12 honored at institute’s second civil-rights celebration

Five members of the Little Rock Nine pose with plaques bearing their names to be placed in the River Market District. Minnijean Brown (from left, standing), Elizabeth Eckford, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls LaNier and Thelma Mothershed Wair (seated) attended a civil-rights heritage commemoration Saturday at the Clinton Presidential Center.
Five members of the Little Rock Nine pose with plaques bearing their names to be placed in the River Market District. Minnijean Brown (from left, standing), Elizabeth Eckford, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls LaNier and Thelma Mothershed Wair (seated) attended a civil-rights heritage commemoration Saturday at the Clinton Presidential Center.

— Hundreds gathered to honor some of Little Rock’s most famous players in the civil-rights movement Saturday as the University of Arkansas at Little Rock held its second annual Civil Rights Commemoration and Institute on Race and Ethnicity Anniversary Celebration.

UALR presented 12 bronze markers honoring each member of the Little Rock Nine, attorney Christopher Mercer, and activists Daisy Gatson Bates and L.C. Bates. The markers will go on the Arkansas Civil Rights Heritage Trail.

Minnijean Brown spoke on behalf of the rest of the nine to the audience in the Great Hall of the William J. Clinton Presidential Center, recalling telling her mother that she had enrolled at Central High School in 1957 and being met with skepticism.

“I was 15, we were all 14 or 15,” Brown said. “We had no idea that we would run headlong into institutional racism at its finest - American terrorism at its finest.”

Adjoa Aiyetoro, inaugural director of the institute, said a committee planning Saturday’s events started working in August.

The institute was started July 9, 2011, after more than seven years of planning with the goals of increasing racial awareness; providing research-based information on racial and policy issues; increasing interracial dialogue; providing opportunities for the formal study of ethnicity; and distributing race-related information. Another goal was to hold the university accountable for becoming a diverse community without institutional racism.

Aiyetoro said the institute hopes to be a resource for the entire state, not just Little Rock. Since its opening, the institute started a task force to study racial profiling in Arkansas and created pamphlets in English and Spanish for Hispanics in Arkansas with instructions on what to do if stopped by police or by immigration, she said.

Mercer, the attorney who advised Daisy Bates during the desegregation of Central High School, was scheduled to speak, but was not able to attend Saturday’s event.

“He has been in a nonviolent protest, if you will, with cancer,” said his daughter, Crystal Mercer, who spoke on his behalf.

Crystal Mercer said in an interview that hearing the Little Rock Nine story again is crucial because open and honest dialogue about Arkansas’ current racial issues is key to solving them, and understanding their history is key to that dialogue. She said equal access to quality education and access to basic services like health care and housing are problems for the state today.

“The Little Rock Nine are the inspiration - they are the reason I am a graduate of Central High School,” Mercer said.

Arkansas, Pages 13 on 07/15/2012

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