African Americans of Pine Bluff and Jefferson County

African Americans of Pine Bluff and Jefferson County PDF Author: Donna Cunningham
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 0738598844
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 129

Get Book

Book Description
See why and how Pine Bluff/Jefferson County has been one of the Arkansas Delta's most culturally-rich areas since its inception in 1829. Serving as a haven for runaway slaves during the late years of the Civil War, the Pine Bluff/Jefferson County area attracted droves of African-Americans throughout the Delta and south Arkansas. Brimming with talent and expectations, they and their descendants traveled a road full of extremes. Although they endured what appears to have been the largest mass lynching in United State history in 1866, they also attained one of the largest per-capita concentrations of black wealth in the entire South by 1900. As the hands that labored in the area's boundless cotton fields and sawmills joined with the hands that held books at the state's only historically black public college, astonishing accomplishments were churned out in every imaginable field. Naturally, Pine Bluff/Jefferson County's Delta roots made its blues, jazz, and gospel contributions a source of pride, with native or area-affiliated artists receiving multiple Grammy awards and nominations, as well as other distinctions.

African Americans of Pine Bluff and Jefferson County

African Americans of Pine Bluff and Jefferson County PDF Author: Donna Cunningham
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 0738598844
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 129

Get Book

Book Description
See why and how Pine Bluff/Jefferson County has been one of the Arkansas Delta's most culturally-rich areas since its inception in 1829. Serving as a haven for runaway slaves during the late years of the Civil War, the Pine Bluff/Jefferson County area attracted droves of African-Americans throughout the Delta and south Arkansas. Brimming with talent and expectations, they and their descendants traveled a road full of extremes. Although they endured what appears to have been the largest mass lynching in United State history in 1866, they also attained one of the largest per-capita concentrations of black wealth in the entire South by 1900. As the hands that labored in the area's boundless cotton fields and sawmills joined with the hands that held books at the state's only historically black public college, astonishing accomplishments were churned out in every imaginable field. Naturally, Pine Bluff/Jefferson County's Delta roots made its blues, jazz, and gospel contributions a source of pride, with native or area-affiliated artists receiving multiple Grammy awards and nominations, as well as other distinctions.

The Pioneers: Early African-American Leaders in Pine Bluff, Arkansas

The Pioneers: Early African-American Leaders in Pine Bluff, Arkansas PDF Author: Bettye J. Williams
Publisher: Archway Publishing
ISBN: 1480871923
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Get Book

Book Description
The Pioneers: Early African-American Leaders in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, pays tribute to generations of African-American leaders who helped shape the town, Jefferson County, and the state in productive, dynamic ways. Incorporated in 1839, a vast multitude of African-Americans from Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina, and North Carolina arrived in the 1840s. While they are almost never talked about, their contributions are woven into the fabric of Pine Bluff’s history and present. Despite “separate and unequal” rulings, they became farmers, educators, politicians, artists, journalists and more – and in this meticulously researched account, the author tells the stories of forty-five African-American achievers who deserve to be remembered. Drawing on archival images, photos, interviews from former slaves interviewed by the Work Projects Administration during the 1930s, and accounts from descendants, the book highlights African-American achievers who survived and thrived during the most challenging of circumstances, including the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Jim Crow South. Discover the critical role that African-Americans played in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, as well as how they fit into the larger American narrative.

African Americans of Jefferson County

African Americans of Jefferson County PDF Author: Jefferson County Black History Preservation Society Inc.
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1439622795
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 128

Get Book

Book Description
Jefferson County can proudly claim a large number of firsts when it comes to African Americans in national history. The raid to free slaves that served as a catalyst for the Civil War was led by abolitionist John Brown in Harpers Ferry. The first man wounded in the rebellion was Heyward Shepherd, a free African American and a Jefferson County resident. Pres. Abraham Lincoln appointed Jefferson County native Martin Robison Delany as the first African American field officer of the Civil War. In 1906, the Niagara Movement, forerunner to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), held its first meeting on American soil on the Storer College campus. The first woman to become the coach of a men's college basketball team was also an African American from Jefferson County. Additionally, the Colored Horse Show held in Charles Town was the first of its kind for African Americans.

African Americans of Jefferson County

African Americans of Jefferson County PDF Author: Jefferson County Black History Preservat
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Library Editions
ISBN: 9781531644611
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 130

Get Book

Book Description
Jefferson County can proudly claim a large number of firsts when it comes to African Americans in national history. The raid to free slaves that served as a catalyst for the Civil War was led by abolitionist John Brown in Harpers Ferry. The first man wounded in the rebellion was Heyward Shepherd, a free African American and a Jefferson County resident. Pres. Abraham Lincoln appointed Jefferson County native Martin Robison Delany as the first African American field officer of the Civil War. In 1906, the Niagara Movement, forerunner to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), held its first meeting on American soil on the Storer College campus. The first woman to become the coach of a men's college basketball team was also an African American from Jefferson County. Additionally, the Colored Horse Show held in Charles Town was the first of its kind for African Americans.

