MLK panel sets Harrison events with goal of ‘reset,’ director says

The Arkansas Martin Luther King Jr. Commission is partnering with the Harrison Chamber of Commerce on a program called “Rebirth of a City.”

DuShun Scarbrough, executive director of the King Commission, equates it with “pushing the reset button.”

“Together with the city, we’re igniting a rebirth,” said Scarbrough. “Our goal is to bring in speakers and coordinate impactful programming and community service projects. We were invited in by the city of Harrison. By joining the Harrison Chamber of Commerce, we are publicly demonstrating our commitment to making an investment in the city and the citizens. Together, we’re promoting the city as a beautiful, welcoming community.”

Harrison has come a long way, said Scarbrough.

A century ago, the “Harrison race riots of 1905 and 1909” drove all but one Black person from the town, creating by violence an all-white community similar to other such ‘sundown towns in northern and western Arkansas, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas.

With a white supremacist group located nearby, “Harrison has retained the legacy of its ethnic cleansing, in terms of demographics and reputation, through the 20th century and into the 21st,” according to the encyclopedia article.

The commission, which is a division of the Arkansas Department of Education, will hold an event in Harrison on Jan. 14 as part of a Martin Luther King Jr. birthday celebration. (The civil-rights leader’s birthday is actually Jan. 15.)

Eric Braeden, star of the long running daytime television show “The Young and the Restless,” will be a guest speaker for the Harrison event, according to a news release from the Commission.

The commission will hold several other events in Harrison in 2022, including movies in the park, a Martin Luther King essay contest and a “diversity soccer tournament.”

The King Commission has held events in Harrison before.

“We hosted the city’s first African American program in 2012 and were invited back in 2014 to host a Nonviolence Youth Summit, which garnered support from youth

from across the state,” said Scarbrough.

“I’m proud to once again work with Harrison to host programming that will promote the city nationwide in a positive light by practicing the noble tenets of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. … We will do all we can to promote Harrison and show the state and the world that Harrison is unified and there are great people here and great things happening.”

Scarbrough said other King birthday week events will be held in Little Rock in January.

According to the news release, the commission was to present the 2021 L.E.A.D. Award to Harrison Mayor Jerry Jackson during the Harrison City Council meeting Thursday night. The award name stands for leadership, education and acceptance of diversity. It’s presented

to organizations and cities that work to promote King’s dream of nonviolence

throughout their communities, according to the news release.

The city of Harrison and members of its Task Force on Race Relations have received awards from the commission before.

During the Jan. 14 event, George Holcomb of Harrison will receive the MLK Trailblazers award and Melissa Collins will be commended as a 2021 Excellence in Diversity winner, according to the news release.