I wrote recently about UALR’s new Institute on Race and Ethnicity and mentioned then the institute’s plan to commemorate the 50th anniversary of a Freedom Riders bus stop in Little Rock on July 10.
The subject arises again today because of the death of Rev. Ben Elton Cox Sr. of Jackson, Miss., one of the five Freedom Riders who rode into Little Rock on a Trailways bus in 1961 as part of a series of demonstrations to end segregated bus terminals in the South.
A UALR release on the death mentions that the ceremony — to be attended by Cox’s family and at least one of the Freedom Riders — will include installation of a marker at the site of the old Trailways station on Markham Street. It will mark the beginning of an Arkansas Civil Rights Heritage Walk. Each year, names of 10 Arkansas civil rights activists will be placed on plaques stretching along Markham and Clinton Avenue to the Clinton Presidential Center. This year’s plaque will include the five Freedom Riders.
The UALR release follows: