Travels with Serendipity: Little Rock, Arkansas

Little Rock, Arkansas is a beautiful city. The city founders showed great restraint in their public buildings. Not that they’re unassuming, the Old State House is a Greek Revival-style structure and is nationally recognized as the backdrop for President Bill Clinton's 1992 and 1996 election-night celebrations.

The current capitol building designed in the Neo-classical style, was built over a century ago as a replica of the US Capitol and has been used in many movies as a stand in.

And the famous, or infamous? Little Rock Senior High School was built in 1927 in – you guessed it, Gothic Revival style at a cost of $1.5 million. Later it was renamed Little Rock Central High, and was hailed as the most expensive, most beautiful, and largest high school in the nation. There are statues of four figures over the front entrance that represent ambition, personality, opportunity and preparation. Its opening earned national publicity with nearly 20,000 people attending the dedication ceremony. (If you didn’t know it was a high school you would think it was a college building. )

Historic events in the 1950s changed education at Central High School and throughout the United States – Governor Faubus of Arkansas called in the National Guard to prevent nine black students attempting to attend LRCHS from entering the school in 1957. They left only to return after President Eisenhower called in units from the U.S. 101^st Airborne to enforce the integration of the school. A fragile truce was held throughout the school year, but as Melba Patillo, one of the Little Rock Nine stated “After three full days inside Central, I know that integration is a much bigger word than I thought.”

In September 1958, Governor Faubus invoked newly passed state laws to forestall further desegregation and closed Little Rock’s four high schools: Central High, Hall High, Little Rock Technical High (a white school), and Horace Mann (a black school). A total of 3,665 students, both black and white, were denied a free public education for an entire year and blamed the closing on the Federal Government – which he maintained violated Arkansas state’s rights. A group of Little Rock women formed the Women’s Emergency Committee in their goal to get the school district reopened so their children could get an education. You can watch a dvd about their heroic efforts: The Giants Wore White Gloves.

Little Rock is also the site of the William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library. It’s starkly modern building is patterned after the Trinity University Library in Dublin, Ireland. We literally were blown into it by a rather vicious thunderstorm that felled trees throughout the city. I guess because they admired our courage or stupidity for coming in regardless, we were given free admittance and spent several hours wandering through the building. I’m an unabashed Democrat and I thought Bill did a darn good job as president – you might disagree – but even I noticed that really, nothing negative was said about Bill. Even the Monica Lewinsky scandal and impeachment trials were pretty well glossed over. I guess if it’s your library, you can try to downplay the bad stuff. Look at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda. Just try to find much out about the Watergate trial and the missing seventeen minutes.

We were lucky to be at the library while a Chihuly Glass Exhibit was on display. There are 2 permanent pieces of his glass in the library, but many more on display. I was enchanted by many of them and snapped off several pictures, not the glass LOL.

I also took time to photograph an intimate table setting used for State Dinners and the menus …. Thought I might actually attempt my own “state dinner” with one of the (less complicated) menus for the fun of it!