I had a sage professor in graduate school who was fond of saying, "To know where you're going, you must learn where you've been."
With the Little Rock School District being taken over by the state as of last week, it might benefit us all to look back to see where we've been.
AETN will premiere The Road to Little Rock at 6:30 p.m. today, followed at 7 by Hoxie: The First Stand. The films detail stories of integration in Arkansas public schools.
The key figure in the first film is a federal judge from Fargo, N.D.
In a news release, AETN Director of Production Carole Adornetto says, "Judge Ronald N. Davies is not well known in Arkansas, but he is an important part of our state's history. It was Judge Davies who found himself, in 1957, thrown into the case of Aaron vs. Cooper and the integration of nine black students into the all-white Little Rock Central High School.
"This story is a prequel to Hoxie: The First Stand and another piece of the puzzle in understanding those perplexing times when desegregation of our public schools was being resisted all across the nation."
It was an era in which many school districts continued to ignore the 1954 Supreme Court ruling of Brown vs. Board of Education that declared segregation in public schools was unconstitutional.
The Road to Little Rock features a number of previously unseen interviews, including segments with three members of the Little Rock Nine and Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. It blends those with archival footage and primary source documentation to tell the story of the events that led to the integration of Central High.
Viewers will be introduced to Davies, "who followed the law, ignored political pressure and required the school district in Little Rock to integrate 'forthwith.'"
Davies' ruling provided the catalyst for the events of 1957, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Hoxie: The First Stand details what it labels "one of the earliest, most important and least remembered school integration battles in the South."
In the summer of 1955, the school board of the small Lawrence County town just south of Walnut Ridge voluntarily desegregated its schools, becoming the first in the Arkansas Delta to do so.
AETN notes, "The newly formed White Citizens' Councils saw this as a test for Southern resistance to the Supreme Court's 1954 desegregation decision and soon descended on the town.
"They organized the locals to try to force the board to rescind its order, but the five members and superintendent, although quickly deserted by their early supporters, stood their ground."
The film demonstrates how, with the help of the NAACP, the board sought an injunction against the segregationists, eventually drawing "an extremely reluctant federal government" into a case that nullified the segregation laws of Arkansas.
"Segregationist leaders were so furious over the loss," the film says, "that they turned on Gov. Orval Faubus in the next primary, forcing him out of his previous moderate stance and setting up the 1957 confrontation in Little Rock."
I was in the fifth grade when the Central High crisis went down and not fully aware of what was going on. I do recall my parents having long conversations about the matter, and it'll be interesting to watch both films to help learn where we've been.
For the record, The Road to Little Rock was produced by Art Phillips of VideoArts Studios of Fargo in partnership, in part, with the Arkansas Humanities Council.
Hoxie: The First Stand was produced by David Appleby of the University of Memphis. It was awarded a Peabody Award in 2004 and an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award in 2005.
• Shakespeare Uncovered. There will be two noteworthy episodes Friday on AETN. At 8 p.m., Morgan Freeman looks at The Taming of the Shrew. At 9 p.m., David Harewood, the first black actor to play the title role in Othello at the National Theatre in London, examines the complex issues of prejudice and jealousy that weave throughout the play.
• Spy drama. NBC's new Cold War "high-octane spy thriller" Allegiance debuts at 9 p.m. today. Critics say it's a copycat of FX's The Americans, but the network says the resemblance is only superficial.
In the series, young, new CIA analyst Alex O'Connor (Gavin Stenhouse) gets his first case without realizing his parents (Hope Davis, Scott Cohen) are Soviet spies. Mother Russia wants them to show their allegiance and recruit their son. Does "high-octane" drama ensue? You be the judge.
The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Email:
mstorey@arkansasonline.com
Weekend on 02/05/2015