Again, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Arkansas Week.

I'm Steve Barnes.

Thank you for joining us.

It is celebration time for these United States, now a quarter millennium old.

No doubt the July 4th festivities in other states may be bigger, louder, even more colorful, but Arkansas will match them molecule by molecule, in enthusiasm and in preparation.

On essentially every front.

Our state's public and private sectors for months have been planning and observance that will continue well past Independence Day, notably in the education sphere.

The intent is to make history come alive, to give students, especially, a better understanding of who we are and how we became.

And a part of that is the role Arkansas has played in crafting the union.

America's 250th birthday is the perfect moment, it would seem to introduce a new Arkansas week and at a new time, 6:00 on Friday with repeats on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

And speaking of time, we're expanding our program from 30 minutes to a full hour.

So with that, we begin.

If we weren't among the original 13 colonies, it didn't take long for the new nation to expand to the south and to the west and to the north.

We were a territory before we were a state.

In both formulations.

We were making history, which means we turn now to a pair of historians with a deep understanding of the way we were and how it became a piece of a larger mosaic.

Joining us, Doctor Vaughn Scribner of the University of Central Arkansas, and Doctor Tom black, formerly of Arkansas Tech, University emeritus.

Gentlemen, thank you for coming in.

Where do we start?

With Jefferson and Monroe, or how?

I would say we'd go back a little farther than that.

And this really kind of brings Arkansas into the fold before there even was an Arkansas.

Because a major reason the American Revolution breaks out is over land.

Land that will eventually become part of Arkansas.

And you have something they called the French and Indian War.

The British called it.

This is a bit of a misnomer.

They had native peoples on their side as well, but it's a massive war between France and Great Britain over what they call the Ohio Valley country, which is in present day Ohio.

And when Great Britain wins the war and kicks France out of America, a lot of who they would have called themselves British colonists in America want this land now.

And for various reasons, the the British government says, well, you can't have it right now.

It's too expensive.

You're causing more wars.

And this really makes a lot of people mad, including our future president and the leader of the American forces, George Washington, who is very clear in his objections to what they call the proclamation line of 1763.

That's basically a north south line that says you can't go past here.

And he says, we have to go get this right now.

We'd be fools not to.

And so a combination of anger over land and then some taxes is really going to break out into this world war.

That is the American Revolution and a British civil war as well.

So it's a complex event in that way.

And the stage was set, the stage was set.

And as von said, it's not only a British civil war.

It becomes, particularly in the South, an American civil war.

A significant proportion, probably around 20% of all the colonists were sympathetic to the British.

And that is particularly true in the South.

You have a larger loyalist group in the South.

So it becomes really a civil war between Americans in the South.

Yeah.

So suddenly or not suddenly took you decades.

Actually, we become a territory.

Yes.

With.

Yeah.

I'm sorry.

And it's interesting too, because I like that Tom mentioned this, that this idea of the Civil War and, you know, we're we're in the 250th anniversary right now of Americans declaring their independence.

I oftentimes study the revolution from a British perspective.

So from the British perspective, Americans don't actually gain their independence until 1783.

But we as a nation declared ourselves separate in 1776.

But who was the we?

There were plenty of people in the colonies who were saying, well, this is a horrible idea where we want to be with the British side.

There are other people say we want to be with the American side, and there are plenty of other people who are saying, I don't really know which side I want, and it's going to flip flop, because leave me out of this.

Exactly.

I want to have my farm or I want to have my tavern.

I don't want to get wrapped up in all of this.

And so it was this civil war and this really human day to day struggle at the time.

And it's interesting that we're in this moment now where we can remember this time, 1776, the Declaration of Independence.

But when they declared independence, there was no guarantee, and quite the opposite, that this was even going to work out.

Right, or that we that the colonists would prevail.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Of course.

Arkansas, you don't think of Arkansas when you think of the Revolutionary War.

But as Judge Morris Arnold, who's a fabulous scholar of this, this period points out, there was a Revolutionary War battle in Arkansas.

At Arkansas Post.

He wrote an article about this in the in the Democrat because they had a couple of Sundays ago.

And it's so convoluted, Steve.

Scots and British and Chickasaws and Quapaw and French and Spanish.

You have a French commander of what's now a Spanish territory where Arkansas Post is located.

The term melting pot absolutely comes to mind, and many of the many of the people who are fighting on the in this Arkansas Post phase are Mattie, their mixed race people.

How did that of all of that Arkansas Post, going back to already in the 17th century, forms are very small and in some ways insignificant, in some ways very important post which whose population varied but never got too large.

It served as a trading post for trade with the Indians.

It started a jumping off point for hunters.

It served as a way station for people traveling on the Mississippi River.

And so, while not every terribly large, it was terribly significant.

Well, and that's a good point about this, too, is that when the American Revolution breaks out, Americas, even their largest cities like Boston, Philadelphia, New York City, British people who come and visit call them English country towns.

They're they're not big.

They're 15,000 people.

And so America, only about 5% of American colonists live in cities.

So the colonies at this point and beyond, out west until what?

