The second edition of the African American National Biography (2008) includes an entry on Holly Grove native Myrtle Smith Livingston. The entry was written by Koritha Mitchell, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Ohio State University. I have been corresponding with Dr. Mitchell over the last several years, and she faxed me a copy of the entry, which I have transcribed and share here:

LIVINGSTON, Myrtle Smith (8 May 1902-15 July 1974), educator and playwright, was born Myrtle Athleen Smith in Holly Grove, Arkansas, to Lula C. (Hall) and Isaac Samuel Smith. Myrtle attended Manual High School from 1916 to 1920, and studied pharmacy at Howard University in Washington, D.C., from 1920 to 1922. She began attending Colorado Teacher's College in 1923, earning a teaching certificate in 1924 before marrying the physician William McKinley Livingston on 25 June 1925. She left Colorado Teachers College in 1926 and was hired in 1929 as a physical education instructor by Lincoln University, a historically black college in Jefferson City, Missouri. While at Lincoln, she taught every level of physical education and health and established a formal athletic program for female students, enabling young Lincoln women to participate in organized, competitive sports for the first time. Livingston was a well-respected teacher at Lincoln University for forty-four years, retiring in 1972.

While she spent the majority of her career at Lincoln, Livingston is best known for her play about miscegenation and lynching. Her one-act drama For Unborn Children was published in the July 1926 issue of Crisis after winning third prize in the magazine's literary competition the year before. Since then, scholars of black drama have recognized the play's value and ensured its continued availability by including it in anthologies. The play centered on LeRoy, a black lawyer who was ready to move north and elope because he and his white fiancce, Selma, could not be together in the South. The action begins with LeRoys sister and grandmother worrying because he is not home from work and has not telephoned. They believe that his life is always in danger because he is dating a white woman. When LeRoy finally arrives, he says that they will not have to worry much longer because he and Selma have derided to leave town the next night. His sister Marion proclaims, "Well, if you marry her, may God help me never to breathe your name again! (The Crisis, July 1926,123). Marion runs from the room sobbing, leaving LeRoy with his grandmother, who is equally hurt by his decision but gentler in her response. She tells him that marrying a white woman is a disservice to his unborn children because "a white woman cannot mother a Negro  baby! (The Crisis, July 1926, 124). To substantiate her claim, she reveals the family secret he has never known his mother because she was white arid chose not to be a part of her "Negro" children's lives. Determined not to risk giving his own offspring such a mother, LeRoy decides not to elope, but the lynch mob is already en route. His fiancee rushes in to warn him, but it is too late. The play ends as the mob yells for LeRoy to step outside, and he exits to meet his death, "victorious and unafraid."

By the time the piece appeared, Livingston was already in Colorado, training to become a teacher. Nevertheless, the play marked her connection to historical movements that helped shape her generation. Coming of age in what came to be known as the New Negro Renaissance, young Myrtle Smith benefited from efforts to develop African American artists. When she attended Howard University, professors Alain Locke and Thomas Montgomery Gregory were working to make the university the nation's training ground for African American theater artists. The universitys program encouraged playwriting, and by 1924 interracial political organizations began sponsoring literary contests in their magazines. The Urban Leagues Opportunity magazine announced its competition in August, and The Crisis, edited by W.E.B. Du Bois, published its call for submissions a month later. In its November 1924 issue, The Crisis specifically offered prizes of $75, $40, and $10 for original plays.

Locke, Gregory, and Du Bois all were involved with these contests as judges, supporters, and promoters, but they disagreed about what black drama and theater should accomplish. Locke and Gregory promoted "folk" plays that were free of strong political content; they focused on aesthetics because they wanted their students* work to be viewed by the mainstream as truly artistic. Du Bois, in contrast, felt that black artists limited themselves by adhering to any aesthetic that ignored art's inherent political power and that denied the importance of directly protesting injustice, Accordingly, he valued so-called race plays, including antilynching plays, because they indicted American racism.
 
