Tag Archives: UA Little Rock

Fourteen new names added to 2015 Arkansas Civil Rights Heritage Trail

Posted on by

2015 ACRHTLast month, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Institute on Race and Ethnicity unveiled the 2015 Arkansas Civil Rights Heritage Trail markers. This year’s theme is “Politics and Law” to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The fourteen new markers are installed at Scott and Markham Streets near the Statehouse Convention Center.

Established in the summer of 2011, the Arkansas Civil Rights Heritage Trail honors those who made significant contributions to civil rights in Arkansas. The trail raises public awareness of the long and rich legacy of Arkansas’s civil rights history.

A 12-inch bronze marker is placed in the sidewalk for each honoree. The trail begins in front of the Old State House Convention Center on Markham Street and will eventually extend to the William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park and other points throughout the downtown corridor.

This year’s 14 honorees are:

  • Annie Mae Bankhead, who was a community activist in Pulaski County’s black College Station neighborhood
  • Wiley Branton, Sr., who was head of the Southern Regional Council’s Voter Education Project in the 1960s
  • Charles Bussey, who was leader of the Veterans Good Government Association and became Little Rock’s first black mayor in 1980
  • William Harold Flowers, who laid the foundations for the Arkansas State Conference of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People branches
  • Jeffrey Hawkins, who was for decades the unofficial mayor of Little Rock’s black East End neighborhood
  • Irma Hunter Brown, who was the first black woman elected to the Arkansas General Assembly
  • Scipio Africanus Jones, a leading black Republican who defended 12 prisoners for their role in the 1919 Elaine Race Riot
  • Mahlon Martin, who was the first black city manager of Little Rock
  • I.S. McClinton, who was head of the Arkansas Democratic Voters Association, a forerunner of today’s Black Democratic Caucus
  • Richard L. Mays and Henry Wilkins III, who were among the first blacks elected to the Arkansas General Assembly in the 20th century in 1972
  • Olly Neal, who was the first black district prosecuting attorney in Arkansas and later served on the Arkansas Court of Appeals
  • Lottie Shackelford, who was the first black woman mayor of Little Rock
  • John Walker, who for more than five decades has been involved in civil rights activism in the courts, most notably in school desegregation cases

Dr. John Kirk is the director of the Institute.  At the November ceremony, he spoke along with UALR Chancellor Joel Anderson. At a reception following the ceremony, Senator Joyce Elliott gave a toast in honor of the 14 and several of the honorees or their descendants spoke.

21 Songs with Cody Belew & John Willis tonight at South on Main

Posted on by

codyandjohn.png.190x140_q60_cropA perfect way to spend Thanksgiving weekend Saturday: South on Main proudly presents 21 Songs with Cody Belew & John Willis, presented by Barbara/Jean and ESGI. Doors open at 4:00 PM, show begins at 9:00 PM. Wristbands can be purchased for $10 after doors open. Call (501) 244-9660 to reserve your table for this show in advance.

Cody grew up singing at rodeos and in black gospel church houses. He was a scrawny little white kid with a stutter and big voice. He could not carry on in normal conversation, so he sang- all the time. Life happened to him, and he grew up; finding his feet somewhere between college and 22 years of age. He moved to Arkansas’ capital city, Little Rock, and booked his first show in the fall of 2008 at a little club called The Afterthought. He has been tearing his way through sold out show after sold out show ever since. Shortly after moving to Nashville, Tennessee, Cody received the call that would change his life. After making it to the top 8 on season 3 of NBC’s number one show, “The Voice,” Cody has earned his spot in the world of music. He is currently working on his debut album that will introduce the world to his heart and soul. Good things to come.

How do you get to be @likejohnwillis? Grow up listening to equal parts MoTown, 60’s-70’s singer/songwriters, and Gospel. Take piano lessons long enough to learn to love classical music. Start listening to late-night jazz on public radio in high school because you think it will make you cool. Start listening to world music in college because you think it will teach you something and because you think it will make you unique. Read some good books and some good poetry in hopes you’ll apprehend how to express adequately all your heartache and your hope. Keep practicing. Play some shows. Record your songs. Play some more shows. Keep it interesting. Have fun.

