arkansas (CWRTA)

Jerry Russell, Bill O’Donnell, and Cal Collier began the Civil War Roundtable of Arkansas (CWRTA) in March 1964 during the height of the national Civil War Centennial celebrations. Russell served as its first president. The CWRTA has been active continuously since 1964, with eleven meetings each year (no meeting in December). The CWRTA has sponsored a number of bus tours over the years to regional Civil War battlefields and sites, including the Pea Ridge National Military Park (with Professor Bill Shea of the University of Arkansas at Monticello as the guide) and sites associated with General Frederick Steele’s Camden Expedition through southern Arkansas (guided by Ed Bearss, the retired chief historian of the National Park Service). In commemoration of the …

Civil War Sesquicentennial

The Civil War Sesquicentennial was commemorated in Arkansas from 2011 to 2015. The planning of events related to the sesquicentennial began in 2007 with the establishment of the Arkansas Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission by the Arkansas General Assembly as part of Act 635. The Civil War in Arkansas was commemorated during several anniversary events during the twentieth century. The United Confederate Veterans held a reunion in Little Rock (Pulaski County) in 1911, the fiftieth anniversary of the outbreak of the war. In 1959, the Arkansas General Assembly created the Civil War Centennial Commission of Arkansas, which operated until at least 1965. While other events commemorating the Civil War were held in the state over the next several decades, the Arkansas …

Claiborne, Harry Eugene

Harry Eugene Claiborne, a native of McRae (White County), was a lawyer, politician, and later a federal judge in Las Vegas, Nevada. Claiborne became known nationwide in 1986 as the first sitting federal judge to be sent to prison and the fifth person in American history to be removed from his or her position through impeachment by the U.S. Senate. Harry Claiborne was born on July 2, 1917, in the Lebanon community just outside McRae. His father, Arthur Smith Claiborne Jr., was a cotton farmer, and his mother, Minnie King Claiborne, was a schoolteacher. Early on, Claiborne gained a reputation in McRae for his speaking ability, and he would often accompany his grandfather to view court proceedings at the White …

Clark County Museum

The Clark County Museum, which opened in 2002, is operated by the Clark County Historical Association and located in the Missouri Pacific Depot in Arkadelphia (Clark County). The mission statement of the museum reads in part: “The museum is dedicated to preserving and presenting the rich and diverse history of Clark County from prehistoric times to the present. The museum is also committed to educating the public about the important people and events that have influenced the county. Artifacts that best represent the various eras in Clark County history will be displayed for preservation and educational purposes within the museum.” The Clark County Historical Association was founded on October 30, 1972, in Arkadelphia. While members of the group desired to …