For Unborn Children offered such an indictment and, in doing so, revealed its debt to earlier black women activists and its connection to the Little Negro Theatre movement, which emphasized the need to address black audiences in intimate spaces. For Unborn Children never questions the sincerity of LeRoy's and Selma's feelings, but it nevertheless suggests that pursuing interracial love is irresponsible. In recognizing  this play with a prize and with publication in The Crisis, Du Bois clearly saw the value  of having his readers debate these issues, just as Livingstons characters do. Livingston clearly believed that black men's vulnerability to white women in the 1920s warranted commentary similar to that offered by black women in the 1890s. Following the example of the antilynching crusader Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Livingston set out to show that black men too often willingly destroyed their lives by falling in love with white women. Livingston offers a Wells-inspired critique of LeRoy through his sister's explanation of miscegenation statutes: Laws would never have been passed against it if states could have believed white women would turn Negro men down, but they knew they wouldn't; they can make fools out of them too easily (The Crisis, July 1926,123). Wells-Barnett was more diplomatic than Livingston's character but her investigations revealed that rape was not alleged in most lynch cases. Indeed, Wells-Barnett insisted that when mobs claimed to be motivated by a black mans rape of a white woman, "rape" actually referred to a consensual relationship, often initiated by the woman: White men lynch the offending Afro-American, not because he is a despoiler of virtue, but because he succumbs to the smiles of white women" (Southern Horrors, 54), Livingston and Wells-Barnett both suggested that when white women and black men were intimate, the black man was far from aggressive and violent.

While these arguments saturated Wells-Barnetts protest pamphlets and speeches, Livingston placed them in a play, suggesting that she was not aiming to appeal to integrated audiences of the commercial theater. Indeed, her use of the one-act format indicate that she intended the script to be brought to life in intimate spaces, such as black churches and households the preferred venues of the Little Black Theatre movement, which was committed to making theater about, by, for, and near African Americans.

Livingston's forty-four years at Lincoln University were similarly marked by her willingness to serve black communities. When she arrived in 1929 as a physical education instructor, she was a "department of one," but by 1936 the program offered girls baseball, basketball, volleyball, soccer, and tennis as well as archery, golf, track, and hockey. Livingston took particular initiative in offering her students tap dance and interpretive dance, founding a chapter of Orchesis Dance Group in 1936 the first chapter to be formed at a black college. Livingston's troupe offered indoor and outdoor shows in several cities in Kansas and Missouri. In addition to these formal duties, Livingston taught first aid to Jefferson City citizens and wrote several plays and skits that were performed by student groups, including sororities and fraternities; unfortunately, scripts have not been located.

Having always wanted to retire in Hawaii, she moved there with her sister upon leaving Lincoln University, and she died there in 1974 after only a year and a half of retirement. Her ashes were scattered over the Pacific Ocean. Later, Lincoln University trustees named a park in her honor.

Further Reading
Correspondence, teaching notes, syllabi and other manuscript materials as well as articles about Livingstons contributions are preserved in the Lincoln University archives, Jefferson City, Mo.

Livingston, Myrtle A. Smith, For Unborn Children: A Play in One Act. (The Crisis, July 1926). 

Burton, Jennifer, ed. Zora Neale Hurston, Eulalie Spence, Marita Bonner and Others: The Prize Plays and Other One-Acts Published in Periodicals (1996).

Hatch, James, ed. Black Theatre USA: Plays by African Americans, rev . and exp. ed. (1996).

Wells-Barnett, Ida B. (Jacqueline Jones Royster, ed.) On Lynching: Southern Horrors, A Red Record, Mob Rule in New Orleans (1997).

