Remembering Blackville, Arkansas
Join us on Wednesday, June 17, at 6 p.m., for “Remembering Blackville, Arkansas,” a program held in celebration of Juneteenth. Authors Carolyn Ann Butler Cooley and Wally G. Vaughn will discuss their book, “Blackville, Arkansas – Fashioned by a Former Slave: Stories from Individuals Who Remember Blackville.” Dr. Cherisse Jones-Branch of Arkansas State University will moderate the conversation.
Blackville, Arkansas, an all-Black self-sufficient thriving community, was named after its founder, Pickens Black Sr., a former slave. When he was a young man, he migrated to Jackson County in Northeast Arkansas. While working in Jackson County, Black saved his earnings, purchased acres of land, cut the timber, and sold it so he could purchase more acres. By the 1940s, he owned 8,000 acres of land, comparable to twelve square miles.
His land started about fourteen miles south of Newport, Arkansas, the county seat, and ran twenty miles south to Shortland.
ATTEND: Register here to attend the program in person at the Clinton Center. The program will be available on our YouTube channel the following day.
BOOK: Cooley and Vaughn will sign copies of their book following the program. The book will be in stock soon at the Clinton Museum Store.
ASL interpretation is available during our events.
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More about the speakers
Wally G. Vaughn was commissioned as a First Lieutenant in the United States Air Force in January 1982 to serve as a Chaplain. He retired from active duty on January 31, 2011, in the grade of Colonel. His publications include the groundbreaking works “The Invisible Leader In Montgomery,” “The Montgomery Bus Protests,” “Strategic Planning of the Highest Order,” “The Selma Campaign,” “The Decisive Battle of the Civil Rights Movement,” and “Juneteenth Researchers Incorrect About Slaves In Texas.”
Carolyn Ann Butler Cooley is a native of Truxno, Union Parish, Louisiana. After graduating from Farmerville High School in 1974, she studied at Louisiana Tech University for two years. Carolyn relocated to Little Rock, Arkansas; studied at Shorter College and Arkansas Baptist College; and completed her education at Philander Smith College in 1983. She is the widow of Dr. James F. Cooley, whose work initiated The Movement in Forrest City, Arkansas, in the 1960s. She has two children: Stephen and Stetson and one grandson, Sa’Vion.
Dr. Cherisse Jones-Branch is the dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Communication and professor of history at Arkansas State University. A rural, women’s, and African American history scholar, Jones-Branch is the author of “Crossing the Line: Women and Interracial Activism in South Carolina during and after World War II,” “Better Living by Their Own Bootstraps: Black Women’s Activism in Rural Arkansas, 1913-1965,” and co-editor of “Arkansas Women: Their Lives and Times,” in addition to numerous articles and essays. She is working on a third book project titled “To Make the Farm Bureau Stronger and Better for All the People: African Americans and the American Farm Bureau Federation: 1920-1966.” Dr. Jones-Branch is also a U. S. Army Persian Gulf War Veteran.