Kenneth Barnes, professor and chair of the Department of History, had an article, “Inspiration from the East: Black Arkansans Look to Japan,” published in the fall issue of the Arkansas Historical Quarterly. In November, he attended a workshop in Johannesburg, South African on Back-to-Africa migrations from North America and the West Indies. The conference was organized by the Centre for the Advanced Study of African Societies in Capetown, which will publish Dr. Barnes’s paper in an anthology about the Back-to-Africa movement.
Kenneth Barnes, professor of history, will be the guest speaker at an archeology film and lecture event Friday, Dec. 10, beginning at 7 p.m. The program is part of Picture the Past, a cooperative venture between Winthrop Rockefeller Institute and the Arkansas Archeological Survey, and will be held at the Institute atop Petit Jean Mountain. Barnes is the author of “Who Killed John Clayton? Political Violence and the Emergence of the New South, 1861-1893.” His book and the 1998 documentary “Who Shot John Clayton” explore the mysterious 1889 assassination of Congressman-elect John Middleton Clayton of Arkansas, who was shot in Conway County. The documentary, which will be shown at Picture the Past, examines racial tensions and living conditions in Arkansas before and after Reconstruction.