John Willis released the King of the Cocktail Party EP in 2013 and his latest single, “Enough,” in October of this year. He’s been featured on AETN’s “On the Front Row” and UALR’s Songwriter Showcase. He also sings and plays keys in Late Romantics, the 4-voiced soul-pop band he helped form in 2014. John Willis is thrilled to be back at the piano playing with Cody Belew for this special Thanksgiving Weekend show.

Explore Little Rock’s civil rights history with new app

Posted on by

Little Rock-area residents and visitors have a new way to explore the city’s rich civil rights history.

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock Institute on Race and Ethnicity and Little Rock city officials  have unveiled the Arkansas Civil Rights History Tour app.

The free Apple and Android app guides users on an excursion through some of the city’s most influential historical sites, going back to the 1840s. Each of the 35 stops on the GPS-guided tour includes compelling narratives, historic photos, audio, and links to related content.

Tour stops range from the L.C. and Daisy Bates House to the Trail of Tears. The tour includes a total of three National Historic Landmarks, three National Register Historic Districts, and numerous buildings on the National Register of Historic Places.

Narrated in both English and Spanish, the app also offers information about Jewish history in Little Rock, Hispanic migrations to Arkansas, and Native American tribes.

Organizers recommend app users begin their route at Broadway and West Ninth Street in downtown Little Rock, but the app can help people customize their own path.

A collaboration of the Institute on Race and Ethnicity, the City of Little Rock, the Mayor’s Tourism Commission, and KUAR, UALR’s public radio station, led to the creation of the Arkansas Humanities Council-funded app.

“The institute’s mission is to remember and understand the past, to inform and engage the present, and to shape and define the future in the area of race and ethnicity,” said Dr. John Kirk, director of the Institute on Race and Ethnicity.

“The tour app helps us to do all those things: It powerfully sheds light on the past, it allows people to engage with the past in the present moment, and it helps us to consider how those legacies and lessons can shape and define the future of the city and state.”

The app can be found in the Apple App Store and on Google Play by searching for “Arkansas history.”

New Public Radio Network in Arkansas launched

Posted on by

natural state newsThe Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) awarded a $278,300 grant to four Arkansas public radio stations to support the creation of a statewide multimedia journalism collaboration based at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.  Natural State News will be a statewide news service focusing on reaching rural areas of the state.

KUAR, UALR’S public radio station, will be the lead station for the project, joined by Fayetteville’s KUAF, Jonesboro’s KASU, and Texarkana’s KTXK. Ben Fry, general manager of KUAR and classical station KLRE, will coordinate the collaboration to create and broadcast thematically unified content relevant to the interests and needs of Arkansans.

Though the stations have often collaborated, the radio news service marks their first official joint venture. Together, the stations’ staff members at the stations will report stories centered on three themes:

  • Education
  • Health
  • Energy

NSN will report breaking news as well as produce related special interest stories. The resulting multimedia content will be published online and heard on local and national public radio programs such as NPR’s Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Here and Now.

“CPB is pleased to support this historic collaboration of Arkansas public media stations,” said Bruce Theriault, senior vice president of journalism and radio, CPB. “The Natural State News collaboration is an example of increased media integration and a pathway for stations to work together to maximize resources while expanding their high-quality journalism.”

The grant will help fund four new positions: a managing editor, two additional reporters, and a partner manager, who will raise additional funds for the project. Three of the new positions will be based in Little Rock, with one reporter to work out of Jonesboro.

Natural State News plans to break new ground with in-depth multimedia reporting to reach extensively into rural Arkansas to tell unfolding stories about wealth, poverty, race, and decision-making in education, healthcare, and the environment. Little-told stories from the region will give a distinctive vantage point for understanding larger national experiences.

NSN will partner with the UALR Institute on Race and Ethnicity, the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, Arkansas Educational Television Network (AETN), and the print publication El Latino to provide and promote its diverse, nuanced content. All stories will be available in both Spanish and English, and NSN is committed to supporting diversity in its staff, student interns, and stories.

For more information on the partner stations, go to their websites: KLRE/KUAR, KUAF, KASU and KTXK.

 

Dr. Clea Hupp of UALR Dept. of History discusses ‘Tribalism, Sectarianism, and Political Islam’ tonight as part of Evenings with History

Posted on by

Clea 2015Dr. Clea Hupp, Chair in the UALR Department of History will give a lecture on “‘Tribalism, Sectarianism, and Political Islam” at the 2015-16 Evenings with History Series at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 3, in the Ottenheimer Auditorium in the at the Historic Arkansas Museum in downtown Little Rock.

Current events in the Middle East are rooted in the politics of the 20th century. Communism, nationalism and imperialism left a footprint on the region and shaped the recent conflicts of the area. To what extent do cultural factors like tribalism and sectarianism influence the people of the Middle East, and how do they intersect with politics?

Dr. Hupp will look at the struggle between secularism and political Islam, and how the philosophical trends of the
region have influenced political movements.

The Evenings with History series is sponsored by the University History Institute and features presentations by UALR faculty members who share their current research.

Unknown-6An individual subscription to the series, at $50 annually, includes these benefits: Admission to all six lectures.

A joint subscription to the series, at $90 annually, offers couples and friends a savings of $10.

A Fellow of the Institute, at $250 annually, receives admission to the six lectures plus an invitation to special presentations for Fellows only. This often includes a private evening with a noted author.

The Institute also offers a Life Membership at $1,000.

Subscribers to the series help support historical research.  The presenters donate their time, and the University History Institute uses all proceeds from the series to encourage research at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.  In recent years annual Institute grants, made possible by the Evenings with History series, have made major purchases of historical research materials for UALR.  Subscriptions and donations to the Institute are tax deductible as allowed by law.

For more information about the University History Institute and the full list of lectures and presenters for the 2015-16 series, go to Evenings with History.

Creative Class of 2015: Frank Thurmond

Posted on by

thurmond_frankFrank Thurmond is a writer-musician-actor-filmmaker-teacher. He is, in short, a multi-hyphenate!

Thurmond was born in Paragould and grew up in Crossett and Little Rock, where he attended Hall High School.  He studied English and music as a Donaghey Scholar at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and pursued graduate degrees at Southern Methodist University and Oxford University. Thurmond is a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and has been a visiting writer in residence at Lyon College in Batesville.

 
Most recently, he released Ring of Five: A Novella and Four Stories.  Thurmond’s first book was a memoir entitled Before I Sleep: A Memoir of Travel and Reconciliation, which recounts his adult experience of meeting his previously unknown birth father.  He is a member of the bands ODYSSEY and JET420 and can often be found playing at local stages.
The film The Dealer’s Tale, which he wrote and produced (and is directed by Justin Nickels) will screen as an Official Selection at the Indie Memphis film festival on Friday, November 6th.  When it screened at the El Dorado Film Festival, Thurmond was awarded the Best Screenplay Award at the El Dorado Film Festival.
           
He has been featured at both the Arkansas Literary Festival and the Little Rock Film Festival.  Previously, Thurmond’s writing has appeared in various publications, including the International Herald Tribune; The Best of Tales from the South, Volume 6; Toad Suck Review; and in William Safire’s language book, No Uncertain Terms.

Creative Class of 2015: Stephanie Thibeault

Posted on by

stephaniethibeaultStephanie Thibeault is a dancer, teacher and choreographer.  She is currently an Associate Professor of Dance at UALR, where she established the B.F.A. degree in Dance Performance.

Starting her career with Kinetics Dance Theatre and SURGE Dance Company of Baltimore, Thibeault worked as a professional dancer, teacher, and choreographer in the Baltimore/Washington area before serving as a dance faculty member at several institutions, including University of Maryland, Dickinson College, and Wichita State University. Along the way, she has had the opportunity to perform with wonderful artists, including Mikhail Baryshnikov and Parsons Dance Company.

Having performed and presented work in New York City, Baltimore, Washington (DC), Lisbon (Portugal), and numerous other cities, large and small, Thibeault’s teaching and choreography have taken her around the globe, from the U.S. East Coast to Canada and Europe, and from the American Midwest to Hawaii and Taiwan. Stephanie Thibeault holds her M.F.A. in Dance from the University of Maryland.

Thibeault’s choreographic work has been recognized with awards, and she has been selected for guest artist residencies and commissions by various professional companies and universities. Having received an Individual Artist Fellowship for Choreography from the Arkansas Arts Council in 2010, she continues to experiment with different processes and forms as she creates new work. A commission from Ballet Arkansas in 2012 produced American Dream, which took Thibeault back to her classical ballet roots while moving her forward into expressive simplicity.

She is currently working on the 2015 Fall Dance Festival on the UALR campus in November, which coincides with the B.F.A. student’s Fall Dance Harvest dance concert.