LITTLE ROCK — Warren I. Cikins took his 50-year-old poll tax receipt to the Arkansas State Capitol on Saturday to illustrate the moderate side of Arkansas during the integration crisis.
Cikins was an aide to Brooks Hays, a Democrat from Arkansas elected to Congress in 1942 without the voting support of blacks, because blacks couldn't vote.
"A man who had championed minority rights," Cikins said, "was still able to get elected under those circumstances - something we should all remember how hard we fought, and certainly how hard he fought, to end this hated poll tax and other techniques designed to prevent minority voting."
Cikins was the keynote speaker at the 10th Annual Day of Pride and Prayer, a gathering to call attention to reforming the criminal justice system. It was hosted by the Arkansas chapter of Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants.
The group works to increase job training and education opportunities for prisoners and reducerestrictions ex-offenders face in employment, education and voting. Arkansas CURE was founded by Effie Bowers, the first black graduate of Little Rock's Hall High School.
Cikins, a Boston native and Harvard University graduate, moved to Little Rock in 1955 to work for Hays.
In 1957, Hays arranged for Gov.Orval Faubus to meet with President Eisenhower in Newport, R.I., to resolve the crisis.
Little Rock Central High School became internationally known Sept. 2, 1957, when Faubus sent Arkansas National Guardsmen there. Faubus said he called out the National Guard "to maintain ... the peace and goodorder of the community" and directed the Guard to prevent nine black students from entering the school, notwithstanding a courtapproved desegregation plan.
On Sept. 20, complying with the order of a federal judge, Faubus removed the guardsmen. When the black students went to Central three days later on Sept. 23, a violent crowd gathered. The students were removed for their protection.
President Eisenhower then federalized the National Guard and sent 101st Airborne Division troops to the school the next day to enforce the school's integration. The black students attended school the rest of the year under federal protection.
Cikins said Saturday that he didn't attend the meeting between Faubus and Eisenhower, but was told about it by Hays and has read the president's notes of the meeting. He said he's been troubled by "revisionist" accounts of what happened at the meeting and afterward.
"President Eisenhower told Faubus he would enforce the law and the governor should call off the guardsmen or tell them to enforce the law," Cikins said.
Faubus said he had a deep loyalty to the federal government and respected the law. They agreed Faubus would call off the guard, but he didn't for several days.
"On the plane and with Hays, [Faubus] seemed to be on the right track, but when he got back and was under different management, so to speak, he backed off," Cikins said, referring to the pressure Faubus received from segregationists in the South.
Eisenhower shortly ordered the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne to Little Rock to protect the Little Rock Nine from mob violence.
Cikins went on to serve as an adviser to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger when he started initiatives to rehabilitate prisoners. Cikins was vice chairman of the National Committee on Community Corrections for more than 20 years. While at theBrookings Institution, a Washington, D.C., think tank, from the mid-1970s to mid-1990s, he promoted prisoner literacy and job training and opposed sentencing guidelines that contributed to greater imprisonment.
On Saturday, Cikins outlined the recent history of corrections in the United States that has led to high prison populations. The increase of mandatory-minimum sentencing has outpaced the prisoner rehabilitation programs, despite the work of Burger and others.
However, the increase in prison populations has slowed in recent years, Cikins said.
"My only consolation is to rationalize how badly the situation would be if I, and others, hadn't tried to be at the parapets," he said.
Several ministers attended Saturday's event. Pastor Allen Hill, of the Living Word Praise and Worship Center, said he is proof that an offender can turn his life around. He said pastors and churches should support CURE and others who work with prisoners.
"You will find out that [prisoners] have a heart, and they are hurting, and it's time for healing to take place," he said.
Arkansas Court of Appeals Judge Wendell Griffen said at the event that the answer to curing cancer is not digging more graves and hiring more undertakers. Prisons are the "cemetery answer to our social problem."
"Most people in prison will get out," he said. "It is up to us what shape they're in when they get out and how they are received when that happens."
Arkansas, Pages 19, 20 on 10/28/2007