Month: July 2020

The William L. Terry papers, donated to the CALS Butler Center for Arkansas Studies in 2014, are now available to the public. Consisting of professional working papers, family mementos, photographs, and other items, this collection reveals more than three generations of life in Little Rock for researchers to examine.

Donor William Leake Terry (1922–2016) was an attorney and community leader in Little Rock.

Three months have passed since my last report. Things have changed—some for the better, and others not.

Sadly, we lost two major figures in the Arkansas history community in the last few weeks: Richard C. Butler Jr. and John G. Ragsdale Jr. They each had a profound effect on the development of the CALS Butler Center for Arkansas Studies.

Many are discussing current issues of police violence, inequality in opportunities and pay, and other problems facing the African American community in the nation and in Arkansas. Olly Neal’s autobiography, just published by Butler Center Books at the Central Arkansas Library System, confronts these same concerns, providing historical context for the protest movements of today.

One recent addition to the CALS Butler Center’s digital collection gives insight into the educational systems in Little Rock in the first years of the twentieth century. The Amazer Vol. I was the first yearbook, and perhaps the only yearbook, produced by the students of Arkansas Military Academy (AMA). This private school was established in Little Rock as a boys’ university training school in response to overcrowding and other problems in the public schools of the city.