Ruled by Race: Black/White Relations in Arkansas From Slavery to the Present

20. Race Relations in the Twenty-First Century

C H A P T E R 2 0 Race Relations in the Twenty-First Century Nothing symbolizes the changes in Arkansas race relations than the morning of August 30, 2005, when the Little Rock Nine unveiled life-size statutes of themselves on the grounds of the Arkansas State Capitol. Funded by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, the Arkansas legislature, and the Little Rock Nine Foundation, the civil rights monument, proposed and created by Little Rock artist John Deering and his wife, Cathy, depicts the Nine with school books in hand. Depending on one’s mood, their facial expressions seem determined or apprehensive or sometimes both. The placement of the exhibit at the state capitol has great historical and symbolic importance, not the least of which is that it is the first civil rights memorial of its kind to be placed at a state capitol anywhere in the South.1 But before describing the present era, we must acknowledge the influences and attitudes about race that drive our choices on how to view the present. Once so isolated and in the grip of a white supremacy so encompassing that perhaps the worst race massacre in the history of the United States took place with barely a blip on the national consciousness, Arkansans, like everyone else, now live in a fishbowl of instant communication . A half-century ago they learned the painful lesson that the world was watching in horror at the naked display of hatred and bigotry. Today, white and black Arkansans, like other Americans, are driven by a political correctness that in public masks their real feelings about race. 431 3STOCKLEY_pages_251-536.qxd 10/7/08 12:38 AM Page 431 The Glass Half Full If one takes the long view of race relations, one sees the possibility of progress that often seems impossible in the present. Gone forever is the paternalism of the slave and Jim Crow era. The civil rights era of the 1960s and early 1970s banished forever the overt display of racial superiority displayed by whites in their dealings with blacks. Though the civil rights protest movement in this era accomplished little immediately in the way of tangible economic advancement for blacks, the demonstrations, confrontations, and boycotts were watershed events because they demonstrated that no longer would most blacks allow themselves to be treated overtly and publicly as second-class citizens. On some level most whites understood they could no longer treat blacks publicly as they had in the past. None of this ended racial discrimination as whites insisted on maintaining supremacy in the 1960s in their dealings with blacks. The glass half full or half empty is an unavoidable metaphor, sometimes depending on one’s race. Before discussing the most intransigent issues that characterize the present era, it is crucial to acknowledge how far race relations have come in Arkansas. Viewing the glass as half full, it would be folly not to appreciate how much progress has been made in our public behavior, especially when one takes the long view. Exactly a century ago governor and then senator Jeff Davis chilled the blood of black Arkansans with his racist rants; racial expulsion in towns in northern Arkansas was common , and lynching was on the rise in the Delta. Jim Crow, with all its discrimination, intimidation, and economic exploitation was in full swing, and blacks had no political voice. Still to come were the Elaine Race Massacres of 1919 and the appalling spectacles of the last lynching in Little Rock in 1927 and, of course, the 1957 crisis at Central High School with its violence on display for the rest of the world. However, unlike most Southern states, while not relinquishing white supremacy as an operating principle, Arkansas, under pressure from federal court decisions in the 432 RACE RELATIONS IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 3STOCKLEY_pages_251-536.qxd 10/7/08 12:38 AM Page 432 1940s, began token desegregation in higher educational programs at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and at the medical school in Little Rock. After judicial pressure blacks were also welcomed to participate in the Democratic Party. In Little Rock in the early 1950s carefully controlled exceptions were made to the dictates of segregation at, for example, the Little Rock library and zoo. After the Brown decision in 1954 a handful of school districts with few black students and outside of the Arkansas Delta desegregated their school systems. Though under...