September 5, 1961 – the Duke Ellington concert in Little Rock that wasn’t

Posted on September 5, 2019 by Scott

Newspaper ad for the concert that was not to be

In August 1961, it was announced that Duke Ellington would perform in concert at Robinson Center. He had previously played there in the 1940s and early 1950s. His concert was set to be at 8:30 pm on Tuesday, September 5.

Due to the changes of times, the NAACP had a relatively new rule that they would boycott performers who played at segregated venues. When it became apparent that Robinson would remain segregated (African Americans restricted to the balcony), the NAACP announced they would boycott any future Ellington performances if he went ahead and played Robinson.

The music promoters in Little Rock (who were white) petitioned the Robinson Auditorium Commission asking them to desegregate Robinson – even if for only that concert. The Commission refused to do so. Though the auditorium was finding it harder to book acts into a segregated house, they felt that if it were integrated, fewer tickets would be sold.

On September 1, 1961, Ellington cancelled the concert.

Robinson remained segregated until a 1963 judge’s decision which integrated all public City of Little Rock facilities (except for swimming pools).

A Photo that Shook the World – taken on Sept. 4, 1957

Posted on September 4, 2019 by Scott

Will Counts (American, Little Rock, 1931 – 2001, Evansville, Illinois), It was not the plan for Elizabeth Eckford to walk along toward Central High, 1957 (printed 1997), gelatin silver print, 25 x 32 inches, Arkansas Arts Center Foundation Collection: Gift of the artist, Bloomington, Indiana. 1997.039.007

On September 4, 1957, the students known as the Little Rock Nine made their first attempt to enter all-white Little Rock Central High School.

This was the second day of the 1957-58 school year in Little Rock. Over the preceding Labor Day weekend, it had been decided that the African American students would wait until the second day of school to officially start at Central.

As is now well known, NAACP leader Daisy Bates was not able to notify one of the students about meeting as a group of the Bates house. That one student, Elizabeth Eckford, approached the school by herself and quickly realized the National Guard members surrounding the school were not their to protect her, but to ban her and the others.

Arkansas Democrat photographer Will Counts captured Eckford’s quiet determination in the face of the guards and the taunting crowds. His photo of a white student screaming at Eckford was picked up by media outlets worldwide. It became not only a symbol for the Central High integration crisis, but for the Civil Rights movement. Counts’ photo was the jury’s choice for the Pulitzer Prize in Photography in 1958. But the jury was overruled by the Pulitzer board, with no explanation given.

LR Likes Ike. In September 1952.

Posted on September 3, 2019 by Scott

Detail from UPI photo of General Eisenhower following his address.

If Ike, Little Rock and September are considered, it is usually in reference to his role in the desegregation of Little Rock Central High in September 1957. But five years earlier, he appeared in Little Rock on September 3, 1952.

General Eisenhower’s speech to 14,000 in MacArthur Park was the final leg in his swing through the South on his campaign for the White House. He became the third presidential candidate to visit MacArthur Park in 1952 following General MacArthur (in his ill-fated attempt to gain traction as a GOP candidate during the delegate selection process) and Democratic nominee Adlai Stevenson.

He visited every southern state except Mississippi on this campaign jaunt. In comments that neither he nor his audience could have foreseen as prescient, Eisenhower declared that he deplored the government meddling in areas in which it did not belong. This remark was made in reference to race relations. His stance was that some rights of minorities should be protected, but it was not necessarily the role of the federal government.

Ike proffered that if white southerners did not protect the rights of African Americans they were in danger of losing their own rights, too. In the era of the Cold War when people were worried about the imminent loss of rights, this message seems to have crafted to appeal to those concerns. While Eisenhower did not shy away from addressing civil rights, his Democratic opponent Adlai Stevenson was silent on the issue. But with Alabama segregationist Senator John Sparkman as his running mate, it put Stevenson in a difficult position to try to bring it up.

In the end, Ike lost most of the South. He did carry Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee and Florida. The only states Stevenson won were in the South. Eisenhower’s 43.74% of the Arkansas popular vote was the highest any Republican had garnered since General Grant carried the state in 1868 and 1872.

The number of votes Ike received in 1952 prompted Adlai Stevenson to come to Little Rock in 1956 – the first time a Democratic nominee had come to solidly Democratic Little Rock since the 1920s.

Arkansas Arts Center Goes to China – Sept. 1, 1975

Posted on September 1, 2019 by Scott

TIna Poe, Raida Pfeifer and Jeane Hamilton at the Great Wall of China (photo from collection of Jeane Hamilton)

On September 1, 1975, a group from the Arkansas Arts Center left Little Rock for a study tour of China. This was the first non-governmental group from the United States who had been authorized to tour the People’s Republic of China.

Fred Poe, of Poe Travel, and Jeane Hamilton were the organizers of the trip. It was part of the annual travel seminars the Arts Center would take to locations throughout the world to learn more about art and culture. It took many months of planning as wells as mounds and pounds of paperwork to get this trip underway.

Persons interested in the trip had to apply and be approved by the Chinese government in order to participate in the trip. The Chinese government selected eighteen AAC members from submitted applications and the group visited Beijing, Shanghai, Changsha, Kweilin, and Guangzhou.

The AAC Traveling Seminar participants in front of Mao’s birthplace. (Photo from the Jeane Hamilton collection.)

