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Ten honorees added to Civil Rights Heritage Trail

To kick off Black History Month, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Anderson Institute on Race and Ethnicity announced 10 names will be added to the Arkansas Civil Rights Heritage Trail.聽 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鈥檚 civil rights history. This year鈥檚 theme is 鈥淓conomic Advancement.鈥� The latest plaques will be unveiled at a 鈥淟egacies and Lunch鈥� event beginning at noon Wednesday, Feb. 1, at the Ron Robinson Theater. The event will be held in partnership with the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies and the Clinton School of Public Service. The event, which is free and open to the public, will feature live music from the Civil Rights era, including performances by the Dunbar Magnet Middle School Singers, Tonya Leeks, and David Ashley. A 12-inch bronze marker will be 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鈥檚 honorees include, a former English teacher at Dunbar High School who successfully sued Little Rock School District for equal pay between black and white teachers. In an, Institute Director John Kirk described the large pay gap between black and white educators in Little Rock in the early 1940s. A 1941 survey for the Little Rock Classroom Teachers Association found that white elementary school teachers received an annual average salary of $526, while black teachers received only $331. At the high school level, white teachers received an average annual salary of $856, while black teachers received only $567. 鈥淭he lawsuit ended a longstanding policy of pay discrimination against black teachers and laid the foundations for later struggles for black educational equality in the city,鈥� Kirk wrote. 鈥淚t also cost Morris and other educators their jobs for insisting upon justice.鈥� Another honoree is John Harold Johnson, founder of Johnson Publishing Co., which produced successful publications like Ebony and Jet magazines. In 1982, Johnson became the first African American to appear on the Forbes 400, a list of the 400 wealthiest Americans based on net worth. The new honorees include:

• 听听听听听William Wallace Andrews, a prominent black leader and entrepreneur in Little Rock before and after the Civil War
• 听听听听听Scott Winfield Bond, a successful landowner, farmer and businessman in the Arkansas Delta and one of Arkansas’s wealthiest African Americans during the period before the New Deal in the 1930s
• 听听听听听John Edward Bush, co-founder of the Mosaic Templars of America, a fraternal organization that expanded to 26 states and six foreign countries between the 1880s and 1930s. He was also chair of the Arkansas Republican Party.
• 听听听听听Robert Lee Hill, founder of the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America, which organized in the Arkansas Delta to gain fair wages for sharecroppers after World War I.
• 听听听听听John Harold Johnson built the largest black publishing company in the world, producing titles such as Ebony and Jet magazines.
• 听听听听听Walter 鈥淲iley鈥� Jones, one of the wealthiest African Americans in the South from his various business endeavors in late 19th century Pine Bluff.
• 听听听听听Chester W. Keatts, co-founder of the Mosaic Templars of America, a fraternal organization that expanded to 26 states and six foreign countries between the 1880s and 1930s.
• 听听听听听Josephine Irvin Harris Pankey, a successful real estate developer who accumulated large tracts of land in West Little Rock during the age of segregation.
• 听听听听听William 鈥淪onny鈥� Walker, head of the Arkansas Office of Economic Opportunity, which coordinated the state鈥檚 war on poverty efforts in the 1960s
• 听听听听听Sue Cowan Williams, an English teacher at Dunbar High School who successfully sued the school district for equal pay with white teachers during the 1940s

For more details, please contact the Anderson Institute at 569-8932 or [email protected].