We've got over 150 exhibits and artifacts we're planning to show in our new facility. We're excited about all of them, but here are some of the highlights.
Annie Whitehead Townsend
Annie Whitehead Townsend was born August 1, 1947 on Sherard Plantation in Sherard, MS, to Rainey and Addie Mae Whitehead. Annie had 13 siblings.
As sharecroppers on the plantation, Annie and her family chopped and picked cotton, helped carry the cotton to the cotton house on their shoulders, and helped to load finished cotton bales onto the train for shipping--no easy task, as a bale weighed approximately 1600 lbs. Once a cotton bale had been completed, the plantation owner paid the family approximately $6.00 in seed money. This was pitifully low, but the plantation owner kept the books, and contact outside the plantation was minimal, so the Whitehead family was unaware of the degree to which the owner was taking advantage of them.
More information and images from Annie's life will appear in the forthcoming exhibit in our new facility.
To learn more before the exhibit is available, you can see an interview with Annie on the website of the Arkansas Studies Institute.
The Urban Renewal Project
Lois Threet
Lois Threet was a Relocation Officer for the Department of Housing and Urban Development in 1959. She also lived in the West Rock Addition, a black community in Little Rock, located adjacent to the wealthy white Pulaski Heights community. In her work and her personal life, she witnessed the horror of a "total clearance" of West Rock--every resident was forced to find a new home, in order to make room to expand Pulaski Heights further.
In this exhibit, Lois tells the story of this tragedy from her unique vantage point, with insight into all sides of the conflict.
To learn more before the exhibit is available, you can see an interview with Lois on the website of the Arkansas Studies Institute.
More Exhibits Coming Soon
Life Before Electricity
Paved Roads
Art and music project for local youth (in partnership with Twin Groves Public Library)