The frontier, which is what the British would have called this French and Spanish claimed land.

It was all very rustic by European standards.

And this is bringing this back in when these British and German soldiers come over to fight in America during the revolution and try to put down this independence movement, they run up against this strange new environment that they come into.

You've got a lot of city boys basically coming over 3000 miles across the Atlantic, and they're kind of shocked by all these new environments and creatures and weather patterns.

And so America in this way was kind of this, this, this foreign new entity in that way.

Now, don't tell that to the Native American people who've been here for 15,000 years.

But from a European perspective, it was this, this strange land.

And I think you can see that Arkansas Post where you have these theoretically small spaces that are very mixed, very rustic.

But for the people living there at the time, they're imperative for for day to day life and power and empire and even global empire.

Yeah.

Well, and beyond that, to just the sheer human demographics.

There was the terrain.

There was the climate.

Yes it was.

Yes.

I joked to my students, always imagine you're a Scott, a Scottish kid, and you come across the Atlantic to fight, and all of a sudden you find yourself waist deep in some swamp in the south with crocodiles and alligators.

They called them both the same thing.

You've never seen something like this?

This is this foreign land and the occasional bear.

Exactly.

Yes, yes.

So it's the American War for independence or American Revolution is truly a war of global scope.

But it's also a war of these individual moments, these these intimate experiences.

And so that's what's something interesting about it still is.

It's it's ebb and flow.

And we can look at it from so many different ways, whether it's what would have been considered the time of rather small kind of skirmish at the Arkansas Post to something like the Battles of Lexington and Concord, it's happening all over from Canada through the Caribbean, through the present day United States.

Yeah.

And pick it up from there.

We going back to what Vaughn says.

It is very, very a war of very mixed results.

For every great triumph, there is at least one or sometimes more than one significant defeat.

And I think the greatness of Washington in a revolution is not that he was a great tactician, but that the fact that he was the man and maybe the only man capable of keeping the movement alive, indispensable man, in those desperate times.

Absolutely.

Yes.

Yeah.

With a number of authors have remarked, documented the the incredible role that luck played in the in the creation of of the United States of the Revolution.

It could have gone the other way easily.

Interesting.

You said that because one of the best books or the series of books now is by military historian and Rick Atkinson, who's one of our best, probably the best military historian around.

He's now writing a trilogy on the American Revolution.

He just finished the second volume, which he called The Fate of the day.

He spoke in little Rock recently, and I would interrupt to say that he'll be a guest on it.

Oh, wonderful.

Yes.

Go ahead.

Brilliant writer, thorough researcher.

But he he asked the audience, he said, do you know what Napoleon said?

The characteristic he most wanted in the general was.

And no one responded.

And he said, look, he wanted somebody that was lucky.

And you're right.

Much of it was good fortune.

You had to build on that.

Even going back to the environment, Washington famously gets trapped at the Battle of Long Island, 1776.

They they know the British are going to be coming for New York.

And so Washington sends all of his men to New York to shore it up.

It's a great harbor.

It's a great city.

And his men kind of get routed, and he finds himself trapped on the East River, and he's surrounded.

And his his troops even say that he felt like his maybe his luck had run out.

And he was kind of kind of out of it a little bit.

But then this providential fog rolls in and it gives him and his men the opportunity to escape.

But the war could have been over before it began.

Right then, you know, of course, from American forces are saying, God's on our side, the climate and the environment or even on our side.

But time and again, even as a younger man, Washington would ride in the battle, he'd have horses shot out from under him, hat shot off of him.

He'd have bullet holes in his his jacket.

He was incredibly brave.

He was known to not be a great tactician.

Like you said.

He wasn't always good at thinking on his feet.

He and Jefferson kind of have a falling out over that later in life.

But as a leader of men, he really was singular.

Literally a commander.

Yes.

And I think it's important to note that I would always argue the two greatest things that Washington ever did.

And this kind of was quit.

And I say that because he stepped down after the American Revolution.

He could have been King George the Fourth if he wanted to be, you know, to.

Exactly.

Well, we stepped down after the war and then after two terms as president.

And so he set this incredible precedent then and that.

So I think for me, of all the great things he did that is most telling of his character, that he was able to do that.

Yeah.

You can't read this stuff either, Steve, without being struck by how many times during the course of this war, Washington or someone in Washington's commanders says, we think this is just about up.

It's about over.

We don't see how we can sustain this.

And yet somehow they did.

And I think that's largely attributable to him.

And a few years later, along comes Mr.

Jefferson, who buys Arkansas.

Well, yeah, much of the rest of the continent, for what, less than a nickel on a per acre, including us.

Greatest deal of all time.

And Louisiana territory, Louisiana Purchase.

They start charting it out and surveying it in Arkansas.

Now you can go to a little swamp.

I haven't been, but I've seen the images.

You can see it's in a swamp, basically with a stone placard.

This is where it began.

Something else that I think is very important to remember in all this is that the importance of allies, without the help of France, American independence might not ever have been gained.

