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History of Southland College
The Society of Friends and Black Education in Arkansas
Thomas C. Kennedy
Dedicated Quaker missionaries
in post–Civil War Arkansas
"An
intriguing read that delves deeply into religious sponsorship
of higher education and the complexities of leadership during
uncertain racial times."
—Indiana Magazine of History, March 2012
“Thomas C. Kennedy’s meticulous and exhaustive
research has given us the most detailed portrait we will ever
have of Southland College, a story that ended in failure but
can still instruct and even inspire us.”
—Thomas Hamm, author of Quakers in America
In 1864 Alida and Calvin Clark, two abolitionist members of
the Religious Society of Friends from Indiana, went on a mission
trip to Helena, Arkansas.
The Clarks had come to render temporary relief to displaced
war orphans but instead found a lifelong calling. During their
time in Arkansas, they started the school that became Southland
College, which was the first institution of higher education
for blacks west of the Mississippi, and they set up the first
predominately black monthly meeting of the Religious Society
of Friends in North America.
Their progressive racial vision was continued by a succession
of midwestern Quakers willing to endure the primitive conditions
and social isolation of their work and to overcome the persistent
challenges of economic adversity, social strife, and natural
disaster. Southland’s survival through six difficult
and sometimes dangerous decades reflects both the continuing
missionary zeal of the Clarks and their successors as well
as the dedication of the black Arkansans who sought dignity
and hope at a time when these were rare commodities for African
Americans in Arkansas.
Thomas C. Kennedy is the author of The
Hound of Conscience: A History of the No-Conscription Fellowship,
1914–1919 and British Quakerism, 1860–1920:
The Transformation of a Religious Community. He has also
written numerous articles on Quakers in Arkansas.
November
6 x 9, 424 pages, 25 illustrations, index
$45.00 (s) cloth
ISBN 978-1-55728-916-2 | 1-55728-916-6
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