How a former Little Rock alderman renamed the Razorback’s stadium

Posted on August 31, 2019 by Scott

Razorback Stadium as it would have looked when it was Bailey Stadium

What is now known as Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium first opened in September 24, 1938 as University Stadium. A few days later it was renamed to Bailey Stadium in honor of Arkansas’ then current governor, Carl Bailey. He had just been renominated to a second two year term and was expected to easily glide to a victory in November over a nominal GOP opponent, which he did.

Two years later, Homer Adkins, a former Little Rock alderman who had been aligned with Bailey foe Joe T. Robinson, challenged Bailey as the latter sought a third term. Bailey and Adkins had long been opponents, but had never faced off personally. In the August 1940 primary, Adkins bested Bailey.

The animosity between Bailey and Adkins apparently stemmed from the time that Bailey, as prosecuting attorney, filed charges against a friend of Sen. Robinson. Though the friend was eventually pardoned, Robinson and his political circle did not forgive Bailey. The fact that Bailey backed Brooks Hays, who opposed Robinson, did not help matters. By the mid 1930s, Arkansas Democrats were clustered around either Bailey or Adkins.

Adkins had served on the Little Rock City Council from April 1930 until April 1934. He previously had been Sheriff of Pulaski County. At the suggestion of Sen. Robinson, President Roosevelt had appointed Adkins as collector of internal revenue. Given all of the federal programs that took place in Arkansas throughout the 1930s, Adkins was well positioned to strengthen his political network. He stepped down from the job when he challenged Bailey in 1940.

Obviously, by 1941 the new governor was none too pleased that the football stadium of the state’s flagship university bore the name of his vanquished foe. By the time the 1941 football season came around, the stadium was known as Razorback Stadium. It held that name from 1941 until the September 8, 2001, rechristening with its current name.

And what of Adkins and Bailey? The two longtime foes united to back Sid McMath in his gubernatorial efforts. But the reconciliation was only for political purposes. However, both lie buried in Roselawn Cemetery in Little Rock.

Thurgood Marshall and Little Rock

Posted on August 30, 2019 by Scott

On August 30, 1967, Thurgood Marshall was confirmed as the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States.

Ten years earlier, Marshall had been spending much time in Little Rock as he fought for the Little Rock Nine to be allowed to integrate Little Rock Central High School.

While he was in town, he would stay at the home of L. C. and Daisy Bates. One can tour the home today and see the bedroom in which he, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Ossie Davis & Ruby Dee, and other Civil Rights leaders stayed while visiting Little Rock.

Thurgood Marshall, of the NAACP, sits on the steps of the Supreme Court Building after he filed an appeal in the integration case of Little Rock’s Central High School. The students are, from left: Melba Pattillo, Jefferson Thomas, Gloria Ray, escort Daisy Bates, Marshall, Carlotta Walls, Minnijean Brown, and Elizabeth Eckford. (AP Photo, file)

His involvement with the Little Rock Nine came about from his role with the NAACP. In had been in that capacity that he was lead attorney for the Brown v. Board of Education decision which paved the way for the Little Rock schools to be integrated. He worked with local attorneys such as Wiley Branton Sr. and Chris Mercer on the Little Rock efforts.

In May 1961, President John F. Kennedy named Marshall to a seat on the US Court of Appeals. Unsurprisingly, a group of segregationist senators tried to hold up the appointment. In 1965, he was named to the position of Solicitor General by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Regrettably there is another Arkansas connection to Thurgood Marshall’s appointment to the Supreme Court. As he had with the 1961 appointment to the Court of Appeals, Arkansas Senator John L. McClellan vigorously opposed the nomination of Marshall. As a member of the Judiciary Committee he tried to hold it up. In the end, McClellan did not vote on Marshall’s appointment when it came before the full Senate.

The final vote was 69 for and 11 against with 20 not voting. Of the 11 former states of the Confederacy, Arkansas’ J. William Fulbright, Tennessee’s Howard Baker & Al Gore Sr., Texas’ John Tower & Ralph Yarborough, and Virginia’s William Spong were the only six votes for yes. There were six who did not vote, and 10 Nay votes.

The remaining Nay vote came from West Virginia’s Robert Byrd. Among those outside the South who did not vote were future Democratic presidential candidates Eugene McCarthy, Edmund Muskie and George McGovern as well as Republican former actor George Murphy. Montana was the only state with neither senator casting a vote one way or the other.

Marshall served on the US Supreme Court until October 1991, when he retired due to failing health. He died in January 1993, just four days after Bill Clinton became president.

MJ in LR

Posted on August 29, 2019 by Scott

August 29, 2019, would have been Michael Jackson’s 61st Birthday.

On December 2, 1972, he and his brothers performed in concert at Barton Coliseum. But earlier in the day, they were the grand marshals for the second annual Little Rock Christmas Parade.

They were featured in a full page ad for M. M. Cohn advertising the parade (and of course encouraging persons to stop by the store while they were downtown).

The Jackson 5 sang and waved from the upper level of a London style double decker bus. About fifty kids followed behind the bus yelling their appreciation and singing along.

Writing for the Arkansas Gazette, Bill Lewis notes that the biggest cheers at the parade, however, went to Gary Weir as KATV’s Bozo (even louder than the one’s for Santa).

Little Rock Culture Vulture

Cultural events, places and people in the Little Rock area

Category Archives: LR Look Back

September 5, 1961 – the Duke Ellington concert in Little Rock that wasn’t

A Photo that Shook the World – taken on Sept. 4, 1957

LR Likes Ike. In September 1952.

Arkansas Arts Center Goes to China – Sept. 1, 1975

How a former Little Rock alderman renamed the Razorback’s stadium

Thurgood Marshall and Little Rock

MJ in LR

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