The seventy-year period between the Great Depression and the Millennium has seen many changes for women in Arkansas and the nation regarding laws that affect the lives of women.

Arkansas women legally participated in the state primary elections of May 1918. The efforts of the Arkansas Woman Suffrage State Central Committee planted seeds of change that grew into a movement to empower females. In 1934, while the nation rebounded from serious economic challenges, the town of Washington, Arkansas elected a female mayor and an all-female town council.

Dr. Dee Bennett at a rally at the Arkansas State Capitol on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1980
Courtesy of the Arkansas History Commission

In 1938 Arkansas became the first in the South to reach their capacity of women in its Works Progress Administration (WPA) program. They housed one of only five National Youth Administration Camps for young black women under the WPA’s supervision. The camp was named for Mary McLeod Bethune, director of the National Youth Administration Negro Division. It offered liberal arts and vocational training classes. Young women were also introduced to outdoor living skills and an emphasis was placed on individual self-worth by organizing motivational speakers to address the women.

The Central High Crisis at Little Rock in 1957 could be called the flame that ignited the fires of political empowerment and leadership, inspiring women to stand and take notice of issues directly affecting their lives. Two women, Daisy L. Gatson Bates, the state president of the NAACP, and Adolphine Fletcher Terry, who organized the WEC (Women’s Emergency Committee), stood out among all leaders during these turbulent times.

Hazel Bryant yelling at Elizabeth Eckford during the 1957 desegregation crisis at Central High School
Courtesy of Will Counts

Paul Van Dalsem, Representative from Perry County, was criticized by the American Association of University Women in 1963 for a speech he made to a Little Rock Civic Club. Van Dalsem assured the audience that when any Perry County woman began “poking around in something she doesn’t know anything about…we get her pregnant and keep her barefoot.” When Van Dalsem was defeated in 1966, it was seen as a triumph for good government, rather than as a blow for women’s rights. Van Dalsem submitted the resolution for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. Legislators who may have been sympathetic to the ERA may also have been contemptuous of the representative, delaying consideration of the resolution. The delay allowed opposition to mount and the ERA resolution never gained a roll-call vote.

In 1964, Dorathy Allen of Brinkley was elected as the first female state senator. Over the next thirty-five years, no more than one woman served during a senate session. In 1999, the Arkansas Senate was the only all-male legislative chamber in the nation.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 did not bring federal monitors to Arkansas because the state met the basic requirements through the registration of over half of its adult voters and because of the lack of a literacy requirement. Arkansas was still recovering from post-segregation trauma when a pizza delivery sparked a community boycott of white-owned businesses, which lasted a year. An African-American school employee refused to accept and pay for a pizza she did not order and was arrested for her action. This incident was the match that ignited the anger of long smothering feelings of displacement and injustice in the community of Mariana, Arkansas. At issue were the general indignities perceived by the community in matters as varied as education and health care. The explosiveness of the situation demanded the attention of the governor.

Johnson County Republican Booth, 1968
Courtesy of UALR Special Collections and Archives

Lottie Shackelford, a black female, became the first woman to serve as Mayor of Little Rock. The end of the century also showcased Blanche Lincoln’s election win of a U.S. Senate seat, the first popularly elected female senator since Hattie Caraway won the seat in 1932.

Senator Blanche Lincoln meets with Arkansas constituents in her Washington office.
Courtesy of Office of Senator Lincoln

By the end of the century, Arkansas still had not elected a female attorney general, lieutenant governor, or governor, and no African-American had filled any of the seven state constitutional offices.

The longest serving first lady of Arkansas, Hillary Rodham Clinton, moved to our nation’s capitol to duplicate her role. Her election as a New York Senator made her the only first lady to make the transition from the White House to the Senate Chambers in a popular election.

The political face of Arkansas may soon change. In 1998 the Census Bureau estimated that nearly 50,000 Hispanics lived in Arkansas, with a large concentration in the Little Rock area. As they adapt to their new home, their voices will also be heard among the throngs of Arkansans who speak in individual tones as well as collective ones.

Martin Luther King, Jr. “Marade”, Little Rock, 1998
Courtesy of a private collection

Johnson, III, Ben F., Arkansas In Modern America: 1930-1999, University of Arkansas Press, 2000.

Bates, Daisy, The Long Shadow of Little Rock, University of Arkansas Press, 1986.

Murphy, Sara Alderman, Breaking the Silence, University of Arkansas Press, 1997.

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