Koritha Mitchell

from the June 13, 2007, Central Delta Argus-Sun: Willie Stokes named HG Elementary Teacher of the Year HOLLY GROVE -- Willie Stokes was named Teacher of the Year at Holly Grove Elementary School. Teacher of the Year is an honor that is voted on by the entire staff, said HGE Princiapl Dr. Ruby Ellis. "Mrs. Stokes was nominated several times. After all the nominations were in, the entire staff voted for this award," Ellis said. "She is just a wonderful teacher." Stokes was born in Helena to Willie and Pearlie B. Williams. She grew up in Pine City and graduated from Holly Grove Vocational High School on May 25, 1969. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Elementary Education from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff on May 12, 1974. She also has a certification in Early Childhood Education from Arkansas State University at Jonesboro. Stokes has taught a total of 33 years in Holly Grove. She has taught grades two through eight and has been teaching kindergarten for the past 10 years. "Mrs. Stokes does so much for her students," said Dr. Ellis. "I just love her zeal for teaching. She always has a positive statement for her students each morning." Stokes commented that her philosophy of education is that each child is an individual and as a teacher it is her duty to ensure that she meets the needs of each child in her care. "I am dedicated to teaching and enjoy helping children learn," Stokes said. "I also think that teaching is more than giving information. It is also a forum for teachers to be positive role models for young adults." Stokes is an active member of First Baptist Church at Pine City. She is the church clerk, superintendent of Sunday School and sings in the choir. "I believe in helping God's people who need help," Stokes said. "One thing that my mom taught me as a child was to treat all people the way you want people to treat you. And when everyone starts doing that, what a beautiful place this world would be." Stokes commented that she was very elated to have been chosen as Teacher of the Year. "This honor came at a much needed time with all the mean things thave have gone on this school year. I was very elated to receive it," Stokes said. __________________ Jane Dearing Dennis janedennis@comcast.net

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Dr. Richard Gilbrech, a native of Holly Grove, is currently director of the John C. Stennis Space Center in Pass Christian, Miss. The Stennis Space Center is NASA's primary center for Rocket Propulsion Testng and home to the Applied Research and Technology Project Office.

Dr. Gilbrech, who was known as "Ricky" in his childhood and youth, is the son of the late Mona Gilbrech and Raymond Carl Gilbrech. He is a graduate of Marvell Academy, and holds degrees from Mississippi State University and the California Institute of Technology.

Here is a link to information on Dr. Gilbrech:

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/stennis/about/history/personalities/gilbrech.html


-- Jane Dearing Dennis

-- Edited by Danyelle McNeill Fletcher at 19:49, 2006-09-23

-- Edited by Danyelle McNeill Fletcher at 19:51, 2006-09-23

1963 -- according to Rush Harding, son of Coach Buddy Harding. I called a friend who works with Rush and he asked him.

Holly Grove native Rhonda Martin Dick, M.D., is included on the Arkansas Times' Best Doctors List for 2006 (April 20, 2006 issue). The publication made use of a list compiled by Best Doctors Inc., a national organization that suveys doctors around the country. She is associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) in Little Rock and on staff at Arkansas Children's Hospital. Her speciality is pediatric emergency medicine.

Rhonda attended Holly Grove High School and graduated from Marvell Academy. She is the daughter of Betty Martin and the late Ferrill Martin of Holly Grove.

This site has more information about Rhonda and her accomplishments:
http://www.uams.edu/pediatrics/faculty/Emergency%20Medicine/Dick,%20Rhonda.asp

-- Edited by Jane Dearing Dennis at 12:47, 2006-04-26

From Jane Dennis:

Here's a link to some photos and information about Little Rock opthamologist Cliff Clifton, a native of Holly Grove and graduate of Holly Grove High School:

http://littlerockeye.com/PhysicianInfo/md_cliff_clifton.asp

(Monroe County Sun?)
This Week’s Conestogian|
by: Laura Adams Gatewood

Dr. Herd E. Stone has been chosen as this week’s local Conestogian. Dr. Stone is married to the former Elizabeth Dumas of Lena, Miss. They have four children: William Herd, 43, Scout Executive, St. Petersburgh, Fla; Larry Stone, 41, M.D. University; Linda Stone Cooper, 38, B.S. Medical Technology; and Phillip Stone, 38, M.D. University of Arkansas Medical Center.