A Photographer of Note

A Photographer of Note PDF Author: Robert Cochran
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 168

Get Book

Book Description
In the process he created a remarkable historical portrait of an African American community. Through his lens we glimpse the daily patterns of segregated Pine Bluff, and we also participate in the excitement of greeting extraordinary visitors. Martin Luther King Jr., Mary McLeod Bethune, Harry S. Truman, and others all came through town.".

Journey of Hope

Journey of Hope PDF Author: Kenneth C. Barnes
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807876224
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book

Book Description
Liberia was founded by the American Colonization Society (ACS) in the 1820s as an African refuge for free blacks and liberated American slaves. While interest in African migration waned after the Civil War, it roared back in the late nineteenth century with the rise of Jim Crow segregation and disfranchisement throughout the South. The back-to-Africa movement held great new appeal to the South's most marginalized citizens, rural African Americans. Nowhere was this interest in Liberia emigration greater than in Arkansas. More emigrants to Liberia left from Arkansas than any other state in the 1880s and 1890s. In Journey of Hope, Kenneth C. Barnes explains why so many black Arkansas sharecroppers dreamed of Africa and how their dreams of Liberia differed from the reality. This rich narrative also examines the role of poor black farmers in the creation of a black nationalist identity and the importance of the symbolism of an ancestral continent. Based on letters to the ACS and interviews of descendants of the emigrants in war-torn Liberia, this study captures the life of black sharecroppers in the late 1800s and their dreams of escaping to Africa.

Joseph Carter Corbin

Joseph Carter Corbin PDF Author: Gladys Turner Finney
Publisher: Butler Center for Arkansas Studies
ISBN: 9781945624025
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book

Book Description
Having operated now for more than 140 years, the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (UAPB) was founded in 1875 as Branch Normal College by Joseph Carter Corbin, a native of Ohio and the son of former slaves. Corbin, who had a classical education, was the first African American superintendent of public education in Arkansas and literally built the school from the ground up. There was a desperate need for teachers in Arkansas, as there was a great desire for education by former slaves who had been prohibited from learning to read and write. Corbin himself cleared the land that would soon house the college and then set about to create a school that would produce the first African American teachers following the Reconstruction years. For almost three decades, he worked tirelessly on behalf of Arkansas's black community to meet the need for educators. In the early days, Corbin worked both as the president and the janitor so that he could control costs and keep the school going. He often waived matriculation fees and other expenses to allow impoverished students the opportunity to graduate and become qualified to teach throughout Arkansas. Although he might not have realized it at the time, Corbin was a member of the so-called aristocrats of color, the African American elite of national prominence and a group that included such luminaries as Booker T. Washington. Corbin was a true giant in the history of education in Arkansas. His story, told by a former UAPB student, is monumental for the scope of what one man was able to accomplish.

Black Boys Burning

Black Boys Burning PDF Author: Grif Stockley
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1496812700
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 210

Get Book

Book Description
On the morning of March 5, 1959, Luvenia Long was listening to gospel music when a news bulletin interrupted her radio program. Fire had engulfed the Arkansas Negro Boys Industrial School in Wrightsville, thirteen miles outside of Little Rock. Her son Lindsey had been confined there since January 14, after a judge for juveniles found him guilty of stealing from a neighborhood store owner. To her horror, Lindsey was not among the forty-eight boys who had clawed their way through the windows of the dormitory to safety. Instead, he was among the twenty-one boys between the ages of thirteen and seventeen who burned to death. Black Boys Burning presents a focused explanation of how systemic poverty perpetuated by white supremacy sealed the fate of those students. A careful telling of the history of the school and fire, the book provides readers a fresh understanding of the broad implications of white supremacy. Grif Stockley's research adds to an evolving understanding of the Jim Crow South, Arkansas's history, the lawyers who capitalized on this tragedy, and the African American victims. In hindsight, the disaster at Wrightsville could have been predicted. Immediately after the fire, an unsigned editorial in the Arkansas Democrat noted long-term deterioration, including the wiring, of the buildings. After the Central High School desegregation crisis in 1957, the boys" deaths eighteen months later were once again an embarrassment to Arkansas. The fire and its circumstances should have provoked southerners to investigate the realities of their "separate but equal institutions." However, white supremacy ruled the investigations, and the grand jury declared the event to be an anomaly.

