On September 4th, 2018, Elizabeth Eckford walked slowly down Park Street to sit on a special commemorative bench dedicated in her name. Surrounded by an applauding crowd of over 300 people, Ms. Eckford was escorted with honor by students, including the team from the Little Rock Central High Memory Project that led the effort to create and install the bench. Ms. Eckford reflected on her historic experience after the racially diverse group of students presented their work to an audience that included numerous community sponsors and civic leaders. The moving event was covered by local and state press and featured in the New York Times and the Washington Post.
Honoring a civil rights hero, healing the wounds of history
The dedication ceremony took place on the sixty-first anniversary of the day when a young Ms. Eckford rushed down the same street to sit on the original city bus bench. That day in 1957, she was pursued by an angry white mob that opposed allowing her to integrate Central High School as a member of the Little Rock Nine. The bench now dedicated to her is a faithful replica of the one at which she took refuge from the mob.
The iconic, painful photographs of Ms. Eckford, only a girl at the time, have etched themselves into American history, a permanent record of the sacrifices endured by civil rights pioneers. That day was only the beginning of a long year of abuses from white students who objected to attending school with black students. In her speech at the bench dedication, Ms. Eckford referred to her long struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder after her high school years, but she added an unforgettable postscript. “I don’t cry anymore when I talk about the past, and that is because of the efforts of students,” Ms. Eckford said. “It is very, very endearing when students want to know about the past.”
Students design bench, mobile app for living history walking tour
The students on the Memory Project team researched and edited a living history walking tour adapted as a mobile app for digital devices. Now, visitors to the Little Rock Central High Historic Site can listen on their cell phones to the sounds of the time and hear about the desegregation crisis moment by moment as they retrace Ms. Eckford’s steps. The Memory Project student team also participated in the bench construction, and they are still at work on an ongoing oral history podcast project.
The initial momentum for the project came from student Adaja Cooper, who realized she could design the bench on her EAST classroom computer. Adaja spoke at the National Rotary Club meeting in Central High’s library on Martin Luther King Day, and the Rotary Club was inspired by her speech to pledge a generous $15,000. Stella Cameron (LRCH media specialist), Tamara McCormack (EAST Lab Facilitator) and David Kilton (NPS Ranger) worked with students to plan the event. CALS Butler Center historian George West mentored the team throughout the project. Many other individuals and organizations contributed time and financial support (see endnote).
Students gain insight, context from historical project
Jessie Bates, a junior at Central High, worked with the National Park Service and Oncell to create the app to house the walking tour, including an audio transcript and historical photos. She found her work rewarding. “The project provides a more personal view of the history we’re so familiar with,” she said. “Textbooks often gloss over it, but reading the primary sources in the words of the students who were there helps us connect to the history.”
Zaria Moore, also a junior working on the Memory Project, said that she enjoyed coming up with ideas to “bring history back,” such as the bench. “I appreciate getting to meet people who made history, like the Little Rock Nine,” she said. Zaria is related to another member of the Little Rock Nine, Thelma Mothershed-Wair, a connection that reflects the personal relevance of the 1957 crisis to so many people still living in Little Rock.
Words of courage and grace
Ms. Eckford conveyed dignity and peace as she described her successful decades-long journey to come to terms with her past experiences at Central High. Her stated desire to continue working toward “true reconciliation” exemplified the engagement and grace that has made her a beloved figure in the city. The CALS Butler Center salutes Ms. Eckford for her contribution to Little Rock and to American society. Thanks to the student team on the Memory Project for the successful completion of this well-deserved monument to a life of sacrifice and bravery.
The Elizabeth Eckford Commemorative Bench project was a collaboration between the Central High Memory Project and the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site (administered by the National Park Service). Other community partners included the Central Arkansas Library System’s Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service, Bullock Temple C.M.E., Central High School and their EAST LAB, the Little Rock School District, the City of Little Rock, Good Earth Garden Center, Friends of Central High Museum Inc., Home Depot, Little Rock Club 99 and other Rotary International Clubs, Washitaw Foothills Youth Media Arts & Literacy Collective, Unity in the Community, Central High Museum Inc., and others.
When you look a little longer, you see that these vivid characters are coming out of their frames into our world. These people won’t stay where they belong. And they don’t seem to know whether they’re living in two dimensions or three. So, like fairy tales, these paintings have an uncanny ability to get inside your head and stay with you.