And then you have other people from other countries, Pulaski, after whom our county is named.

Right.

Our capital cities county is a Polish patriot killed at the Battle of Savannah.

But the French army and the French fleet are instrumental in securing American independence.

Absolutely.

I couldn't agree more.

And that's that's why we have the Arkansas Post skirmishes.

Because when the French and the Spanish join the British now all of a sudden, geopolitically, this war totally changes as well, because before that, the British only really had to worry about what's going on in these 13 disparate colonies and Canada and the Caribbean.

But when the French and Spanish join in and they have the second and third most powerful navy, now all of a sudden the British don't have control of the Atlantic like they used to.

And remember, you can swim across the channel from France to England.

People do it every year.

So now they have to worry about, you know, continental Europe as well.

So scholars often say that the British could have kept fighting the war.

But there comes a point when any when any military force, as we've seen in various other examples, when they're fighting a far flung war and things start to kind of change, you have to make a decision what's worth it, what's not.

Yeah.

Back home, there was some domestic back on the subject of Ally Stevens.

Important to note that Britain had almost none.

Yes, they had managed to alienate just about everybody so well, and they had to purchase their Hessian conscripts.

A scholar wrote a book called Three Victories and a defeat, which is kind of a play off.

That movie, Three Weddings and a funeral.

And he made this argument that in the previous transatlantic wars, Great Britain had always had these, these Holy Roman Empire, which was kind of a misnomer once again.

But they'd had them as official allies and they didn't have that anymore.

So they didn't have friends on the continent.

So they really had turned themselves into a true island nation at this point.

Moving, moving forward.

What about three decades anyway, after the purchase, we become a state.

We enter the Union that we now celebrate.

Yeah.

Yeah we do.

And you could make an argument, I think that we entered maybe before we were ready.

As long as your territory, the federal government pays your officials, the government functions.

And once you become a state that's on you.

And Arkansas was a poor territory.

It was a poor state.

We have a we have a banking fiasco very early in our history.

And that legacy of poverty, I think, houses down to the present day.

And we also, of course, have the Cherokee Trail of Tears that passes through Arkansas.

And John Ross was one of the I'm sorry, John Ridge, who was one of the major leaders of the Cherokees.

His wife is buried in in Little Little Rock because they stopped there on their on their way west.

And that's something else we think about.

Oftentimes you have this story of pioneers moving west, and Arkansas is part of this story.

But the first pioneer is moving west.

Were oftentimes displaced Native American peoples from the east.

And so you have Arkansas being swept up in this story of is a result of the American Revolution of displacement, various peoples pushing West, poverty, hardship.

Arkansas was very much still the frontier in many ways when it became a state trading in scalps and furs and, you know, and whatever.

Obviously, you have a passion as historians.

How do you whether in the classroom or in any other aspect of our culture?

How do you imbue young people?

What's your thought on imbuing young people with, with, with a sense of who we are and how we got here and why that's important?

Well, I go back all the way to the days when you had this little record you played in turn to Slide Machine.

We have so many wonderful audiovisual resources now.

Ken Burns, Sears and Revolution and my US history classes.

I always showed the chapter on the great John Adams video, which was the trial of the British soldiers accused in the Boston Massacre.

And I think that helped bring home what the what the time and the place were like.

I think that's one of the hardest things for historians to do, is to get modern day students to understand how different the time and the place were.

Yeah, yeah.

And to build off that, oftentimes as a scholar of the American Revolution, we oftentimes kind of get overlooked.

You know, outshined by the American Civil War, World War One, World War Two, a lot of students don't come in knowing a lot about the revolution, and they see it as this very distant event.

And it really wasn't that long ago.

We're still a very young nation in this.

In the scheme of things in history, 250 years really wasn't that long ago.

So one thing I try to do is try to get students to put themselves in these other people's shoes.

I tell them, you know, people haven't changed that much.

They might have dressed differently than us, maybe talked a little bit differently, but they were facing a lot of the same struggles you and I are now, or trying to imagine yourself in this civil war where you're trying to survive.

What happens when troops come into your city, and that helps them.

And I also try to remind them that the American Revolution is the beginning of and part of this ongoing American experiment that we're all a part of.

Still, it wasn't that long ago.

And the decisions that people made, the mistakes that people made, the triumphs that they had are still really resonating today.

And we're all still a part of this experiment in American democracy and freedom and liberty.

And we've done some things in a very short period of time.

But to understand that, you have to go back to the beginning.

Yeah.

So there remains this and all all too often there remains a disconnect, anyway, between life today and the revolution.

Yes.

And again, that's that's hard to bring, not just among young people.

I know, absolutely not.

That's what's hard to bridge, because I used to talk in my class about think of the first 10 or 20 things you did today after you got up.

You couldn't do any of those things in this time period.

That's how much things have changed.

It was a different world in many ways.

Yeah, yeah, it was, and I agree.

But I will say that I still think we as people haven't changed that much.

If you read people's diaries from the times, they, they had stresses and anxieties.

They worried they had crushes, they had heartbreak, you know, but at the same time, the past is a different country in many ways.