Men of Mark

Men of Mark PDF Author: William J. Simmons
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1376

Get Book

Book Description
TO PRESUME to multiply books in this day of excellent writers and learned book-makers is a rash thing perhaps for a novice. It may even be a presumption that shall be met by the production itself being driven from the market by the keen, searching criticism of not only the reviewers, but less noted objectors. And yet there are books that meet a ready sale because they seem like "Ishmaelites"--against everybody and everybody against them. Whether this work shall ever accomplish the design of the author may not at all be determined by its sale. While I hope to secure some pecuniary gain that I may accompany it with a companion illustrating what our women have done, yet by no means do I send it forth with the sordid idea of gain. I would rather it would do some good than make a single dollar, and I echo the wish of "Abou Ben Adhem," in that sweet poem of that name, written by Leigh Hunt. The angel was writing at the table, in his vision. The names of those who love the Lord.Abou wanted to know if his was there--and the angel said "No." Said Abou, I pray thee, then, write me as one that loves his fellow-men. That is what I ask to be recorded of me. The angel wrote and vanished. The next night It came again, with a great awakening light. And showed the names whom love of God had blessed. And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest. I desire that the book shall be a help to students, male and female, in the way of information concerning our great names. I have noticed in my long experience as a teacher, that many of my students were wofully ignorant of the work of our great colored men--even ignorant of their names. If they knew their names, it was some indefinable something they had done--just what, they could not tell. If in a slight degree I shall here furnish the data for that class of rising men and women, I shall feel much pleased. Herein will be found many who had severe trials in making their way through schools of different grades. It is a suitable book, it is hoped, to be put into the hands of intelligent, aspiring young people everywhere, that they might see the means and manners of men's elevation, and by this be led to undertake the task of going through high schools and colleges. If the persons herein mentioned could rise to the exalted stations which they have and do now hold, what is there to prevent any young man or woman from achieving greatness? Many, yea, nearly all these came from the loins of slave fathers, and were the babes of women in bondage, and themselves felt the leaden hand of slavery on their own bodies; but whether slaves or not, they suffered with their brethren because of color. That "sum of human villainies" did not crush out the life and manhood of the race. I wish the book to show to the world--to our oppressors and even our friends--that the Negro race is still alive, and must possess more intellectual vigor than any other section of the human family, or else how could they be crushed as slaves in all these years since 1620, and yet to-day stand side by side with the best blood in America, in white institutions, grappling with abstruse problems in Euclid and difficult classics, and master them? Was ever such a thing seen in another people? Whence these lawyers, doctors, authors, editors, divines, lecturers, linguists, scientists, college presidents and such, in one quarter of a century?

A Confused and Confusing Affair

A Confused and Confusing Affair PDF Author: Mark K. Christ
Publisher: Butler Center for Arkansas Studies
ISBN: 9781945624155
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book

Book Description
Reconstruction has been called one of the most tumultuous and controversial periods of Arkansas's history, an era in which African Americans sought to secure the benefits of their hard-won freedom, the former leaders of the state pursued restoration of their pre-war economic and political status, and the U.S. Army and the Freedmen's Bureau sought to maintain a balance between these competing interests. By the time Reconstruction ended in 1874, Arkansas had been wracked by brutal political violence, black legislators had experienced their first opportunities for service, and the Republican Party was embroiled in the tragicomedy of the Brooks-Baxter War, setting the stage for the rise of the Democratic "Redeemers." While thousands of books have been written about the American Civil War, the tense period that followed the war has received relatively little attention. In light of this, the Old State House Museum in Little Rock brought a distinguished group of experts together for a day-long seminar in 2017 to discuss Reconstruction in Arkansas and its aftermath. Speakers discussed the greater issue of Reconstruction across the South, the political situation in Arkansas during the period, the activities of African American legislators in the state, political and military violence during Reconstruction, the long-lasting effects of the 1874 state constitution, and the bizarre affair in which two men with claims to the governor's office fought over control of the state capitol. In this collection of essays written by the event's speakers, Carl H. Moneyhon provides an overview of Reconstruction in the United States, Jay Barth explores post-Civil War politics, Blake Wintory discusses the African Americans who served in the Arkansas General Assembly, Damon Cluck delves into the Arkansas militias that provided the firepower for Reconstruction violence, Kenneth Barnes gives insights into the political violence that convulsed the state, Thomas DeBlack unravels the Brooks-Baxter War, and Rodney Harris visits the 1874 Constitution and its effects on Arkansas's future. The writings collected in this volume offer valuable insights into Reconstruction in Arkansas and how its effects still resonate today.