Four decades later, the vision is still there: It was a fall day, driving outside Harrison, Ark., in the cool of the morning. We passed by a little pasture on a hill, and at the top, an apple tree.
The apples, as we remember, were the reddest ever known to man. The pasture was still green. And we thought it was the most beautiful sight that man's eyes had ever beheld. All these years later, we still remember the beauty of a lone apple tree in a pasture outside Harrison, Ark.
But Harrison, Ark., has not always conjured beauty in the minds of people. It has a dark, ugly, deadly past. Emphasis on past.
The good old days were anything but good for any number of people. Especially Black people in the Jim Crow era in these latitudes. Children in Arkansas who are lucky enough to attend a school that still teaches Arkansas history might have read something about the Elaine "race riots," which is sometimes just called, without euphemism, the Elaine Massacre.
Newspapers at the time helped inflame mobs with irresponsible reporting. Black folks who weren't shot down in the streets were gathered up and tried in the courts. Nothing more was expected for these citizens than prejudice, injustice and death by the state.
(Thankfully a lawyer named Scipio A. Jones got involved in the appeals process; he made sure the United States Supreme Court acted supremely, and rectified state cases to ensure due process of defendants--no matter their skin color. It was a victory for not just Black defendants, but for the American Way and maybe simple humanity.)
But how many Arkansas history classes teach the Harrison race riots of 1905 and 1909? In which mobs drove nearly all Black people out of the town? And Harrison became one of many Sundown Towns in the American South--in which certain folks of color knew they'd better be out of town by sundown, or else.
According to Bill Bowden's story in the paper Friday, there are those who'd like to reset. Not rewrite. Not revise. Not to ignore the violent past, or even make it essential to all-things-Arkansas, but to reset. Face the past with honesty, and make adjustments so the future is better because of it. As hard as it is to believe in modern America, people dedicated to such things do exist.
The Arkansas Martin Luther King Jr. Commission is partnering with the Harrison Chamber of Commerce to create a program called Rebirth of a City. According to DuShun Scarbrough, executive director of the Commission, "We were invited in by the city of Harrison. By joining the Harrison Chamber of Commerce, we are publicly demonstrating our commitment to making an investment in the city and the citizens. Together, we're promoting the city as a beautiful, welcoming community."
NB: Invited by the city. Bravo.
The commission will invite speakers at several points next year. Sponsor movies in the park. An essay contest. A soccer tournament. Why, of course. Soccer, that international sport, is catching fire in America. For proof, look at all those soccer pitches springing up across Arkansas, like mushrooms after a spring rain.
None of this will erase history, or words in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas or other history books. All those words should stay. To scrub them would be to bear false witness to our children. And this country is already filled with historical rewrites: those who'd whitewash all sins and teach a Disney-fied "Song of the South" narrative, and those who'd promote past sins as proof of current guilt among second graders. Neither helps.
The Rebirth of Harrison is a worthy effort. Some of us believe, with the help of locals, it has been going on for a decade or more already. But that's all right. Not all turnarounds are hairpins.
And as we note the past of Harrison, and all the other Harrisons across the nation, let's also add to the copy when corrections are made, and improvements. Let's not skip chapters.
This is a reset. Not a rewrite.