Roberts, Camden schools attorney, dies of illness at 81

CAMDEN — Allen Roberts, a longtime school and civil rights attorney who has represented the Camden Fairview School District among others since consolidation in the early 1990s and was the district’s lead attorney in its desegregation case, died late Friday after a brief, undisclosed illness. He was 81.

“Covid-19 did not take Allen from us,” his family wrote in an obituary posted with Proctor Funeral Home in Camden, “but ICU bed shortages and hospital safety precautions restricting visitors made his brief illness incredibly challenging for everyone who loved him.”

Roberts’ clients ranged from school districts in south and Central Arkansas to businesses such as Armtec Defense Technologies and Byars Oil Company.

From 2011-2017, the Allen P. Roberts law firm of Camden was the Pulaski County Special School District’s chief legal counsel on school desegregation and other district issues. Jerry Guess was the Pulaski County district’s superintendent during that time.

Guess and Roberts worked closely on several major projects — including the Pulaski County Special district working its way out of dire financial straits in ways that survived legal challenges from employee unions, achieving a multidistrict settlement in the long-running Pulaski County school desegregation case that preserved nearly $70 million a year in special state desegregation aid through the 2017-18 school year, and carrying out the detachment of what is now the Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District with its division of employees and assets in ways that didn’t turn either district upside down financially.

Roberts practiced general, civil-rights, personal injury, family and corporate law. The Camden public school system was a longtime, hometown client.

“He was a champion in our desegregation case and put in a lot of hard work over the years,” said Camden Fairview School District Superintendent Fred Lilly. “Our thoughts and prayers are with his family.”

Roberts, a native Texan, was born in Dallas and raised in Houston, where he graduated from Lamar High School in 1957. He attended the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, where he graduated from law school in 1964. He began a law practice in Fort Smith and then moved to Camden in 1966. He practiced law in Camden until his death.

“In Houston, Allen attended racially segregated public schools, an experience that shaped his sincere and firmly held belief that public schools should be not only desegregated but integrated, and that all children are entitled to a quality education, no matter their race or economic status,” according to the obituary.

“He was an early supporter and defender of the civil-rights movement in the South and worked all his life to undo the legacies of racial and ethnic discrimination. Allen was particularly proud of the work he did over many decades working toward the desegregation of several school districts across south and central Arkansas.”

In the past few years, he grieved the deaths of several close friends, in particular Harry Barnes, 86, a U.S. district judge in the Western District of Arkansas, and John Walker, 82, a civil-rights attorney and state legislator. They died in 2019 — Barnes in February and Walker in October of that year.

Roberts was devoted to his family, a proud member of the United States Marine Corps and an avid runner, “although he was the first to admit his pace had recently slowed to a walk,” the family wrote in the obituary.

“His mother moved to Camden at the age of 76, and Allen rarely missed a day delivering the morning newspaper to her front door and checking in on her every evening.”

To his grandkids, he was “Big Al,” a nickname that later evolved to “Bal,” according to the obituary.

“Bal’s last fully healthy afternoon was spent walking the Trace with [grandsons] Max and Emmette, and he’d tell you it doesn’t get any better than that.”