And so to try to get students to understand that time period, but also try to see themselves in that time period, and as Tom has mentioned, it was an incredible, incredibly, this idea of this melting pot.

In the past, there were people from all over the world, people from all sorts of different backgrounds participating in this, in this conflict or trying to avoid it.

And so almost anyone can find connections with this at this time, as historians, you almost by definition, you take the long view.

Here we are at 250, and we have been through a lot for two and a half centuries.

Do you find should we be?

Do we have what's the basis for our celebration?

Can we keep it going?

I think that are we owed a celebration of us?

I think so, absolutely.

I think America has in many ways been the in the hope of the world.

And hopefully it will continue to be the hope of the world.

But I don't think you I don't think you celebrate something by refusing to acknowledge the bad things that happened in your history as well.

You can't whitewash it.

You have to take the good with the bad.

You have to seek out the truth and presented as closely as you can.

And I think that's the task that all his story and struggle with.

Its to try to find that balance and to try to try to try to be as objective as possible.

Yeah, I totally agree that this is this human story and this humans work.

We're complex.

And I say this once again to my students all the time, have if you ever done something you're not proud of.

Of course, America's stories, the same way we've done incredible things.

Incredible doesn't always have to mean good or bad, but we are indeed this.

The Declaration of Independence was a world changing document, and we're still living in the era of this declaration, and we're still figuring it out as we go.

But I think we should celebrate it.

And I think we should also use this as a moment of reflection and think about not just the last 250 years, but what are the next 25 or the next 50 years going to look like?

And how do we use this as a reflection point, but also a projection point where where do we want to go from here?

Yeah.

So and also the thing is, whether it's individuals or as a nation, you can't really understand who you are or plot out where you're going unless you have a really good understanding of where you've been.

And I think that's why history, the study of history, is so critical to the modern students.

Teaches us empathy, teaches us how to see beyond our our worldviews or our life experiences, and connect with peoples and ideas and places that are seemingly far flung but oftentimes aren't as much as we think.

So yeah, a couple of minutes remaining and I will pose this question.

The notion of American exceptionalism.

Is it still valid?

Is it valid?

That's a that's that is maybe the the question of America and American history, whether we're looking at the frontier or the American West or American independence.

It's a that's a tricky question because America is exceptional in many ways.

But once again, sometimes we're exceptionally.

Exceptionalism doesn't always mean just positive or just negative.

It's we're we're this ongoing experiment, right?

Yes.

I think there's American exceptionalism.

But if you can't look at the World Cup now, and without thinking that every nation has a sense that it is in some way exceptional, whether it's French, German, whatever, they're exceptional.

But yes, American exceptionalism.

Sure.

And as von said, is good and bad.

To be a nation is to have this idea of exceptionalism.

And oftentimes our history is sometimes taught through this lens and learn through this lens.

And it's our job to be objective as we can in that.

Yeah.

Doctor Scribner and Black, thank you so much for coming in and sharing with us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And we'll be back in a moment.

And we are back and back to take up the matter of how the state is approaching this landmark anniversary and what it means for the future, maybe even the next 250.

We're joined by Secretary Shane Lewis of the state Department of Parks, Heritage and Tourism.

He also chairs the Arkansas 250 Commission and Commission member, Doctor Ken Warden, head of the state Division of Higher Education.

Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming aboard.

Mr.

Secretary, we will.

Mr.

Chairman, we will begin with you.

It's it's kind of an umbrella term.

Arkansas.

250 in terms of what you're trying to accomplish here, what you've created.

Sure.

Exactly.

Governor Sanders created a team about 18 months ago of commissioners, a talented group of individuals that all bring different skill sets.

And this group has come together to really take an opportunity to celebrate this moment.

We knew from the very beginning that this was a unique moment in time.

A lot of us remember the Bicentennial and think back to those important celebrations that took.

If you're old enough, it was a little young for me, but to remember, but it's something that we wanted to do, was to make it memorable and connect to Arkansans into America's history overall.

Yeah.

And how are you going?

You've got about a five element plan that under the Arkansas 250 rubric.

That's right.

So I was fortunate to chair the be one of the co-chairs of the education committee of the Arkansas to 50 Commission.

And really, I think one of the most important things we can do to this process is engage our young people in the process.

So through a at the Department of Education, we call it Arkansas Celebrates America.

Two 5250 for short.

We create a lot of content and a lot of activities that are age appropriate from our children.

A lot of partnerships through our through our school districts, through the libraries, other nonprofit partners, Crystal bridges, the Clinton Library to develop some things to really ensure that all our Kansas and young people have the opportunity to not just remember it, but to have an experience related to that.

And we, the three seas we say are connect, celebrate and contribute.

So we want our students to connect to America's history, want to celebrate Arkansas as part of the story, and contribute to the future success of how they're not just learning about history, but how they are a part of this citizenry that's creating history for the for the next 250.

Yeah, not to be cynical, but young people are notoriously difficult to engage as you want, particularly in something like history.

They don't see the connect.