“I thought, what if I could do something a little more relatable, that could reach a wider audience?” Miori said. “And then I saw online some pages of very old, original fairytales, and I started to research them. And I was fascinated by all the changes in today’s tales since the original stories, which were often disturbing.”
Through the Looking Glass
It takes a unique artistic gift to create a work that initially seems innocent and perhaps childlike, but contains subtleties that modulate its mood to a minor key. Though this exhibition is sophisticated and humorous enough for adults, it would also be appropriate for most children. The youngest won’t notice or understand the darker notes of the paintings, while tweens will get a kick out of discovering them. In fact, it’s hard to imagine a better exhibition to introduce young people to what it means to have an artistic vision, a particular way of seeing the world that draws others into the artist’s consciousness.
Our family histories can explain much about why we live in our current geographical regions, and our ancestors’ lives still influence our current values and beliefs. The cultures that formed previous generations of our family still leave deep imprints on our lives.
Mary H., who came to a recent “Finding Family Facts” session, was in exactly that position, having recent immigration in her family history.
The work of family research is often creative detective work, which is why many people fall in love with the process.
The overstuffed gravesite was only one of many moments of revelation for the crowd that filled the Ron Robinson Theater on July 21. The CALS Butler Center’s Genealogy Workshop with Ancestry.com’s expert, Juliana Szucs, was by all reports a great success, offering helpful strategies for both beginning and advanced seekers of family history.
When an excited cry of “My great aunt!” echoed across the auditorium, we had to go find out the rest of the story. It turns out that Jayne S. (left) and Martha C. (right) had never met. After striking up a conversation about Jayne’s t-shirt, the two discovered that Jayne’s mother was named after Martha’s great aunt!
Michael P. and Rae-Lene W. had a funny story about why they were at the workshop. The two friends both have family stories that imply Native American ancestry, so they challenged each other to take the Ancestry DNA test and find out for certain who had more Native American genes. The answer: no one. Zero percent Native American. All those family legends were just fun stories, on both sides!
Ms. Szucs told a couple of anecdotes from her own research to show the real interest and power of family history. By using FindaGrave.com, she found out that her great-great-grandfather had served as a fireman on the USS Fort Jackson after enlisting in the Navy for the Civil War. Ms. Szucs would never have known about his military service, because as she later discovered, he enlisted under a false name in order to avoid discovery by his pregnant wife. His wife didn’t find out that her husband had enlisted until someone told her at the last minute that he was in the Navy shipyard, about to depart, and she had better come say goodbye. We can only imagine that dramatic scene.
These name changes may seem extreme, but animosity toward various European immigrant groups could be so intense in the early 20th century that people could not get jobs to support their families if they belonged to the wrong ethnic group. In some cases, members of despised groups were publicly reviled or beaten. Knowing about Jan Mekalski’s name changes tells his descendants that this was a man who survived considerable prejudice and hardship.
Kim P., who has been researching for a few years on Ancestry, is planning to continue her family history search, in part by seeking the help of the Butler Center’s resident expert. Genealogist Rhonda Stewart is skilled in tracing African-American ancestry through fragmented records. Kim described her own challenge in that area, saying, “My great-great grandmother shows up on the 1850 Census, but I couldn’t find her before or after. Her children are listed as “mulatto” and no father’s name is recorded.”
Another good resource to help those new to family research get started is a monthly introductory workshop by the Butler Center’s genealogist Rhonda Stewart, titled “Finding Family Facts.”
The Ron Robinson Theater was filled with memory, emotion, and hope on Friday, July 13 at an unforgettable screening of Relocation, Arkansas: Aftermath of Incarceration.
In the present day, the United States government faces an ethical crisis sparked by the incarceration of thousands of immigrants in prison camps. The audience heard in person from survivors of a similar imprisonment in American history that scarred psyches and families for decades. Testimony from survivors, descendants, and witnesses of past injustice brought home the power of historical lessons to change our present-day actions.
The incarceration had lifelong consequences not only for survivors, but for their children. The incarceration deprived these families of their jobs, their communities, and their homes, and left them to start over in strange towns. Even after release, the families still faced intense prejudice from many in the American population.
Attendee Mariah Hatta said, “That is the hardest film I’ve ever watched. I am Japanese American, and my father is still a Japanese national. He fought in the Japanese army during World War II.”
The Butler Center for Arkansas Studies 
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