What you’ll find in Harrison, Arkansas: A tidy town with clean streets and a solid feel to it. A pleasant bike path along the Buffalo River. Friendly folks who stop to chat with you, and then honk and wave when they see you elsewhere in town. An awesome historical museum.
What you won’t find in Harrison, Arkansas: Any black faces. And no reference (not even in said awesome historical museum) as to how this happened in a region where 56% of the population is African American.
Here’s how it happened here:
The documentary “Banished” (which I have been unable to find in its entirety, but have now read much about) apparently tells this story of Harrison and other communities with similar histories. One article mentioned that these towns remain all-white to this day.
To this day? Surely not. So I took on the challenge of finding some black faces. I looked in passing cars, in local parks crowded with families. In shops and banks, the library and the local hardware store. Fast food joints.
I looked in every room of every floor of the Boone County Historical Museum and found the county history, the city history, the Civil War heroes. Even a room with the history of the local high school. But not a word about what happened in 1907 and 1909. And nary a black face in any photo, anywhere.
Finally, I saw a young African America man on the basketball court behind the junior high school. Families with tiny tikes in miniature shin guards were streaming passed him from the nearby soccer field. I had seen of groups boys playing pick-up football in nearby parks, but this guy was shooting hoops alone.
Later, I read that Harrison today has the largest and most active Ku Klux Klan unit in the U.S. I’m not sure what “active” means, but I found myself wondering who might be a member. The firefighter who waved at me as I drove by? The gentleman who told me this is a nice, safe town?
I’m trying not to pass (too much) judgment here. As it turns out, my great-great (and maybe one more great) Uncle John House was a slave owner in Missouri, and probably other great-greats were as well.
I just find the demographics and the selective history-telling to be disturbing.
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