Dr. Stone is an Elder in the Presbyterian Church, active in Boy Scouts of America, a sponsor of Ducks Unlimited and has been a member of the Holly Grove School Board for 20 years. He has been a General Practitioner in Holly Grove for 40 years. During his free time, Dr. Stone enjoys hunting, fishing, sporting events, and reading.

Dr. Stone, 67, is a 1945 graduate of the University of Tennessee, Memphis College of Medicine. In addition to being a General Practitioner, Dr. Stone is an obstetrician, orthopedist, internist, radiologist, and gynecologist. But more than that, he is a caring, concerned human being. As a young man, he helped chop cotton to make ends meet, and after graduation from Med School, he interned at John Gaston Hospital in Memphis. During a tour of duty in the Army, a friend told Dr. Stone of Holly Grove, and he told his friend that he would like to have a look. At the time there was only one paved road coming into the county, and Dr. Stone had to take a ferry from Helena. At this point, Dr. Stone was about to change his mind, but, he said, "after I saw the place and the people, I realized this was home." Dr. Stone says he never regretted moving to Holly Grove.

(contributed by Julius Gannon and Sue Gannon Cheatham)

-- Edited by Danyelle McNeill Fletcher at 20:12, 2006-02-25

This story about HG native Buddy Harding was published in the Oct. 9, 2005, Arkansas Democrat Gazette. It was part of a series of features in the High Profile section that tell the stories of couples and how they met and fell in love.


RIGHT TIME RIGHT PLACE : She threw him for a loop; he tossed her in the pond

BY KIMBERLY DISHONGH SPECIAL TO THE DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

Rush "Buddy" Harding Jr. thought Martha Stone’s behavior a bit too proper, so he served up a sloshing slam-dunk in hopes of changing her mind.
   Martha was a freshman at Arkansas State Teachers College (now the University of Central Arkansas) in Conway in 1949 when she met Buddy, a sophomore who had just returned from military service to school on a basketball scholarship.
   She was at a party, dancing with her date, and Buddy cut in.
   "He’s a really good dancer," she says. "And he said, ‘I’m going to marry you.’"
   Martha was taken aback and she retorted, "No you’re not, because I don’t like freckles."
   Undaunted, Buddy continued.
   "Yes, I am," he said in spite of his freckles.
   Buddy asked Martha out every opportunity he got, and each time she dutifully turned him down — that is, she turned him down every time until she learned both of her roommates were going to the hayride that Buddy’s fraternity was having. She decided that if the roommates were going, she might as well go, too.
   Martha didn’t believe in kissing on the first date, and she stuck to her guns when she went out with Buddy. But Buddy didn’t appreciate her old-fashioned ways.
   He had the reputation of being a "Casanova," and his friends teased him relentlessly that evening about Martha’s distance. He finally caved to the pressure. He picked her up and threw her in the fish pond in front of her dorm, McAlister Hall.
   "She wouldn’t give me any sugar," he says, by way of explaining his actions.
   Well, she didn’t climb out of the pond and give him a kiss by any means, but after a couple of weeks of stewing she invited him to her sorority dance.
   "He was very nice that night," she says. "I even gave him a kiss."
   And with that, they became a couple.
   They played tennis, and she watched him play basketball, and they enjoyed many movies and dinners together.
   Martha doesn’t remember Buddy proposing to her. When Buddy learned he wouldn’t have to go back into the Army, they decided to get married.
   "He just said all along he was going to marry me," she says. "And he did."
   Martha is from El Dorado, and Buddy is from Holly Grove, but they had many friends in Conway, so that’s where they decided to have their wedding.
   They were wed on Oct. 14, 1950, at First Baptist Church in Conway. The reception was at McAlister Hall, site of the infamous fish pond.
   They moved to Clarendon after the wedding, and Martha taught school, while Buddy coached.
   Over the years, Martha says, they have danced and "done it all." Fishing, hunting, golfing, going to the horse races and gambling in Las Vegas are all activities they have enjoyed together.
   Twenty years ago, they retired from the school district and moved to Little Rock to be near their children, Rush Harding III and Jennifer Elledge. The Hardings have six grandchildren, ranging in age from 18 to 28.
   "I see one of my grandchildren or my children or my daughter-in-law, Linda, practically every day," Martha says. "They’re fun."
   Life has been fun, in general, for the Hardings.
   "It’s been wonderful," Buddy says.
   "He’s truly the love of my life," says Martha.
   She even likes his freckles.

