[David L. Evans Inducted] Arkansas Black Hall of Fame Recognition

-----Original Message-----
From: David L. Evans [mailto:dlevans@fas.harvard.edu]
Sent: Saturday, October 01, 2005 9:56 AM
To: Gregg, Perry
Subject: Arkansas Black Hall of Fame Recognition

Perry,

For some blessed reason (possibly a flight of compassion), a committee of Arkansans recently voted to include me in the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame. This generous group of men and women somehow saw fit to place me in the company of the following previous inductees:

Scipio Africanus Jones, renowned Civil Rights lawyer in the early 20^th Century whose most famous effort freed 12 black men who had been railroaded and sentenced to death in a 1919 race riot in Phillips County. Their freedom came via a 1923 U. S. Supreme Court decision (Moore v. Dempsey) presided over by Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Eliza R. Miller, Eponymous benefactor of my high school whose 1925 gift of land and money made possible the first high school for African Americans in Phillips County, Arkansas

William Grant Still, Classical composer and first African American to conduct a major American symphony orchestra (1936)

Daisy Gaston Bates, President of NAACP in Little Rock during 1957 School Integration Crisis

John H. Johnson, Founder of Johnson Publications and Publisher of Ebony and Jet Magazines.

Maya Angelou, Poet, Author, Educator

Samuel Lee Kountz, MD, Pioneering kidney transplant surgeon who participated in one of the first transplants in 1959 and went on to win several awards for distinction at Stanford and University of California, Berkeley Medical Schools.

M. Joycelyn Elders, MD, U. S. Surgeon General in Clinton Administration

Ernest Green, First of “Little Rock Nine” to graduate from Central High School, Assistant Secretary of Labor in Carter Administration

William Jefferson Clinton, (Honorary Member), 42^nd President of the United States

Edward Moore, Jr., Vice Admiral, U. S. Navy and Commander of Naval Surface Force, U. S. Pacific Fleet

Dr. Grover Evans, Paralympic (Parallel Olympics for athletes with disabilities) Gold Medalist and first African American to swim in the Paralympics in Barcelona in 1992. Holder of several world records.

Rodney E. Slater, U. S. Secretary of Transportation in Clinton Administration

Debbye Turner, Miss America in 1990

I will rush down to Little Rock for the induction ceremony on Saturday, October 15, 2005, before something akin to identity theft is suspected (smile).

HALLELUJAH!!


Best regards


David