Entries - Time Period: Divergent Prosperity and the Arc of Reform (1968-2022) - Starting with P

Pfeifer v. City of Little Rock was a lawsuit filed in 1999 by Eugene Pfeifer III that, had it been successful, would have upended all the developing plans for the presidential library of President Bill Clinton. The suit stemmed from a dispute and the resulting failed negotiations surrounding the effort to plan and eventually construct a presidential library in Little Rock (Pulaski County) following Clinton’s election in 1992. Not long after Clinton’s election to the presidency, a group of his supporters established the Clinton Presidential Library Study Commission and began to look for a suitable place in Arkansas to establish the former Arkansas governor’s presidential library. The creation of the commission set in motion a lengthy process that had lawyers …

Chris Piazza was a judge in Little Rock (Pulaski County) for thirty years, capping a public service career that also included thirteen years as a prosecutor before he was first elected a Pulaski County circuit judge. Over the course of his years on the bench, he presided over a wide range of cases and was hailed by some and reviled by others for his pioneering decision ruling the state’s ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. Christopher Charles Piazza was born on March 3, 1947, to Sam Piazza, who was the oldest child of an Italian immigrant who had arrived in Little Rock in 1903, and Francis Jordan Piazza, a native of Plymouth, England, whom Sam had met while serving in World War …

Ross Pritchard was a veteran of World War II, a Peace Corps worker, a teacher, a coach, and a longtime academic administrator at the collegiate level. During his long career, he served as the chief executive at three different institutions of higher learning, including Arkansas State University (ASU) in Jonesboro (Craighead County), where he was president from 1975 to 1978. Ross Joseph Pritchard was born in Patterson, New Jersey, on September 3, 1924. He was the oldest of five children of Ross Winans Pritchard Jr., who was a pipe fitter, and Camille Beltramo, a native of France. Shortly after graduating from high school, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy. His military service during World War II was uneventful, but while …

Johnnie Pugh, a pioneer in community organizing, advocacy, and activism, was instrumental in building one of the first multiracial social organizations in Arkansas. Pugh was also an Arkansan New Party pioneer, city director, nurse, and businesswoman. Johnnie Beatrice Newton was born on October 1, 1926, in Snyder (Ashley County) to Moses (Mote) Newton and Odessa Newton. She began living with her aunt, Mannie Phillips, at an early age to attend school and church in Mount Olive (Ashley County). As the school did not exceed the ninth grade, she returned to Hamburg (Ashley County) and worked in the fields. She also helped to deliver babies in Bradley County while practicing midwifery and worked in private home cleaning. In December 1948, she …