I've posted a photo of Myrtle Smith Livingston at the Holly Grove Memories website - I've placed it in the Portraits section.

-- Edited by Danyelle McNeill Fletcher at 20:14, 2006-02-25

It has been my pleasure to be in correspondence with Koritha Mitchell, Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Ohio State University. She specializes in turn-of-the-20th-century African-American literature and culture and wrote her dissertation on early anti-lynching plays and the implications of this unique genre’s existence. As it turns out, Holly Grove native Myrtle Smith Livingston is one of her subjects. Professor Mitchell has shared with me the following information from her research:

Myrtle Smith Livingston was born in 1902 in Holly Grove, Arkansas, and grew up in Denver, Colorado. She went to Howard University briefly but transferred to Colorado Teacher’s College and was a teacher for many years thereafter. Livingston was in Washington and acquainted with Alain Locke and Montgomery Gregory’s drama/theater department for only two years, but that brief stint was enough to inspire her to write an anti-lynching play titled “For Unborn Children.”

In that era, mobs most often justified lynching by insisting that black men routinely raped white women; mob violence was therefore supposedly punishment for those crimes and a way of discouraging black men's "natural" bestial tendencies toward white women. Livingston's one-act play “For Unborn Children” contradicts these notions, suggesting instead that interracial relationships were more often consensual than not.

“For Unborn Children” won a drama prize from Crisis magazine in 1925 and was published in that periodical in 1926. The play depicts a black lawyer who is ready to move north and elope because he and his white fiancée cannot be together in the South. To discourage him, his grandmother explains that he has never known his mother because she is white and could not love him. Determined not to risk giving his own children such a mother, he decides not to elope, but it is too late; the mob is waiting outside.

By the time the piece appeared, Livingston was already in Colorado teaching, but she left a permanent contribution that evinces the impact made by the outspoken leaders of the New Negro Renaissance. Locke and Gregory provided her training at Howard, but “For Unborn Children” puts forth an explicitly militant stance that W.E. B. DuBois must have been proud to publish in his Crisis magazine.

A park is named after Livingston in Jefferson City, Missouri, where she also taught for several years. She died in 1973.

Rush "Buddy" Harding, Jr. 
- Buddy Harding has been named to the UCA Hall of Fame, Class of 2005.  Here is a list of some of his other accomplishments:
- At UCA, Buddy excelled in basketball, track, and football (1948-1950)
- Named to 1950 Log Cabin Democrat MVP
- AIC Honorable Mention
- AAU All State
(UCA was previously known as State Teachers College)

"Buddy returned to UCA as an assistant football coach under Coach Harold Horton.  He helped the Bear win AIC titles in 1986 and 1987. Coach Harding was inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2002 for his outstanding career as a high school coach."
"A native of Holly Grove, Buddy played all sports under Coach C.R. "Sonny" Gordon (football, basketball, track, softball, and baseball).  After graduating from UCA, Buddy coached two years for the Barton Bears.  He then moved to Clarendon to coach for the next 34 years as a high school coach.  At Clarendon, he led the Lions in football, basketball, and track, winning one football state championship and five track state championships.  Coach Harding was Head Coach in the Arkansas High School All-Star Game.  Clarendon's high school football field is named "Harding Field" in his honor."
"The Alumni Chapter of Sigma Tau Gamma at UCA in Conway, AR presented Buddy Harding the Ben Laney Sigma Chapter Alumni Award for Leadership and Achievement in 2004 before the UCA Homecoming Game."
(This information courtesy of Bob Lambert - much thanks to him for writing this)

Bob Lambert has also sent both a current photo of Buddy Harding and his wife, Tootie, and several older photographs of Buddy Harding.  I will be uploading them to the website over the weekend.  Be sure to check out the photos at the Unofficial Holly Grove Website before the end of the weekend!

