The Department of History and the College of Liberal Arts of the University of Central Arkansas announce the screening of ?The Lost Year?, a documentary on Sunday, November 19 at 3 p.m. in Reynolds Performance Hall on the UCA campus. Unlike the more familiar story of the nine African-American youths who integrated Central High in 1957, this story recounts a series of events in the following year, “The Lost Year of 1958-59”, when 3,665 black and white Little Rock students were locked out of their high schools while their teachers were locked into empty classrooms. The high schools affected were Little Rock Central, Little Rock Hall and Little Rock Technical High for whites and Horace Mann High for blacks.
Denial of educational access to Little Rock?s youth profoundly affected thousands of families, intensified personal prejudices and ruptured an already divided community. The stories by race are compelling, and tell a powerful story in themselves. Academic access was denied to thousands, but numbers show that 93 percent of whites located alternative schooling while 50 percent of the black students did not. Students and citizens alike were held in limbo, while records show Arkansas politicians succeeded in forestalling court-mandated school integration during the second year of the desegregation crisis.
The one-hour documentary was produced and directed by Sandra Hubbard of Morning Star Studio in cooperation with Dr. Sondra Gordy from the UCA Department of History. The film reveals a largely untold story of events in Little Rock in 1958-59 where issues of race and class affected thousands in Little Rock and beyond.
Funding for the Lost Year Project came from The National Endowment for the Humanities through the Arkansas Humanities Council, The President?s Fund at the University of Central Arkansas, The Fred Darragh Foundation, the Bridge Fund of the Central Arkansas Library System and the Arkansas Community Foundation.
Admission is free. For more information, interested persons may contact the UCA Department of History at (501)450-3158, Dr. Gordy at (501)450-5629 or Sandra Hubbard at (501)663-9293. For information regarding the entire Lost Year Project, persons may visit www.thelostyear.com
