Many, many,
many years ago, we were driving from Indiana to Texas to visit relatives. My cousin Ryan (Sr.) was with us and, as we were approaching Little Rock, AR, he said, very enthusiastically, "I love Little Rock!" Mind you, he'd never been there and couldn't tell us what he loved about it, but he was excited. We haven't let him live this down, poor guy, and it kept coming to mind as we approached Little Rock.
Well, from the 18 hours or so we spent there, I have to say I agree with Ryan. I love Little Rock too.
Our main attraction and destination was Central High School, a National Historic Site and Visitors Center run by the National Park Service. The high school is still an operating high school, but it also has an important place in civil rights history.
From the NPS web site:
On the morning of September 23, 1957 nine African-American teenagers stood up to an angry crowd protesting integration in front of Little Rock's Central High as they entered the school for the first time. This event, broadcast around the world, made Little Rock the site of the first important test of the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision. This was one of the top recommendations on TripAdvisor and for very good reason. If you get a chance, do this. Matt and I learned so much and the park service staffers were so enthusiastic and passionate about their work, it was beyond infectious. It was a good thing there was a counter between us, or I probably would've hugged them.
The Visitor Center isn't particularly large, but it is extremely well done and packed with great insights about civil rights history and the lasting impact of pivotal events and people. The exhibits said so much--the picture below is of the stark difference between white classrooms and black classrooms at the time, brought to life by the substantial door on the left and the screen door on the right.
The school is a beautiful work of architecture and the grounds are lovely. They give tours of the school, but only when it's open, and of course it was closed for Winter Break. The park service guys recommended we come back again, and I'd really like to, to do the building tour.
But just walking around the grounds and this formidable building allowed us to try to imagine what it was like that year. We can't, really, but it's quite something even to try.
The facade reads "AMBITION" "PERSONALITY" "OPPORTUNITY" "PREPARATION"
At the suggestion of the park service guys, we drove over to the Capitol building to see a group of statues of the Little Rock Nine. They explained that they are at the Capitol, in a position that would be in the direct line of sight of Governor Orval E. Faubus, the man who "directly questioned the sanctity of the federal court system and the authority of the United States Supreme Court's desegregation ruling while nine African-American high school students sought an education at the all-white Little Rock Central High School." He was the prime instigator for the resistance to desegregation, so it is particularly fitting that the statues are where they are.
We stayed in the lovely Capital Hotel, close to the River Market and Clinton Library/Museum. While the River Market is no Pike Place Market, I can imagine it would be nice in the summertime. There were ice skaters and funnel cakes and not too much else happening the evening we were there. We walked down to the Clinton Library/Museum--we knew we wouldn't have a chance to tour it, but we got to see the cool building and impressive grounds before dinner.
We let TripAdvisor lead us to the Flying Fish, a casual place that is clearly loved by locals and tourists alike. They do a lot of different kinds of seafood a lot of different ways. The hush puppies were AMAZING, as were the fried oysters. Matt had some good catfish too. The place is a little goofy--people send in their fish pictures, and they have a wall of those "Billy Bass" singing fish things--but the food was great. By the time we left, the line was outside.
After a good night's rest in a great hotel, we hit the road for Shreveport, LA, where we arrived in time for lunch, another great seafood meal. TripAdvisor told us to visit the Norton Gallery, so we did. This is a family's varied collection of paintings, sculpture, guns, dolls, glass work, tapestries, and more. And they had a special exhibit of plein-air paintings of national parks, which was great too. My favorite piece in the collection was a sculpture called "Fragelina," by Attilio Piccirilli (American, 1923).
Little did we know that the grounds behind the gallery were a little slice of heaven. We had such nice weather for almost all of the trip, and since it was Louisiana and very mild, it was like a pretty late September day as we walked the paths, checking out the sculptures worked into the landscapes.
And then. . . the Mattmobile headed for Houston!
