- University News Archive - ��Vlog��ý Little Rock

DeKay completes internship for Congressman French Hill

John Hill — Tue, 01 Sep 2020 13:35:15 +0000

The president of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Student Government Association is getting some valuable political experience both in and out of the classroom. Landon DeKay, a senior political science major from Maumelle, recently completed an “I’m a political science major, and I do eventually want to get involved in politics,” DeKay said. “It was interesting to see how my perception of government in action wasn’t the same as what I experienced. The internship helped guide me in the way in which I knew I wanted to serve those around me. I do know, however, that I want to be out in the field more, attending events and talking to people.” DeKay’s internship, which began in January, got interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic in March. Although he was unable to continue work from home, DeKay got called back at the end of April and completed the internship over the summer. As an intern, DeKay tackled jobs from prepping mass mailers to answering phone calls from concerned citizens and going on events with Congressman Hill. “I looked for interesting stories in the newspaper that could potentially be written into one-minute speeches that are given on the House floor,” he said. “I also wrote congratulatory notes for constituents. I tracked constituent outreach events by the seven counties in the Second District of Arkansas. This will help Congressman Hill’s staff know what counties to focus on as we approach the November election. I also put together a contact list used for outreach regarding our state’s COVID-19 response.” He also got the opportunity to accompany Hill on a tour of the building site of the new Saline County Career Technical Education Center under construction in Benton, and met Sarah Huckabee Sanders, former White House press secretary, on a video call with Hill’s staff. DeKay has learned some valuable lessons about nonpartisan politics that he thinks will come in handy during his time as president of the Student Government Association at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock. “The district office is nonpartisan,” DeKay said. “You work with every single constituent, and you aren’t supposed to have any biases. You look for solutions that benefit everyone. Working with the SGA, you need to have the same mentality. Every situation is different. You have to leave with a non-biased viewpoint and make the decision that best impacts the people around you.” Once he graduates from ��Vlog��ý Little Rock in May 2021, DeKay plans to attend law school. He would encourage anyone interested in politics to pursue a political internship, so they can gain valuable experience for their future career. “The experiences that I gained while being an intern at this office was amazing,” he said. “When you get out of your comfort zone, your internship experience will be the best.”

Congressman French Hill declares ��Vlog��ý Little Rock nursing student a ‘Hometown Hero’

John Hill — Fri, 07 Aug 2020 13:17:16 +0000

U.S. Rep. French Hill has recognized a University of Arkansas at Little Rock nursing student for his exceptional work on the frontlines at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (��Vlog��ýMS). Aaron Baxter, of Benton, works as a nurse in the Intensive Care Unit at ��Vlog��ýMS. Hill recognized Baxter before the U.S. House of Representatives this summer, and that recognition is now part of the permanent Congressional Record. “Aaron’s superiors say that he is a team player who stands out due to his high regard for patient care and safety,” Hill said. “I thank Aaron for his dedication to protecting the health of Arkansans during this time. He, and frontline workers like him, are vital to us overcoming COVID-19 as a nation.” Baxter, who will graduate from ��Vlog��ý Little Rock with a Bachelor of Science in nursing degree in May 2021, said that keeping patients safe is a team effort, and the honor belongs to all his co-workers. “I’m definitely honored by this recognition, and I hope that everyone understands that, as nurses, we have to rely on each other,” Baxter said. “Nursing is a team occupation. I could not do what I do without the people I work with. We recently had a big group text where we thanked everyone for being so supportive. It’s great to know we’ve got each other as our other family. Having that support makes it worth it. To me, this is an honor for all the folks that I’ve worked with.” Baxter got his first experience in healthcare as a volunteer EMT. He joined ��Vlog��ýMS in 2015 as a patient care technician after working for nearly two decades in the energy and manufacturing sectors. “I was a volunteer EMT in my 20s, so I had a little taste for healthcare then, but I didn’t have the confidence in my early 20s to pursue that,” he said. “After some more life experiences, the opportunity presented itself for me to come home and pursue school. My sister, who has been an ICU nurse for 12 years, was a big influence who really helped guide me to this decision.” While working as a patient care technician, Baxter attended nursing school at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock in 2017 and obtained his associate degree in nursing in 2018. “��Vlog��ý Little Rock has an accelerated option for the nursing program,” Baxter said. “My goal was to get into the accelerated program, so I could quickly get back to work. As a working adult student, that was my deciding factor.” Dr. Sloan Davidson, chair of the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock School of Nursing, said that Baxter is a great nurse and wasn’t surprised that he had received such an honor. “Aaron was always at the top of his class, admired by his peers,” Davidson said. “He was kind and helpful to everyone, including faculty. He was one of a group of students that constantly checked on me my first semester as chair.” With the current pandemic, Baxter has taken on yet another role in his unit, working as both a COVID nurse and a D-officer, where his role is to help colleagues make sure they are properly using and removing their protective equipment. “Working in any kind of critical care unit is stressful,” Baxter said. “Adding the coronavirus and all the unknowns to that has been stressful, but we’ve had a lot of support. As a team, my unit has done the best job we could in order to provide exceptional care. That hasn’t changed because of the coronavirus.”

