Tag Archives: University of Arkansas at Little Rock

Fourteen new names added to 2015 Arkansas Civil Rights Heritage Trail

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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.

New Public Radio Network in Arkansas launched

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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

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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

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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: Jessica Sabin

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Jessica sabinThough she doesn’t appear on stage much anymore as an actor or dancer, Jessica Deloach Sabin is still very much a participant in cultural life.

As the newly appointed executive director of Arts Advocates Arkansas, she is working to be an arts advocate for every county in Arkansas. Among her focuses are the implementation of new state standards for arts education, developing a legislative arts caucus among  elected officials, and creating partnerships statewide and nationwide to ensure the arts and creative economy continue to grow and flourish in Arkansas.

She is also an active supporter of Historic Arkansas Museum and is busy working on their upcoming Candlelight Gala, which also celebrates HAM’s 75th anniversary.

While at UALR, she was a W.K. Kellogg Foundation NextGen Scholar and a Friday Sturgis Scholar, and earned a triple major in Political Science, Theater Arts and Liberal Studies from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, where she served as vice president of the student body.  She was also a member of the UALR Martin Luther King, Jr. Academy and as a Chancellor’s Leadership Corps Scholar and Ambassador. She also earned her certification in Philanthropy and Voluntary Service from Georgetown University in 2006. As a current member of Class X at the Clinton School of Public Service, she spent her summer in Italy working on a service project.

A graduate of El Dorado High School, she now makes her home in Little Rock with her husband, State Representative Warwick Sabin.

Our America exhibit at Arkansas Arts Center celebrates Latino presence in American Art

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The Arkansas Arts Center welcomes the exhibition Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art, a major collection of modern and contemporary Latino art from the Smithsonian American Art Museum,  through January 17, 2016.

The exhibition Our America includes 93 works in all media by 72 artists who participated in various artistic styles and movements, including abstract expressionism; activist, conceptual and performance art and classic American genres such as landscape, portraiture and scenes of everyday life.

Our America presents the rich and varied contributions of Latino artists in the United States since the mid-20th century, when the concept of a collective Latino identity began to emerge. The exhibition is drawn entirely from the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s pioneering collection of Latino art.

To enhance the “Our America” exhibition, the AAC is incorporating several digital components including an exhibition preview video on YouTube, a six-part documentary film series and podcasts to accompany several works. The video can be viewed at tiny.cc/YouTubeOurAmerica.

In collaboration with the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, the AAC is hosting a free film series in six parts. Latino Americans: 500 Years of History is a landmark documentary produced by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the American Library Association (ALA), featuring interviews with nearly 100 Latinos and exploring more than 500 years of history. Each episode will be shown Sundays at 2 p.m. in the Lower Level Lecture Hall beginning October 18 with a special community discussion led by Dr. Kristin Dutcher Mann, UALR associate professor of history and social studies education coordinator.

The film schedule is as follows:

October 18, 2015 | 2:00 p.m.
Latino Americans “Episode 1: Foreigners in their Own Land (1565-1880)”
Following the screening, Dr. Kristin Dutcher Mann, UALR associate professor of history and social studies education coordinator, will lead a community discussion about the continuing relevance of the colonial and early national periods in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands

October 25, 2015 | 2:00 p.m.
Latino Americans “Episode 2: Empire of Dreams (1880-1942)”

November 1, 2015 | 2:00 p.m.
Latino Americans “Episode 3: War and Peace (1942-1954)”

November 8, 2015 | 2:00 p.m.
Latino Americans “Episode 4: The New Latinos (1946-1965)”

November 15, 2015 | 2:00 p.m.
Latino Americans “Episode 5:  Prejudice and Pride (1965-1980)”
Following the screening, Edma Delgado-Solórzano, UALR doctoral candidate and visiting assistant professor will lead a community discussion about the episode which focuses on the development of the “Chicano” identity.

November 22, 2015 | 2:00 p.m.

Latino Americans “Episode 6: Peril and Promise (1980-2000)”

Additionally, the Arkansas Arts Center will offer several programs and events to complement the exhibition and enhance the impact on both English- and Spanish-speaking visitors.

