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Black Activism in Arkansas, 1940-1970 John Andrew Kirk

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BLACK ACTIVISM IN ARKANSAS, 1940-1970 JOHN ANDREW KIRK SUBMITTED IN REQUIREMENT FOR THE DEGREE OF Ph.D. DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE APRIL 1997 NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 096 52562 6 ABSTRACT In September 1957, Little Rock, Arkansas was the scene of a dramatic confrontation between federal and state government that brought to a head the southern movement of massive resistance against the United States Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation ruling. Although numerous studies have analysed the Little Rock crisis from a variety of perspectives, one striking omission in the existing historiography is the role played by the local black community who were at the very centre of events. Building upon recent local and state studies conducted by scholars of the civil rights movement, this thesis locates the events in Little Rock of September 1957 within an unfolding struggle for black rights at a local, state, regional and national level between 1940 and 1970. In so doing, the thesis seeks to revise the time-frame for black activism imposed by a first wave of civil rights scholarship, which focused almost exclusively on the role played by national civil rights organisations between 1955 and 1%5. It argues that only by comprehending the groundwork laid in the 1940s and 1950s, through litigation and voter registration drives at a grassroots level, can the significance of later black protests be fully understood. In line with the findings of other state studies, it highlights the pivotal role played by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) which, assisted by a nexus of local organisations, formed the backbone of early civil rights struggles at a local level. Thus, the thesis aims not only to provide a corrective for the existing gap in the historiography of the Little Rock school crisis, but also seeks to broaden and deepen our understanding of the ways in which indigenous black movements developed and sustained protest strategies at state and local levels across the South. CONTENTS Abbreviations Introduction 1. Origins: From Accommodation to Protest 2. Challenges: Voters, Teachers and Soldiers 3. Changes I: "One of the Most Liberal States in the Union" 4. Crossroads: Brown v. Board of Education 5. Crisis: Local People and a National Struggle 6. Changes LI: The Business of Integration Conclusion Bibliography ABBREVIATIONS ACCA Associated Citizens' Councils of Arkansas ACM Arkansas Christian Movement ADVA Arkansas Democratic Voters Association AFL American Federation of Labor ANDA Arkansas Negro Democratic Association ASC Arkansas State Conference of NAACP Branches AVP Arkansas Voter Project BUY Black United Youth CCC Capital Citizens' Council do Congress of Industrial Organisations CNO Committee on Negro Organisations COCA Council on Community Affairs CORE Congress of Racial Equality CPA Civic Progress Association CROSS Campaign to Retain Our Segregated Schools (TA Classroom Teachers' Association DNC Downtown Negotiating Committee DPA Democratic Party of Arkansas DSC Democratic State Committee EECL East End Civic League FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation FEPC Fair Employment Practice Committee FERA Federal Emergency Relief Administration FRCC Freedom Ride Co-ordinating Committee FSA Farm Security Administration GCHR Governor's Council on Human Resources GCP Gould Citizens' for Progress GLRCRR Greater Little Rock Conference on Religion and Race HCC Hoxie Citizens' Council 'CC Interstate Commerce Commission LDEF NAACP Legal Defence and Educational Fund LRCS Little Rock Council on Schools LRHA Little Rock Housing Authority LRPA Little Rock Police Association LRPSC Little Rock Private School Corporation NAACP National Association for the Advancement of Colored People NCC Negro Citizens' Committee NUL National Urban League NYA National Youth Administration OEO Office of Economic Opportunity PCDC Pulaski County Democratic Committee SCLC Southern Christian Leadership Conference SFCAC St. Francis County Achievement Committee SFM Student Freedom Movement SNCC Student Non-violent Co-ordinating Committee SRC Southern Regional Council STOP Stop This Outrageous Purge VEP Voter Education Project VGGA Veterans' Good Government Association WEC Women's Emergency Committee WPA Works Progress Administration INTRODUCTION On September 2, 1957, Governor Orval E. Faubus drew national and international attention to Arkansas when he called out the troops of the National Guard to surround Central High school in the state capital of Little Rock in order to prevent the implementation of a court-ordered desegregation plan. In defying the local courts and, ultimately, the United States Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation decision, Faubus directly challenged the authority of the federal government as no other elected southern politician had since the Civil War. Over the next few weeks frantic negotiations took place between the White House and the governor's mansion that finally led to the withdrawal of the National Guard. However, when nine black students attempted to attend classes on September 23, an unruly white mob caused so much disruption that school officials were forced to withdraw the black students for their own safety. The scenes of violence finally prompted President Eisenhower to intervene in the crisis by sending in federal troops to secure the safe passage of the black students into Central High. On September 23, the nine black students finally completed their first day of classes under armed escort. Over the past forty years the Little Rock school crisis has been the subject of a great deal of attention. Numerous first-hand accounts of the events provide us with a variety of perspectives, including that of President Eisenhower, Congressman Brooks Hays, Governor Orval Faubus, Superintendent of Schools Virgil Blossom, Little Rock's Mayor Woodrow Mann, Arkansas Gazette editor Harry Ashmore, segregationist politician Dale Alford and school teacher Elizabeth Huckaby. Secondary works by movement scholars have focused on Governor Orval Faubus, massive resistance and the White Citizens' 2 Councils, local white clergymen, the local white business elite, local whitejudges, and the interaction of national and local political and legal issues.1 Useful though these memoirs and studies are, by focusing almost exclusively on the events of September 1957 and Little Rock's emergence in the national spotlight they offer little insight into how the school crisis fitted into a much larger struggle over the future of race relations in both city and state. Even more importantly, these works, mostly written by and about whites, fail to present a thoroughgoing analysis of the black community and its contribution to the story of race relations in Arkansas. For over thirty years the only black perspective on the school crisis was the memoir of Daisy Bates, head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the state. Significantly, the second work to emerge from the black community, written by Melba Pattillo Beats in 1994, one of the nine students who integrated Central High, adds little to Bates's account. Like the works by whites, Bates's and Pattillo's books provide only a snapshot of events, lacking a broader context to locate the dramatic events of September Dwight D. Eisenhower, Waging Peace (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Company, 1965); Brooks Hays, A Southern Moderate Speaks (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959) and Politics Is My Parish, An Autobiography (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981); Orval Eugene Faubus, Dow,, From the Hills (Little Rock: Pioneer Press, 1980) and Down Fro,n the Hills II (Little Rock: Democrat Printing and Lithographing Company, 1986); Virgil T. Blossom, Ii Has Happened Here (New York: Harper, 1959); Woodrow Wilson Mann, "The Truth About Little Rock," series in New York Herald Tn bune, January 19-3 1, 1958; Harry S. Ashmore, The Negro and The Schools (University of North Carolina Press, 1954), An Epitaph For Dixie (New York: Norton, 1958) and Hearts and Minds: The Anatomy of RacLs,n from Roosevelt to Reagan (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982); Dale Alford and L'More Alford, The Case of the Sleeping People: Finally Awakened by little Rock School Frustrations (Little Rock: Pioneer Press, 1959); Elizabeth Huckaby, Crisis at Central High, Little Rock, 1 957-58 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980). Roy Reed is currently compiling the first major biography of Faubus; the most insightful analyses available at present are Robert Sherrill, "Orval Faubus: How To Create a Successful Disaster," in Gothic Politics in the Deep South (New York: Balentine Books, 1969) pp. 79-124 and David Wallace, "Orval Faubus: The Central Figure at Little Rock Central High School," Arkansas Historical Quarterly 39 (Winter 1980), pp. 314-329; Numan V. Bartley, "Looking Back at Little Rock," Arkansas Historical Quarterly 25 (Summer 1966), pp. 101-116; Neil R. McMillen, "The White Citizens Council and Resistance to School Desegregation in Arkansas," Arkansas Historical Quarterly 30 (Summer 1971), pp. 95-122; Ernest Q. Campbell, and Thomas F. Pettigrev, Christians iii Racial Crisis: A Study of Little Rock's Ministry (Washington D.C., 1959); Elizabeth Jacoway, "Taken By Surprise: Little Rock Business Leaders and Desegregation," in Elizabeth Jacoway, and David R. Colbum, eds., Southern Business,nen and Desegregation (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982)
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