How is there a formula to get around that?

Well, I think that, you know, we want them to engage in it, as I mentioned.

And so creating activities where they are using inquiry, using hands on activities to experience it, not just to to have it force fed to them that, you know, which is the perspective of classroom instruction.

It's more about learning through inquiry and experience.

And so we designed multimedia activities, hands on activities across the spectrum to make sure that students are engaged from college level students who are involved with oral history projects, to grade school students who are experiencing digital content through partnerships with Virtual Arkansas and others.

Yeah, Louis, we knew at the very beginning that we wanted to connect to the youth of our state, but also all all age students, and really, it was going to be a priority.

The governor has put a lot of emphasis into the education department and the work that was going on there, and we knew that connecting not only what they would learn in the classroom, but over to civic engagement and to community pride, was was a real important part of this is that that, you know, that we really wanted to instill that that feeling of patriotism, of just what is going on.

And, you know, during this special year.

Yeah.

And another element of what you're trying to do, as we understand it, is raise the stakes, but engage communities in a way.

Towns and cities, boroughs, you know, in a way that perhaps hasn't been attempted before.

Sure.

We knew that, you know, as a commission, we couldn't do all of, you know, the things ourselves.

We can't be successful without community involvement.

And we were going to quickly depend on other agencies to help support, but but also depend on the communities to offer these great events.

And we're seeing some tremendous things happen.

You know, we're seeing flagpoles dedicated in Leslie, Arkansas to to the semi centennial.

It's a word that we're all getting used to saying now.

We're seeing great events being planned in Jonesboro, Fort Smith, El Dorado, northwest Arkansas.

It's all coming together because of the community involvement.

Yeah.

Ken.

Yeah.

So as far as with communities.

You know, these students all have families at home.

And we created experiences with partnership, for instance, with the Secretary of state's office, where we created a passport project so they can download the activity, print out their passport book, and then seek out the places near to their home that they can go and engage and get their passport stamped in when they fulfill their past book.

They're then eligible for or receive gifts for their participation.

So there's a prize at the end of that.

And not just to engage them in the classroom, but things for their students and their parents and students can do together or their families can do together.

That's maybe not so costly, but also engages them locally in what those local contributions are to the Arkansas story, to the national story.

Yeah.

Secretary Lewis seems to think it's going over pretty well.

What's the enthusiasm level?

I mean, what's the response?

We've we've received great response and feedback, not just from our classroom teachers but from others.

And I think, you know, we rely on a lot of partnerships, like I said earlier, with, with the libraries, with the secretary of State's office, with Parks and Heritage, with all of these.

But, you know, one of the biggest things is really is that impact of that teacher.

So we created a grade level, appropriate resources that are free downloads for the teachers.

And and we used existing resources in the division.

We we are constantly creating content frameworks, lesson plans.

So just theming those social studies and civics lessons and history lessons around 250 to to really accent and really shine a light on this year in this celebration.

So it's good work and I'm super proud of it.

Could not be more proud of our team over it.

Department of elementary Secondary Education and Curriculum for for their support of this.

I will say just from the outside looking in from the outside of the Department of Education and the team that Doctor Wharton put together, and Secretary Oliver just knocked the ball out of the park.

It's amazing the creativity that went into it and how quickly they produced the materials.

But just the how students have received this information has been very positive.

Part of the of the charge of the commission is to keep it, keep it going beyond, you know, the 4th of July weekend.

One of the things that we've done that has been really successful and been very well received from communities across the state is the implementation of Arkansas 250 Historic Marker Program.

These historic markers are being placed 11 total across our state.

We've been having ceremonies and unveiling these as the year has been going on, and it's just been amazing to see the response and how proud people of our Kansans are of their communities, and how those communities have contributed to our nation's history.

If you think about some of the locations where we've placed specific markers bauxite Arkansas provided 95% of the World War two aluminum or places like the Daisy Bates House in little Rock, where the little Rock nine gathered in the morning before going to Central High, Buffalo National River, our first national river in our country.

The Hattie Caraway Marker.

First elected woman to the U.S.

Senate.

The first Walmart in Rogers, Arkansas.

The old State House Museum, Petit Jean State Park, the Saracen treaty site, Louisiana Purchase State Park, Crater of diamonds, all unique Arkansas locations that have contributed to America's history that tends to get lost in the day to day of our lives, I suppose.

And I think to piggyback on Secretary Lewis's comments, all these educational experiences are about ensuring that that student sees themselves as a thread in this fabric of the of the nation.

And so, to give you a few specific examples, the Arkansas Christmas Ornament Project was themed around 250 this year, so we had over 160 school districts represented.

Over 300 students, submitted a Christmas ornament project.

Those are on display at the Capitol.

We have another unique example for adult students.

Doctor John Davis at the the Prior center at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Oral Visual History is leading an oral history project, and he put a call out to all the college universities and their students to to collect the data using a vetted set of questions so that it's all similar in nature, but to collect the histories.

And we've collected over 200 at this point, it's going to go for another couple of months so we can add to that number.

