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FOR RELEASE: Thursday, January 31, 2008
Arkansas Civil Rights History Internet Database Launched FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Historical materials documenting the changing nature of civil rights in Arkansas will be available free to the public through the Internet on Friday, February 1. Sponsored by the special collections department at the University of Arkansas Libraries, "Land of (Unequal) Opportunity: Documenting the Civil Rights Struggle in Arkansas" is an online resource of documents and images that trace the history of civil rights in the state. The Web site contains more than 2,000 pages of documents, photographs, broadsides, pamphlets, drawings, cartoons and other images. While the project emphasizes the 1957 Little Rock Central High School integration crisis and the rights of African American Arkansans, it covers all time periods and includes civil rights issues pertaining to women, homosexuals and the Japanese Americans held in Arkansas relocation camps during World War II. Users may browse the digital collection or search by keywords. In addition to the documents and images, the Web site offers a detailed bibliography and timeline, 10 lesson plans for junior high school students, and five digital posters, all free of charge. The Web site server is named for Scipio A. Jones, in honor of Arkansas' premier black attorney and can be found online at http://Scipio.uark.edu/. "Arkansas has a long and remarkably complex civil rights history," said Tom W. Dillard, project director and head of special collections. While the 1957 Little Rock Central High School integration crisis is well known, it is just one of many historical events involving civil rights. Dillard noted that as early as 1868, Arkansas enacted a civil rights law. Before the Civil War, a few farsighted Arkansas leaders advocated granting property rights to married women. When a wave of segregation laws was enacted around 1900, black leaders organized protests. "During World War II, 16,000 Japanese Americans, mostly American citizens, were incarcerated in relocation camps in Arkansas - adding a unique aspect to our collective civil rights history," Dillard said. In more recent decades, Arkansas was the scene of a dramatic confrontation in the legislature over adoption of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the constitution. The state has in more current decades begun to grapple with recognizing the rights of homosexual Arkansans and Spanish-speaking immigrants. While the majority of the materials on the Web site are held by the University of Arkansas special collections department, other institutions around the state also contributed materials, including the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies at the Central Arkansas Library System in Little Rock; the Riley-Hickingbotham Library at Ouachita Baptist University; Ottenheimer Library at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock; the Torreyson Library at the University of Central Arkansas; the Arkansas History Commission; and the Southwest Arkansas Regional Archives in Washington, Ark. Funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Arkansas Humanities Council, the project is ongoing. Staff members for special collections will refine and add materials to the Web site. In addition to Dillard, the project staff also included Timothy G. Nutt, Scot Oldham, Beth Juhl, Arthur Morgan, Anita Mysore, Todd Lewis, Cheri Pearce, Andrea Cantrell and Molly Boyd. ### Contact:
Molly Boyd,
public relations coordinator Tom W. Dillard, head of Special
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