George Haley accomplished a great many things in his 89 years on earth. He served his country in the U.S. Air Force, the Kansas State Senate and the U.S. diplomatic corps. He worked for eight presidents, Republicans and Democrats, in a distinguished career in public life. As an attorney, he started his own firm and built it into a success. He raised children who grew to be successful in their own rights.
Haley died May 13, having lived a noteworthy and honorable life.
What’s the point?
Arkansas can be proud to be associated with George Haley, a force for change before and after he broke barriers at the University of Arkansas law school.
Though not as well known as his older brother -- the best-selling author of "Roots," Alex Haley -- George leaves a proud legacy of his own as a fighter of racial injustice. A close associate of the Rev. Martin Luther King during the Civil Rights movement, Haley was an organizer of one of King's final appearances in 1968, just days before he died at the hands of an assassin.
George Haley's long and praiseworthy journey took him through Arkansas, first to Pine Bluff where he grew up, and then to Fayetteville, where he is counted as a pioneer in the search for racial equality.
Three years before the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown vs. Board of Education ruling demanded an end to institutional segregation in public schools, George Haley became one of the first African-American graduates of the University of Arkansas law school. He was among a small group of black students who broke the color barrier at the state's flagship campus -- a group that included Silas Hunt, who is recognized as the first African-American to enroll at UA. Hunt died of tuberculosis before he could complete his course of study, but Haley made it all the way, earning his law degree and then beginning his legal career in Kansas City. He joined the Stevens Jackson law firm, which worked on the landmark Brown case then making its way through the courts.
Haley understood well the long, hard road ahead to equality. He endured the overt racism of the time while in Fayetteville, though even then, the college town was considered among the more tolerant of Arkansas cities. Fayetteville Public Schools, after all, were among the first in the state to voluntarily desegregate prior to the 1957 Little Rock Central High crisis that brought so much unwanted attention.
Pioneers like Haley paved the way for an end to racial segregation, not just in schools, but in society in general. We're not naive enough to think America has entered a post-racial age -- whatever that means. But we're closer to the American ideal of equal opportunity for all, thanks to people like George Haley. Arkansas should be proud to recognize him one of its own.
Commentary on 05/26/2015