��Vlog��ý Little Rock researchers uncover forgotten African American history in Arkansas

John Hill — Thu, 23 Jul 2020 13:19:41 +0000

University of Arkansas at Little Rock professor of history Dr. Brian Mitchell has been leading an effort to uncover forgotten moments in African American Arkansas history. A native of New Orleans, Mitchell began teaching at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock in 2014 and is passionate about including students and the community in his research. “History is often viewed as a lonesome profession,” Mitchell said. “However, since I focus on public history, I am able to involve students and the community in the research, which makes it really exciting and fun. I’m really big on student involvement in my research.” Mitchell and his students have been unearthing the history of the Elaine massacre. In September 1919, a dark chapter in Arkansas history emerged in a small Delta town next to the Mississippi River. Elaine, Arkansas, sits just west of the river in Phillips County. During this time, black sharecroppers gathered with the Progressive Farmers and Household Union to unite against the landowners and store clerks who manipulated their sales to keep them in perpetual debt. According to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture, landowners would take cotton picked by sharecroppers to the store and lie about the amount of money paid for each batch. Store clerks would manipulate their ledgers to verify the story of the landowners. The sharecroppers knew they were being deceived, and wanted to band together with a union and hire a lawyer to help their cause. Among the men was World War I veteran Leroy Johnston and his three brothers. However, landowners caught wind of their plan and hired spies to attend their meetings and report their conversations back to them. One September night, two spies were shot when the union members discovered their identity. One spy was seriously injured and one died. After the incident, a telephone operator in the town reached out to different communities for reinforcements. As more and more citizens responded to her call, a white mob suddenly formed and began killing hundreds of black men, women, and children. The call even reached the governor’s office, where Arkansas governor Charles Brough ordered 500 soldiers from Camp Pike to disperse the mob. After the massacre, 12 black men involved in the meeting that night were sentenced to death by an all-white jury for the murder of the one spy. No one from the white mobs were tried for murder during the massacre. After a series of appeals, which eventually led to the U.S. Supreme Court under the case Moore vs. Dempsey, the 12 men were released from prison. Mitchell started unearthing the history of the Elaine massacre when he and his students began searching for the location of the bodies of those killed in the riots. With hundreds of people killed, it is unusual that no one knows where the bodies are buried. Mitchell turned to the Arkansas State Archives and found a collection from a local funeral home that included death certificates in Phillips County. Once he found these records, he and his students began indexing and scanning each certificate to make them accessible to the general public. Honoring Veterans From this project, Mitchell was able to start investigating the life of World War I veteran Leroy Johnston, who was killed in the riots along with his three brothers. As they dug further through Johnston’s military records, they discovered his information had been altered to show that he was “slightly” injured during combat in France instead of “severely.” Because of this alteration, he was not able to receive military benefits and honors for serving his country. Once Mitchell and his students compiled enough information to make a case about the forgery, he contacted Arkansas Congressman French Hill to see if Leroy Johnston could posthumously receive the honors he was due. Congressman Hill agreed, and in a ceremony in Washington, D.C., Johnston received the medals he deserved during his time in combat, including the Purple Heart. Johnston was part of the distinguished infantry regiment, “Harlem Hellfighters.” After this ceremony, Representative Hill, along with Representatives Emanuel Cleaver and Sam Graves introduced the World War I Valor Medals Review Act (HR 2249). This bill requires the Department of Defense to review military records of minority servicemen. “It’s interesting when you think that one little project in Little Rock opened the pathway for the reexamination of all the records of black soldiers in the United States,” Mitchell said. Mitchell’s next project examined what happened to the 12 men released from prison. With the threat of lynching and other forms of racial violence, these men naturally wanted to leave the community. Mitchell and his students found six of the men and created ways to commemorate their lives at their grave sites. Additionally, Mitchell and his students wrote biographies for each of the men and published them in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture. They also created a fundraising campaign to establish historical markers at each grave site. The first marker placed was for Frank Moore. Mitchell sees this project as an important reminder of what can happen when hate and extreme polarization lead to violence. “Frank Moore was a man who fought for his country, returned, and was placed on death row falsely, when all he was trying to do is protect his rights as an American citizen,” Mitchell said. In September 2019, different groups in Little Rock, Helena-West Helena, and Fayetteville held events to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the tragic event. The Elaine Massacre Memorial was officially dedicated in Helena-West Helena on Sept. 30, 2019. Westrock Community Mitchell and his students are also researching the former Westrock community, located in the present-day Riverdale area off Cantrell Road in Little Rock. This community housed servants and other employees who worked in the Heights area of Little Rock in the early 20th century and before. In the 1960s, this community was relocated to the far-east side of town in the Granite Mountain area of Little Rock. Mitchell wants to work with all areas of the community to create an interactive website that tells the story of the Westrock community and the families that inhabited the area. “We want this to be a community effort, and an effort that’s as much about telling the history and healing, and reuniting people,” Mitchell said.

Girl standing in front of Pilgrim Rest Missionary Baptist Church #3, one of the cornerstones of the Westrock community. Credit: Lois Threet

Spreading the Message Mitchell is still hard at work to uncover the hidden past. In June 2019, Dr. Mitchell and Dr. John Kirk, George W. Donaghey Distinguished Professor of History at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock, contributed to a CNN Podcast that shed light on a tragic fire at the Negro Boys Industrial School in Wrightsville, Arkansas, that killed 21 children. Mitchell sees himself as a historian compelled to tell the hard stories. While Arkansas is known for civil rights events such as the Little Rock Nine, many stories are generally unknown to the public, in many ways because they do not have happy endings. “Historical research peers into the human heart and examines how just and unjust policies affect our communities and families,” Mitchell said. “Acknowledging the past allows us to heal and move forward. It examines what we need to do in order to prevent these events from happening again. In order to create a just and peaceful society today, we must examine how hatred and discrimination affected societies of the past. Historical research gives us the perspective we need to create an ethical society that treats all members with respect and dignity.” This story was provided by the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Office of Research and Sponsored Programs.

Mitchell attends State of the Union as Rep. Hill’s Guest

John Hill — Wed, 05 Feb 2020 17:46:20 +0000

Dr. Brian Mitchell, an assistant professor of history at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, attended the State of the Union on Feb. 4. U.S. Rep. French Hill, a Republican from Little Rock, invited Mitchell as his guest. In addition to the State of the Union, Mitchell also visited the Smithsonian National Museum of African History and Culture and the U.S. House of Representatives. Mitchell and Hill have worked together in recent years to honor black World War I soldiers whose history has been overlooked. In 2018, the duo worked together to obtain a Purple Heart and other medals for the family of Pvt. Leroy Johnston, a World War I veteran who was killed in the Elaine Massacre with his three brothers just months after coming home from the war. Johnston earned several military honors for his service to his country, but did not receive them at the time of his discharge or death due to racial discrimination. This collaboration was the inspiration for Hill’s introduction of the World War I Valor Medals Review Act, which reviews the military records of all minority service members during World War I to determine if they received the proper recognition. The act was included in the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act. “Dr. Mitchell’s partnership was instrumental in the World War I Valor Medals Review Act being signed into law in December,” Congressman Hill said. “His work advocating on behalf of victims of past racial discrimination sets right injustices perpetrated against African Americans and other minority groups. Only by acknowledging tragedy can we begin to heal and move forward together towards a more hopeful future.” Mitchell and Hill are now working to recognize the contributions of Scipio Jones, a black attorney who rose to national prominence after successfully defending the Elaine 12, a dozen men who were sentenced to death by all-white juries after the Elaine Massacre.

- University News Archive - ����Vlog��ý Little Rock

DeKay completes internship for Congressman French Hill

Congressman French Hill declares ����Vlog��ý Little Rock nursing student a ‘Hometown Hero’

����Vlog��ý Little Rock researchers uncover forgotten African American history in Arkansas

Mitchell attends State of the Union as Rep. Hill’s Guest

- University News Archive - ��Vlog��ý Little Rock

Congressman French Hill declares ��Vlog��ý Little Rock nursing student a ‘Hometown Hero’

��Vlog��ý Little Rock researchers uncover forgotten African American history in Arkansas