Clinton, Little Rock Nine, Crystal Bridges

We arrived in Little Rock late Saturday afternoon and checked into the downtown Hampton Inn. After getting settled we walked a few blocks to have dinner at the Copper Grill. A lot of people were in town to participate in the Little Rock marathon on Sunday.

The next morning we drove to the Little Rock High School National Historic Site. This is where the first desegregation of Little Rock schools took place in 1957. Nine black kids were the first and became known as the Little Rock Nine. These were very brave kids, who had to put up with a lot of abuse at the hands of most of the white kids and their parents. The National Guard was called in at first to help control the mobs. This wasn't effective, however, and President Johnson finally sent the army in to make sure the kids could attend their classes. What an ordeal!

After a nice lunch at a local place called The Root, we visited the Clinton Presidential Museum and Library. It's kind of hard to believe that he was inaugurated 25 years ago! Anyway, it was an interesting visit.

Today we left Little Rock and drove to Bentonville in northwest Arkansas. This is the home of the Waltons and Walmart and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. It's a wonderful museum started by Alice Walton and supported by Walmart. Also on the grounds is the Bachman-Wilson house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It's a very modest home and is much smaller than the FLW house we saw in Springfield, IL. It's a lovely, unique house. It was actually built elsewhere, but was damaged by flooding and moved here just a few years ago and rebuilt in a beautiful, wooded setting.