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A Leaf on the Tree of National History
A leaf found on the ground captures the imagination of a six-year-old, who examines the colors, the shape, the texture, and the touch. The nourishment of this leaf came from the tree as it transported water and minerals from its roots to the leaf. The leaf produces food for the tree through a process called photosynthesis. Sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide create food for the tree while releasing oxygen as a byproduct.
Our national history is like the tree. Each of us is nourished by the tree transporting water and minerals up from the root while we use the energy from sunlight to create food for the tree. This cycle of life creates beautiful images of seasonal looks and colors. Most of the leaves are uniform to the tree that produces them, but sometimes a leaf catches the sunlight and reflects it in a way that draws attention to itself. This is how we single out a person who is a leaf on the tree of national history.
Born on January 18, 1940, in Scottsboro, Alabama, Robert L. Whitfield and his twin sister, Roberta Whitfield, started their lives in a location vital to the timeline of the United States civil rights movement. This is the place where nine Black teens were accused of raping two white females in 1931. The conviction of the teens in the infamous Scottsboro Trials is considered a catalyst for the early civil rights movement. (Learn more at the Encyclopedia of Alabama here.)
Robert and Roberta graduated from Horace Mann Senior High in Little Rock, Arkansas. Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical, and Normal College (AM&N) in Pine Bluff (known now as the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff—UAPB) would be the next site of their development. It is also when their paths separated, as Robert began his service to the United States government as a member of the Air Force.
Segregation in the armed services was ended as a result of Executive Order 9981 by President Harry Truman in 1948. The U.S. Supreme Court decided the Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954, ending segregated classrooms. In 1955, the murder of fourteen-year-old Emmett Till, a Chicago resident visiting family in Mississippi, captured national attention. Later that year, Rosa Parks took a stance that ignited the Montgomery bus boycott.
In Arkansas, Black students who became known as the Little Rock Nine grabbed national attention after Governor Orval Faubus prevented them from desegregating Little Rock Central High School with the force of the National Guard. President Dwight Eisenhower eventually sent federal troops to escort the students into the school.
Robert L. Whitfield served four years in the Air Force and returned to Arkansas to complete his education. His participation in activities labeled “sit-ins” to promote desegregation of public places of nutritional offerings is cited as the reason for his expulsion from AM&N in 1963. Sit-ins were an effort to put pressure on authorities to enforce new laws desegregating public and private spaces and to place economic pressure for a change in policy.
Whitfield later enrolled at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, continuing his work toward obtaining civil rights in the state. In 2014, he gave an oral history interview for the CALS Butler Center for Arkansas Studies in which described his work in the civil rights movement, including being involved in desegregating Pine Bluff businesses with the Pine Bluff Movement and changing policies to allow African Americans to reside in the dorms at the University of Arkansas. View the video interview here.
He is that shining leaf plucked from the ground that inspires the imagination of a child who thought to pick it up. He is a leaf nourished by the tree at the same time as he creates food for the tree to continue the cycle of life. He is part of the tall tree of this nation’s history, still growing.
By Rhonda Stewart, genealogy and local history specialist for the Central Arkansas Library System’s Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, housed in the CALS Bobby L. Roberts Library of Arkansas History & Art