But, you know, those students engaging with those folks who have something to say and putting that in the archives at the prior center.

So, you know, that's another way that we're doing that.

So really won't be lost.

I mean, no, it's in perpetuity.

But these activities, so the students feel they're a part of that.

And locally, how did their community and how do they contribute and hopefully peak that interest, interest in students.

So they feel that sense of civic pride and responsibility of patriotism.

Yeah.

Where do you want to take this Shay Lewis from here?

Well, you know, there's there's things happening, you know, on the national level as well.

We've been a part of a time capsule program.

So 250 years from now, each state contributed one item to a time capsule that will be stored under in the Independence National Monument in Philadelphia, Arkansas.

Contributed diamond from Crater or Diamond State Park.

And so if you want to save the day 2275 on your calendar, I'll save it for maybe my great grandchildren to be there and see this time capsule on Earth.

But but we're partnering with America 250.

We're partnering with freedom 250 The America State Fair starts this weekend on the National Mall.

All 56 states and territories have a pavilion set up on the National Mall.

Arkansas will be represented there.

Our tourism division has put together an activation where people can come by and get a sampling of what Arkansas is about.

So we're taking this as an opportunity to tell others about Arkansas and invite them as part of the tourism industry to come visit us and experience the natural state.

Yeah, there would seem to be a special role for educators at every level, but including higher ed in maintaining the the momentum.

Anyway of 250.

Yes, I think there is.

And you know, through these projects, I think we're hoping just to spark or regenerate some of this interest and sense of, of patriotism.

And I think there's still opportunities.

So if folks that are watching have an interest or know someone who has an interest in contributing to the oral history project, if you don't mind, I'll give Doctor Davis's email address.

He asked me to do that.

It's G.D.

zero nine at.

If anyone is interested in contributing to oral history of Arkansas, we can still have them be part of this project.

You know, one of the projects that I really was just just so impressed by, the federal school district had a school and they created art tiles.

Each student did.

And that was unique to the student and a unique piece of history or something about them in their community that was special to them.

And then they put those together and as they piece them together, it created an American flag.

And that is on display.

And we are working now to have that displayed at the Capitol for several months.

I'm not sure the exact installation date, but I look forward to having that so others can see it.

It's just it's just remarkable.

And I think it really captures the essence of how unique individuals, experiences and piece of history and how that their community and their family there contributed to that is part of the of the of the quilt of, of the American flag or or of the quilt of America.

So it's super impressive.

And there's more projects, you know, I don't have enough time today to describe all of those, but really proud of the support and the enthusiasm.

We have a lot of resources that are available to everyone.

If they want to log on to our website, it's America two 50.8 Arkansas.

And they can see all these resources.

They can see our our the Mystery League cartoon characters.

You know, Arkansas Dog is now the state dogs and Labrador retriever.

So we have a gold lab, a yellow lab and a black lab.

And their names are Semi and Quinn for the semi centennial.

I thought that was pretty cool.

And they traveled around with our with our characters in Mystery League episodes and it's neat stuff.

Yeah.

What else are they going to find there on that site.

All the things that they're going to find, the all the educational resources things with the Secretary of State's for the past book, they can see things about the ornament project.

They can see all the resources and content for teachers and learners.

So it's not just available just to all schools in Arkansas, public, private, what have you.

And so if they haven't access those resources, there's a lot there to see and do.

And, and really the resources you need so that you don't have to create something from scratch, you can go participate in a project that is already there and handy and ready for you.

Yeah.

Mr.

Chairman, you can also visit Arkansas two 50.org if you have a. If you're in a community that's having an event, it can be listed on there.

We'll share it on our social media outlets as well to help promote and encourage attendance to those events as well.

There's also resources there that can be downloaded.

And you might have noticed, you know, we've had partners with our Dot Arkansas Department of Transportation.

And Director Wiley worked closely with us.

And if you're on a state highway and you cross into a new county line, you'll see the Arkansas 250 sign on each county entrance as you come into a new county there.

It's pretty exciting, as well as the flags that we have all across the state that are going up everywhere just to remind us of this special year multi-agency approach.

Then it is.

It is.

Yes.

We're fortunate to have just a lot of partners that wanted to be involved with this on the public side and the government side, but also the private side as well.

Yeah, we're from here.

That's a good question.

You know, I think for us, as we kind of look into the fall and as the school year continues or starts next year, going into the rest of the year, we've got more historic markers that will be going out.

Specifically, we know several events will be taking place in the fall as well.

We know there's a strong connection to some of the football games that will be taking place and have a opportunity to celebrate that.

Recognize veterans on Veterans Day.

As all of this continues through the year, we don't.

We?

I know everything is gearing up towards the 4th of July, and it's going to be an important time to celebrate, but it is going to continue throughout the rest of the year.

Ken Morton So I'll say there's there's we're going to continue to add monthly content and themes monthly to the digital content, educational resources that are on the website for teachers and for citizens to access.

So that's one of the things that we'll continue at least through this next year.