Our America will feature bilingual labels for each work and a Spanish-language website created by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Select works also feature podcasts with the artist’s commentary. Museum goers can simply call a number, scan a QR code or visit a website for more background on the artist and background on each piece—in English and Spanish.

Artists featured in the exhibition reflect the rich diversity of Latino communities in the United States. Our America showcases artists of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban and Dominican descent, as well as other Latin American groups with deep roots in the United States. By presenting works by artists of different generations and regions, the exhibition reveals recurring themes among artists working across the country.

The 72 artists featured in the exhibition are ADÁL, Manuel Acevedo, Elia Alba, Olga Albizu, Carlos Almaraz, Jesse Amado, Asco (Harry Gamboa Jr., Gronk, Willie Herrón and Patssi Valdez), Luis Cruz Azaceta, Myrna Báez, Guillermo Bejarano, Charles “Chaz” Bojórquez, María Brito, Margarita Cabrera, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Melesio “Mel” Casas, Leonard Castellanos, Oscar R. Castillo, José Cervantes, Enrique Chagoya, Roberto Chavez, Carlos A. Cortéz, Marcos Dimas, Ricardo Favela, Christina Fernandez, Teresita Fernández, iliana emilia garcía, Rupert García, Scherezade García, Carmen Lomas Garza, Ignacio Gomez, Ken Gonzales-Day, Hector González, Luis C. “Louie the Foot” González, Muriel Hasbun, Ester Hernandez, Judithe Hernández, Carmen Herrera, Carlos Irizarry, Luis Jiménez, Miguel Luciano, Emanuel Martinez, María Martínez-Cañas, Antonio Martorell, Ana Mendieta, Amalia Mesa-Bains, Franco Mondini-Ruiz, Delilah Montoya, Malaquias Montoya, Abelardo Morell, Jesús Moroles, Raphael Montañez Ortiz, Pepón Osorio, Amado M. Peña Jr., Chuck Ramirez, Paul Henry Ramirez, Sophie Rivera, Arturo Rodríguez, Freddy Rodríguez, Joseph Rodríguez, Frank Romero, Emilio Sánchez, Juan Sánchez, Jorge Soto Sánchez, Rafael Soriano, Ruben Trejo, Jesse Treviño, John M. Valadez, Alberto Valdés and Xavier Viramontes.

The exhibition is organized by E. Carmen Ramos, curator of Latino art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art is organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Generous support for the exhibition has been provided by Altria Group, the Honorable Aida M. Alvarez, Judah Best, The James F. Dicke Family Endowment, Sheila Duignan and Mike Wilkins, Tania and Tom Evans, Friends of the National Museum of the American Latino, The Michael A. and the Honorable Marilyn Logsdon Mennello Endowment, Henry R. Muñoz III, Wells Fargo and Zions Bank. Additional significant support was provided by The Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center. Support for “Treasures to Go,” the museum’s traveling exhibition program, comes from The C.F. Foundation, Atlanta.

Our America is sponsored in Arkansas by Donna and Mack McLarty, The Brown Foundation, Inc., of Houston, Consulate of Mexico in Little Rock and Alan DuBois Contemporary Craft Fund. Media sponsors include ¡Hola! Arkansas and Telemundo Arkansas.

Creative Class of 2015: Clea Hupp

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C-HuppDr. Clea Hupp is the new Chair of the UALR History Department.  She joined the UALR History Department in 2006 and received her Ph.D. at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville in 2004.

Hupp specializes in the history of the Modern Middle East and U.S. – Middle Eastern relations. She has received grants from numerous institutions including the John F. Kennedy Foundation, the Lyndon Johnson Foundation, the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, and the American Center of Oriental Research.

Her latest book was recently published from I. B. Tauris and is entitled “The United States and Jordan: Middle East Diplomacy during the Cold War.” She has traveled extensively in the Middle East and she speaks both Arabic and French.  She has made numerous presentations both in Arkansas and throughout the US on Middle East relations.

Hupp serves on the Board of Directors of Ballet Arkansas. She is also an active supporter of many arts organizations in Little Rock. Arguably, her favorite cultural institution is the Arkansas Rep, which is led by her husband Bob.