Look inside the January
2016 Issue of the Arkansas Archivist for these and other features
Upcoming Symposium on Little Rock School Desegregation
Arkansas’s education system has been scarred by the legacy
of segregation and the struggle to end it and provide equal opportunity for all
students. Often, history books treat the desegregation struggle as settled and
ended in the 1950s and 1960s. Many historians, however, argue that the legacy
of segregation continues to be felt in the current educational climate. On
February 6, the Black History Commission of Arkansas and the Arkansas History
Commission will present a program titled, Little Rock School Desegregation:
Then to Now at the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center in Little Rock.
Newly Found J.H. Reynolds Correspondence Donated to the
AHC
Last year, the Arkansas History Commission and State
Archives celebrated its 110th birthday. Founded in 1905, the History Commission
was the brainchild of J.H. Reynolds, a history professor who taught at both the
University of Arkansas and Hendrix College during his career in education. Some
of the collective history of the agency’s earliest years, including Reynolds
involvement, is held in the archives’ vault. Recently, however, a collection of
previously unknown correspondence connected to J.H. Reynolds and the agency’s
earliest years was discovered.
Black History Commission News
One of the goals of the Arkansas History Commission is to
collect and preserve the state’s African American history, and to share that
history with the people of Arkansas. In February 2015, Tatyana Oyinloye, the
AHC’s African American History Program Coordinator, was invited to Chicot
Primary School and Early Childhood Center in Little Rock to speak to
kindergarten classes about African American inventors and their inventions.
From the Director
The Arkansas History Commission got an early Christmas
present last year during the last months of 2015. For years, our staff and
commissioners have talked about the need for a support group for the agency.
Earlier efforts to establish a “friends” group had yielded little or no
results. Everyone knows that volunteer organizations, like friends groups, usually
take a significant commitment of time, energy and dedication from their members
— members whose only incentive and reward is the good feeling they get from
helping an organization or cause that is important to them.