And then I think continued partnerships with all of the museums, other state agencies, the Clinton Library, the libraries, Arkansas State Librarian, county libraries, all these different resources.

It takes a partnership, I think, really to to pull this off and appreciate the you know, we've just been so well received everywhere we go as a commission and really with educator side of this.

And it's, it's it's it's something I'm really proud to be part of.

And it's a, it's a special time of celebration.

I have enough gray hair to remember the bicentennial.

I was a young fellow, but I do remember some things that that have carried you know, I've carried with me about the the time of the sense of patriotism and what happened in the Boston so special for me to be a part of this personally.

So.

Yeah.

So, so if, if, if a train runs on time, if the plan works, the observance won't end at midnight on July 4th.

Not exactly.

No, but.

And if you're looking for something to do between now and the 4th of July or now and through the end of July or the end of the year, Crystal bridges has a tremendous exhibit on America 250 that runs through the end of July.

So it does have a sunset at the end of July.

But the Old State House Museum in Little Rock, we have a before us Beyond Us exhibit that will run throughout the year.

It's open, it's free and available to the public.

It's really, really amazing to look at Arkansas's history through all of our different state mottos.

And so you can kind of, you know, see history in a unique way there.

So, yeah.

Ken Warden well, I think it's kind of finished where I started with the three sees, connect to America's history, celebrate Arkansas, a piece of that history and then contribute.

So it's important for us, our students particularly learn these things to see themselves there and realize how they're going to contribute and what those contributions might be being forward in their future, and really how that's going to yeah.

You're satisfied thus far with the response or overwhelmingly positive response?

Yeah, it's been really, really good.

And but there's there's I'm sure folks who are having access to resources.

And so this was going to help us get that word out.

There's plenty of time for those folks to take advantage of the resources and and to continue to celebrate this, this really monumental occasion.

Yeah.

Shea Lewis, I'll just close by saying there's also, if you want to contribute in a different way, to look for opportunities to volunteer at a state park, a museum, look for opportunities to give back.

There's a program called America Gives this year.

And and a lot of folks are donating their time just to be involved in one way, shape or form in the in the centennial.

Yeah.

See, Shea Lewis, Ken Morton, thanks very much for coming in.

Thanks for the update.

Thank you, thank you.

More in just a moment.

And finally, in this edition, the nuts and bolts of engaging young people in the stuff, the legacy of our history.

Arkansas TV is a part of that mission, naturally enough.

So naturally enough, we turn now to Bella Kirby, Arkansas TV's youth engagement coordinator, Bella Kirby.

You've been busy.

Yes, I have.

We've been doing a lot of things all around the state transcribe a thon, screenings, you name it.

I've been there.

Go tell us a little bit more about transcriber thoughts.

Yeah.

So at first I had no clue what a transcribe a thon was.

And when they asked me to help them host them, I was like, all right.

So I had to do a little bit of research.

But transcribe a thons are a partnership with the Library of Congress for their By the People initiative.

So basically, the Library of Congress has this giant amount of documents that are all primary sources.

So they're all handwritten or older sources that aren't digitized, and they reached out to normal citizens to say, hey, help us get them in our database.

And so we've been hosting gatherings for people all across the state, in every community, every age, to come and bring their computers or use a library's computer to type in these primary sources for the Library of Congress.

Right.

And we're talking about documents such as such as one of the most famous ones is Rosa Parks pancake recipe, which has peanut butter in it.

We thought that was really fun and delicious sounding, honestly.

Yeah, yeah.

And we did also a lot of other recipes, songs.

There's a lot of gossipy things as well.

We have journals, diaries.

We were once reading a court martial for someone who was being taken to a garrison, and we were obsessed with what was going to happen next.

We couldn't stop transcribing.

Yeah.

Have you have you found that sometimes people don't know what they have?

They don't know.

The value of what they have is just always been around, you know, it's on a corner up in a closet.

Yeah, it's really interesting once you kind of dive into it, because I think a lot of what our historical connections are is, oh, this is only important if it's something big and famous and at a really important time.

But some of the most important things that you can learn are from a day to day journal or a diary, which is often overlooked.

And most of the time the reason it's not in the database.

So we're reading these people's diaries.

We're getting a really comprehensive look at what did they do for Christmas in 1875?

What did they do for dinner that day?

Who did they see?

What's the gossip?

You know, and that's kind of we're able to get a much better look and have a lot more fun looking at those different small things.

Yeah.

What did a pound of wheat or flour cost or.

Yeah, that sort of thing.

Yeah, those are okay.

Transcribed thorns.

All right.

And then and also our screening.

So we recently had one at Hendrix College which I went to at the time.

Yay.

And we had a great success in watching the new Ken Burns.

Sarah Botstein and David Schmitt documentary about the American Revolution titled American Revolution.

It's a miniseries.

And they we had that and a student and professor panel.

So we wanted to hear I really wanted to make sure that we had students on the panel, because that's my job as youth engagement.

And also I think talking to students, they want to hear from students.

So we asked them why?

Why this?

Why now?

So why the American Revolution?

