Remembering Blackville, Arkansas

Join us on Wednesday, June 17, at 6 p.m., for “Remembering Blackville, Arkansas,” a program held in celebration of Juneteenth. Authors Carolyn Ann Butler Cooley and Wally G. Vaughn will discuss their book, “Blackville, Arkansas – Fashioned by a Former Slave: Stories from Individuals Who Remember Blackville.”

Blackville, Arkansas, an all-Black self-sufficient thriving community, was named after its founder, Pickens Black Sr., a former slave. When he was a young man, he migrated to Jackson County in Northeast Arkansas. While working in Jackson County, Black saved his earnings, purchased acres of land, cut the timber, and sold it so he could purchase more acres. By the 1940s, he owned 8,000 acres of land, comparable to twelve square miles.
His land started about fourteen miles south of Newport, Arkansas, the county seat, and ran twenty miles south to Shortland.