For Immediate Release
Contact: Angela Parker 501-683-7245, Cell: 501-554-1527
Media Alert
What: Civil Rights Heritage Commemoration
When: 9:45 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday, July 14
Where: William J. Clinton Presidential Center Park
Civil rights icons Dr. Terrence Roberts, a member of the Little Rock Nine, and Bliss Ann Malone Hunter, a Freedom Rider who in 1961 held desegregate interstate bus lines, will be guest speakers at UALR’s second annual Civil Rights Heritage Commemoration and Public Forum Saturday, July 14, at the William J. Clinton Presidential Center Park.
This year’s commemoration adds sidewalk markers in downtown Little Rock honoring s attorney Christopher Mercer Jr., publishers and NAACP activists L.C. and Daisy Bates, and the nine high school students who in 1957 desegregated Little Rock Central High School.
The events are free and open to the public.
Hunter, one of the five Freedom Riders who was arrested in an attempt to integrate the city’s Trailways bus depot, will deliver the keynote address. Mercer and Minniejean Brown Trickey, a member of the Little Rock Nine, also will speak. Elizabeth Eckford, Carlotta Walls LaNier, and Thelma Mothershed Wair – also members of the Nine – are scheduled to attend.
Following the commemoration, the forum will be held from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the Great Hall of the Clinton Presidential Library.
UALR’s Institute on Race and Ethnicity, which is marking its one-year anniversary – inaugurated the Civil Rights Trail last year during the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Summer of 1961 when the riders integrate interstate bus transportation and members of the Arkansas Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee who organized lunch counter sit-ins.
The Arkansas Civil Rights Heritage Trail begins at the Old State House on Markham Street and stretches to the Clinton Center. It was established to educate the public about civil rights history in Arkansas and honor those who have contributed to obtaining equal rights for citizens in the state.
The UALR Institute on Race and Ethnicity was founded in July 2011 to seek racial and ethnic justice in Arkansas. For more information, contact the institute at race-ethnicity@ualr.edu or 501-569-8932.
