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This article also partially published in Northwest
Arkansas Living™ Magazine
Apartments Edition |
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Elizabeth Eckford Desegregates at Tyson; |
The Legacy of One of the Little Rock Nine |
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A circular drive adorns the entryway
into the corporate world of Tyson Foods (NYSE: TSN). Tyson is one of Arkansas' most
prized, respected and celebrated corporate citizens. Screaming lynch mobs, racial slurs
and government ordered desegregation adorn the powerful legacy of the Arkansas Public
School System; in 1957, Little Rock Central High School (Central as it's called) was one
of the state's largest (2,100 students then), most controversial, by anyone's standards,
and ominous inner city train wrecks, and that's putting it lightly. The circular reference
for Tyson's driveway and the event held at Tyson's corporate offices with one of |
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Elizabeth Eckford, Meets &
Greets Tyson Managers |
Picture Courtesy: Danielle L. Wood, U of A
Recruiter |
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Elizabeth Eckford, Poses @
Tyson World Headquarters |
Picture Courtesy: Danielle L. Wood, U of A
Recruiter |
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| the original Little Rock Nine, Elizabeth Eckford, as keynote speaker, is
an interesting analogy for what Oprah Winfrey would probably call a "full circle
moment." A moment for me, in time, a product of the desegregated Little Rock Public
School System as well as a desegregated University of Arkansas, Sam M. Walton College of
Business it was most certainly a "full circle moment."
I also have to mention that it was not all that long ago that I became familiar with the
Little Rock Nine story. I can keenly remember a movie guy knocking on my parent's door one
day about 10 or 15 years or so ago and asking for my dad. He said that he was making a
movie about the Little Rock Nine and wanted to know if my father would be interested in
letting the crew use a few of my dad's 1957 Fords in the movie. I think the name of the
movie was the |
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| "Earnest Green Story." Well, to make a long story short, my
father's red 1957 Hardtop Ford Fairlane 500 opened the movie. But I was still too young
back then to really know, understand and appreciate what it all meant. I thought it was
cool, however, that my dad had cars in the movie (they used two of his '57 Fords or maybe
it was three I can't really remember). The gesture of using my father's red Fairlane to
open the movie gave me some serious bragging rights in high school. I got the chance to
really show it off by ... |
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