A book described as the first comprehensive history of race relations in the Natural State has been published by the University of Arkansas Press.

Titled "Ruled by Race: Black/White Relations in Arkansas from Slavery to the Present", the book was written by long-time Arkansas writer Grif Stockley. It describes the ways that race has been at the center of much of the state’s formation and image since its founding.

The subject of race is a passionate interest for Stockley, who was raised in Marianna. “My family owned slaves and my father owned plantations in eastern Arkansas and Mississippi, so I am a direct beneficiary of white supremacy,” Stockley said.

Influenced by the idealism of the Kennedy era but not substantially involved in the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s, Stockley began to question the status quo in earnest only after a stint overseas. “I joined the Peace Corps after college and became radicalized by the poverty in Colombia,” Stockley said. “It is still a matter of great irony to me that I had to go to South America to see poverty. Lee County was and is one of the poorest counties in the United States.”

Stockley began working on the manuscript that eventually became Ruled by Race in 1976. Stockley’s goal in writing the book was to bring to life the voices of both black and white, those who have both studied and lived the racial experience in Arkansas. The book includes the work of published and unpublished historians and primary source materials, along with stories from authors as diverse as Maya Angelou and E. Lynn Harris.

Topics range from slavery to the well-known Central High Crisis of 1957 to lesser-known events, such as the Elaine Race Massacre of 1919, and the sadly commonplace attitudes found every day in newspaper reports and speeches.

Adam Green, author of Selling the Race: Culture and Community in Black Chicago: 1940-1955, calls the book “an important and useful contribution to the literature on Arkansas history and to general readers elsewhere who see Arkansas as an important locus on Southern race relations over the past two centuries.”

Stockley is the author of Race Relations in the Natural State; Daisy Bates: Civil Rights Crusader from Arkansas; and Blood in Their Eyes: The Elaine Race Massacres of 1919, along with six legal mysteries.

An attorney who has worked with the Center for Arkansas Legal Services, the Disability Rights Center, and the Arkansas branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, Stockley completed Ruled by Race while serving as a historian and curriculum specialist at the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies.

Stockley will be traveling across the state discussing Ruled by Race. He will be at the Central Arkansas Library Systems Darragh Center in Little Rock on January 9, Wordsworth Books in Little Rock on January 10, Lakeport Plantation in Lake Village on February 7, Lakeside High School in Lake Village and Ouachita Technical College in Malvern on February 19, Fort Smith Public Library on February 20, and the University of Arkansas’ Mullins Library in February as part of the university’s black history month program.

He will also be a featured writer at the Arkansas Literary Festival in Little Rock, April 16-19.

Grif Stockley Photo Courtesy: southernscribe.com