Why?

Now obviously it's the 250th anniversary, but why should we care?

Is a lot of the sentiment from young people?

Why should we care?

What what does this have to do with me?

And so I asked people, why?

How do you connect?

How how do you feel about it?

And I think connecting to instead of, you know, a historical moment or a historical figure, we found a lot more success in connecting to the ideas and the values of the American Revolution.

So what does being revolutionary mean to you?

What does freedom mean to you?

And we got a lot more success with engagement that way.

I asked my friends, what what does it mean to be revolutionary?

And a lot of them said things like volunteering in a soup kitchen or helping my grandma with something or being kind.

So things like that.

Yeah.

Well, I was going to ask what the reception has been among that generation, which may I suggest is yours as well?

Yes, yes.

I think at first when I talk to a lot of people my age, they seem a little bit disconnected from the idea.

But I think it's really important to ask people why they feel disconnected from it.

And then once you dive into, you know, maybe it's you're looking at your phone and there's 5 million other things happening and being thrown at you all the time.

And I don't have time to think about history.

I have all these other things to do.

But I think once you are able to connect it to them and meet them where they're at by saying you are being revolutionary every day, it's not just something that happened 250 years ago.

We're continuing these revolutionary ideas and actions with things that you may not think are powerful, but they're powerful in your community.

They're powerful to the people near you.

And so connecting them to those ideas has been absolutely monumental.

I think everyone has once they realize, oh, I am being revolutionary, I am a revolutionary.

They because you're a revolutionary.

I'm a revolutionary because we're benefiting from the revolution, and we're continuing the plans that they made for us without even knowing us 250 years ago.

And so having those having those thoughts and those ideas, students and young people are finding themselves super able to connect to these ideas, and it makes them really excited to dive back into the history and say, well, if I'm a revolutionary, who else was a revolutionary?

And so having those connections over time, I think really helps.

Yeah.

Can you keep that?

Can you sustain that enthusiasm you've sparked you've sparked it?

Can you sustain or can it be sustained?

Absolutely.

I mean, the fact that we're still here 200, 250 years later, talking about it means that it can be.

But I think that once we had that certain spark with the transcriber thons or the discussions, people realized and they've continued it.

So especially with the transcriber thons, you can do those at home.

I know that I have I hosted my friends in a transcribe a thon at my house.

We made funny hats and we typed things into the computer.

But having that revolutionary spark, I think, has made people realize what is a connection to the revolution.

And they're continuing that because I've seen in my friends, you know, I dragged them along to a few things.

At first I was like, hey, come to this event, we'll have snacks, we'll have this.

Please come, please come.

And once they got there for the snacks or the tote bag or whatever.

Watching the documentary and hearing their peers or professors talk about how it's connected to us today, they came to me weeks, months after, they'll still text me and say, hey, this is really like, do you remember this thing?

You know, I've been thinking about it.

This is what I've been thinking about.

You know, I saw this.

I went back and watched the documentary or I connected this, or I saw this thing about the 250th on my Instagram, and I thought I'd send it to you because we bonded over this.

So.

Yeah.

Yeah, I guess the ultimate or one ultimate objective is to, through a new appreciation, a new enthusiasm for history to, to to build on that momentum and create a more active, engaged citizen in all respects.

Yes.

Yeah, we've seen that, I agree.

Civic awareness, a greater civic participation.

Yeah.

I connected with a lot of young people across the state and especially at the transcribed thons, we because that is a moment of civic engagement.

We're helping the Library of Congress.

And I talked to a lot of high schoolers who were at first there for extra credit, and then they realized, oh my gosh, this is the best thing ever.

And they were connecting with their not only their peers, but people from other generations as well.

So people who were there with their grandma and maybe grandma can't type as well.

So they're there to help grandma type in what she can read in cursive because we can't read as much cursive.

So we're helping with the transcription and they're helping with our cursive reading.

And so you're having that community focus and that community engagement, and you're helping those around you in ways that you necessarily maybe didn't think were possible.

So having that small effect in that small amount of community engagement is a ripple effect for a revolutionary mindset.

Yeah.

Bill Kirby, you've had a lot of fun doing this.

I have had so much fun.

More fun than I thought I would, actually, I, I the other day I said, I'm very serious about being silly and that's something I try to live my life by, is that I want it to be as much fun for them as it is for me, because for me, I like to have fun and it's not that hard.

But sometimes you have to bring people out of their shell and really show them how something can be fun.

So with the transcribed thons, we had one at my house and I told my friends, hey, I'm having a mini transcribe.

Often we'll get pizza, like we'll do crafts.

And they were like, okay, I mean, sure, I'll go for pizza and crafts, but what's a what's a transcription?

And I was like, you'll see when you get here, it's fine.

Just come over.

So I invited a bunch of my friends over on a weeknight, a school night even, and I said, we're going to make fun hats out of paper.

We made little tri corner hats to be very colonial, and they stayed all night and had such a fun time.

Thanks for your work.

Yeah, thanks for your work.

As always.

We thank you for watching and see you next time.