History by the hundreds
This is Column No. 600. Over the past 13 years, excepting some instances when my work intervened and when I took off a few months to complete a book, I have worked to produce a weekly essay on some aspect of Arkansas history, geography, culture, or politics. Submitting Column No. 600 has given me pause for reflection—on both the past and future.
Frankly, I have amazed myself every week that I have been able to muster the wherewithal to write the columns. The substantial amount of research required was demanding, but that sort of research was what attracted me to history in the first place. No, it was the act of actually writing the columns that demanded discipline I formerly had not known.
As an undergraduate, I read a great deal of William Faulkner, the Nobel Prize-winning Mississippi writer who churned out quite remarkable books on a regular schedule. I was relieved in recent years to learn that, just like me, Faulkner had to force himself to write, and on occasion he even tied himself to the chair.
My goal has been to make Arkansas history available to the reading public, especially educators and policymakers. I have tried to use my columns to inform Arkansans about both the mainstreams and the byways of our collective past. Considerable effort has been given to correcting old stereotypes, and in no small number of cases admitting to our failures.
Still, those old stereotypes persist. Even among immigrants. Recently, when I asked my Hispanic friend Lorenzo what his Mexican immigrant friends thought of his living in Arkansas, he said they had asked, “Are you now a ‘hill-bill-eee?’ ”
My greatest hope for the column was that it would give Arkansans the information we need, as the late UA Prof. Willard B. Gatewood put it, “to define ourselves” rather than deferring to the stereotypes of others.
At the same time, I hoped my columns would give pause to those who might wish to conveniently forget the many instances when we have impulsively shot off our toes. In 1844, following the implosion of the corrupt banking system, Arkansas voters (white men all) adopted a constitutional amendment outlawing banks. Alas, for the next 20 years or so, Arkansas was bereft of both banks and much-needed capital. For two decades we treaded water—until the much maligned Reconstruction experiment.
This brings me to the matter of examining our old truths using the lens of history. No, Reconstruction was not “the darkest pages in Arkansas history” as claimed by a 1922 writer. Yes, women played a huge role in Arkansas history—though often in the background. Arkansas might have been off the immigrant mainstream, but a closer look reveals an interesting though small diversity of settlers, such as the presence of a thriving Chinese population in the Delta at one time.
Black Arkansans did have a history before the 1957 integration crisis, not the least example being Marie Jeanne, who was born a slave in French colonial Arkansas and went on to buy her own freedom and then gained fame as a caterer and inn owner. Marie Jeanne (or Mary John as she was known later) would make an excellent nomination for the Arkansas Business Hall of Fame.
With the legislature in session, I must admit that I hoped my columns would give elected public officials much needed historical perspective. I am not encouraged on that matter.
Whatever the future might hold for this column, I hope my 600 weekly essays encouraged Arkansans to perhaps slow down just a tiny bit from our mad dash into the future to consider how we came to be a people known as Arkansans.