I spent almost a decade working in the governor's office. There were many eventful days during that period, perhaps none more newsworthy than the first one--the tumultuous afternoon of July 15, 1996, when Gov. Mike Huckabee took office after his predecessor, Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, waffled on whether or not he should resign.
One of the most memorable and meaningful days occurred in September 1997 when Huckabee and President Bill Clinton opened the doors of Little Rock Central High School to welcome back the Little Rock Nine.
For decades, people in Little Rock had taken pride in the beautiful building that houses Central High. It cost $1.5 million in 1927 and was described at the time by the New York Times as the most expensive high school ever built in this country.
For decades, they also celebrated the successes of the Tiger athletic teams that represented Central High.
But for four decades, many of them tried to forget the 1957 desegregation crisis. In some ways, that's understandable. Gov. Orval Faubus decided he wanted to be elected to a third two-year term in 1958 (third terms for governors were rare), and his political calculation was that he couldn't win without halting the Little Rock School Board's plan to begin desegregating schools in the fall of 1957. Faubus won re-election to third, fourth, fifth and sixth terms. The 1957 crisis, however, caused Arkansas to be ridiculed around the world. It stymied economic development in the state for a decade or more.
Finally it dawned on business and civic leaders that there's a benefit in marking the fact that a key moment in the U.S. civil rights movement occurred in Little Rock. The school was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. In 1982, it was designated a National Historic Landmark. Still, there were few efforts to promote the site as a tourist attraction. That changed with that September 1997 ceremony, which received widespread national media attention.
On Nov. 6, 1998, Congress established the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site, a unit of the National Park Service. The visitors' center was built in 2006. On the 50th anniversary of the desegregation crisis, the center was officially dedicated with an address by U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia. More than 2,000 people gathered on the front lawn of Central High the following day to honor the Little Rock Nine.
The time has never been better for the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism and the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau to heavily market Central High and the excellent exhibits that can be found in the visitors' center. In 2015, representatives from state tourism departments across the South got together at Georgia State University in Atlanta to begin work on a civil rights trail. Travel South USA has since launched the trail, and Central High is on it.
In a 2017 New York Times story, Alyson Krueger wrote: "They knew their states were dotted with landmarks that commemorated significant events in the struggle for racial equality. In Arkansas, for example, there is Little Rock Central High School, where nine brave African American students enrolled in an all-white high school. In Alabama, the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site honors black pilots who risked their lives during World War II even as Jim Crow laws denied them rights at home. While many sites were thriving on their own, some weren't connected to one another, even ones nearby."
Lee Sentell, the tourism director for Alabama, told the newspaper: "No one had ever done an inventory of civil rights landmarks. They saw themselves as one-offs and didn't realize they were part of a network. ... Hopefully when people hear about the civil rights trail, it will make them aware there are locations near where they are that changed the world. I'm just surprised this hadn't been done earlier."
In Sunday's column, I wrote about the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum at Jackson, which opened in December. About 10,000 people visited the museum during its opening weekend. During the three-day weekend that commemorated the birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., 16,000 people took advantage of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's offer of free admission. More than 100,000 people visited the Civil Rights Museum and the adjoining Museum of Mississippi History during the first four months they were open. There were 630 group reservations made by civic clubs, schools and churches. On the summer Friday I visited, the Civil Rights Museum was filled with groups taking tours.
"Classes are riding buses for hours to visit both museums and learn about their state's history," said Rachel Myers, the director of the Museum of Mississippi History. "Teachers tell us they can't wait to come back because of their experience."
Pamela Junior, the Civil Rights Museum director, said church groups have helped drive the numbers.
"One of the greatest staples of the community during the civil rights era was the church," she said. "The church is that piece that continuously shows up in our galleries. Today, we have churches from all over Mississippi coming to see a movement that the parishioners lived and to reflect with the younger ones on an era that they can only read and hear about."
Central High is the only functioning high school to be designated as a national historic site. With interest in civil rights tourism at an all-time high, it should be marketed as the national treasure it is.
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Senior Editor Rex Nelson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.
Editorial on 08/01/2018