-- Edited by Danyelle McNeill Fletcher at 20:13, 2006-02-25

From Bob Lambert:

BEVERLY JOEL LAMBERT WAS AN ARKANSAS STATE BANKING COMMISSIONER.   UNITED STATES SENATOR BLANCHE LAMBERT LINCOLN'S GREAT, GREAT GRANDFATHER WAS REV. JORDAN BENNETT LAMBERT.  HE LED A WAGON TRAIN OF FRIENDS AND FAMILY TO NEAR LAWRENCEVILLE , MADDOX BAY, ARKANSAS IN 1839. REV. JORDAN BENNETT LAMBERT WAS THE FIRST CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIAN PREACHER TO SETTLE IN ARKANSAS.  HE ESTABLISHED A CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH AT VALLEY GROVE.  HE WAS A PREACHER, FARMER, SERVED AS MONROE COUNTY JUDGE, AND ARKANSAS STATE REPRESENTATIVE BEFORE HIS DEATH IN 1860.

-- Edited by Danyelle McNeill Fletcher at 20:10, 2006-02-25

A story about James Knowles, police chief of Holly Grove and also a "Notable HG Citizen," is posted under "African-American Community" in the "Life in Holly Grove" section of the message board.

-- Edited by Danyelle McNeill Fletcher at 20:08, 2006-02-25

Website about some of the Lamberts - discusses Joel Lambert's life in Holly Grove and in White County (also mentions Bev Lambert)

http://www.rootsweb.com/~arwhite/wchs/AgriPioneers.htm

-- Edited by Danyelle McNeill Fletcher at 20:06, 2006-02-25

After re-reading and being reminded about some of the very public jobs Tom Jr. had and the awards and recognition he received, the thought did cross my mind that it might not be too difficult to do some reasearch on his life and see what happened to him. That would be an interesting challenge ... that might possibly help unravel some of the mystery around the Mull House and Cap'n Mull!
Jane

-- Edited by Danyelle McNeill Fletcher at 20:05, 2006-02-25

In June 1979, while working for The Sentinel newspaper in Clarendon, I interviewed 94-year-old Palmore Hampton. He had moved to Holly Grove from Alabama with his family more than 90 years before. He knew Cap'n Tom Mull. Here are some excerpts from the story regarding Cap'n Mull:

During his farming days, Palmore Hampton worked some "over there on Cap'n Mull's place." Tom Mull was quite a colorful character in Holly Grove's history, and as Mr. Hampton put it, "Lord, he's been a rough one all his days! Never was married," he said, as if that was the reason for his rambunctiousness. "He used to gamble and fight and rob. He was a booger!" exclaimed Mr. Hampton. "He was a good marksman and didn't nobody want to mix up with him much."

"But somehow," he said, with a hint of wonder, "I liked him very well. He was plain, he was straight. He didn't pretend with nobody."

"He tried to get me to move down there on his farm, right next to his house. He said if I come down there he'd tell me a secret that an old Indian learned him how to make money. But Id didn't want to," he conceded. "It was some kind of underhand work."

He thought back, "Cap'n Mull rode his horse all the time and he had a lot of dogs. Out there at the section line, " he said, pointing in front of his house, "the law don't allow you to fasten the gate on them lines. Well, Cap'n Mull locked 'em. It didn't bother him."

Finally, at a loss for words, he ended with, "whoo ... I don't know what to say about him."

-- Edited by Danyelle McNeill Fletcher at 20:04, 2006-02-25

Jane,

You should see if you can find the article you wrote about Tom Mull - especially about his horse race with the train.

Emily Perkins Johnson

-- Edited by Danyelle McNeill Fletcher at 19:55, 2006-02-25