Documentaries

"Arkansas Ozarks African Americans: 1820 to 1950"

KUAF | By Jacqueline Froelich

Published January 30, 2016 at 3:31 PM CST

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Teressa Hoover, historic Fayetteville African American resident

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Sherman Morgan, historic Fayetteville African American resident

Shiloh Museum of Ozark History

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Jessie Bryant, contemporary Fayetteville African American resident

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Eureka Springs African American tourists, circa 1920s

Eureka Springs Historical Museum

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Eureka Springs couple with child, circa 1920s

Eureka Springs Historical Museum

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Richard Banks, Eureka's last African American resident circa 1950s

Freeman family archives

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The Ku Klux Klan staged cross-burnings and terrorist acts across the Arkansas Ozarks in an effort to drive provincial African Americans out

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Harrison town square circa 1900

Boone County History archives

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Harrison resident before early 1900s race riots

Boone County History archives

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Alecta Caledonia Melvina Smith aka “Aunt Vine,” that only African American to remain in Harrison after the ethnic cleansing";s:

David Zimmermann collection

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Plaque commemorating the lynching of three innocent African American youth on the Springfield, Missouri town square in 1906

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Tulsa’s African American Greenwood District, also known as “America’s Black Wall Street” was completely destroyed by race war in the early 1920s";s:3:"u

“Arkansas Ozarks African Americans: A Special KUAF History Documentary.”

The original two-disc set for "Arkansas Ozarks African Americans 1820 - 1950"

KUAF Public Radio is proud to present "Arkansas Ozarks African Americans: 1820 to 1950," a two-hour public radio documentary chronicling the historic black communities of Washington, Carroll, Benton, and Boone counties over a span of 130 years. Written and produced by investigative journalist, Jacqueline Froelich--and first broadcast in 2000--this comprehensive black history profiles the significant presence of and contributions by African Americans to Arkansas Ozarks culture.

Narrated by Julia Rose Sampson and hosted by Pete Hartman, the documentary features interviews with contemporary Ozarks African Americans, black history scholars, local historians and white residents and is illuminated by reenactments gleaned from archived diaries, news paper articles, and published historical records.

ArkOzarksAfricanAmericans2.mp3

Arkansas Ozarks Afircan Americans 1820 to 1950: Part 2

The two-hour audio program is arranged by Ozarks African American settlement place names (conferred by provincial whites) including "Happy Hollow" in western Washington County, "The Clique" in Bentonville, the "Tin Cup" in Fayetteville, and "Nigger Town" in Eureka Springs.

"Arkansas Ozarks African Americans" also unearths, for the first time, events leading up to the ethnic cleansing of Harrison, Arkansas beginning in 1905--a history that remained buried for almost a century--chronicles a mass lynching in nearby Springfield, Missouri, and sheds new light on a race war which destroyed the prosperous black district of Tulsa, Oklahoma, killing hundreds.

This investigative history was funded by the Arkansas Humanities Council and is a winner of an American Association for State and Local History Award, which recognizes achievement in the preservation and interpretation of local, state, and regional history.

Original and traditional music for this documentary was written and performed by Chris Bradley with Chadwick Martin at Flying Squirrel Studio in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.