Look inside the November 2016 Issue of the Arkansas Archivist for these and other features:
The ASA Welcomes Students from Valley View Junior High School
Over the last few years, the ASA has been expanding its educational programs. We have created lesson plans and held teacher workshops on the use of primary sources in the classroom. The ASA considers the promotion of history education, in particular Arkansas history and how our state factors into national and global narratives, among its most important roles.
Black History Commission News
Anyone who has done much research knows that no research project is ever actually finished. There are always new questions that come to light, new avenues to be explored. This month we present just such a case. A few months ago, we wrote about a Sykes grant winner’s project dealing with the historic Norwood-Mt. Olive Cemetery in Fort Smith and the life of Henry Norwood. The South Sebastian County Historical Society, which was behind the original project, has returned to the topic to further examine the world of Henry Norwood, more specifically his early life in slavery. The new project, “Songs of Hope and Inspiration: The Hidden Meaning of Spirituals,” analyzes traditional songs that enslaved people sang and reveals the meanings behind these songs.
From the Director
On November 11, the United States commemorated Veterans Day. Here in Arkansas, we marked the occasion with a press conference of the World War I Centennial Commemoration Committee to preview the official website of the commemoration. The website, which can be found at http://www.wwiarkansas.com/ is sponsored by the Department of Arkansas Heritage, provides the public with a variety of ways to participate in Arkansas’s commemoration of the “Great War” between now and the end of 2018.
Native American Heritage Month
November is Native American Heritage Month. The ASA holds a large collection of materials related to the history of Native Americans in Arkansas. A number of our earliest records in our collection deal with some of the Native Americans who were living in Arkansas and those who migrated here during the Trail of Tears. The L.C. Gulley collection contains a number of letters from Native American leaders to Arkansas’s territorial officials discussing the treatment of Native Americans in the state. There are also a number of maps that show Native American territorial lands.
