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Overview
Born in 1941 on a farm near Marianna in rural eastern Arkansas, Olly Neal Jr. grew up in a large family with parents who insisted on their children getting the most education possible. Neal had the intellect but not the temperament to be a good student in high school, but a teacher took an interest in him when she saw him steal a book rather than risk his tough-guy reputation if someone saw him checking it out. Neal went on to start and lead the Lee County Cooperative Clinic in Marianna during the 1970s, a turbulent time fraught with conflicts between the white power structure and the black citizens seeking increased civil rights and economic opportunity. He became the first black district prosecuting attorney in Arkansas, and then served as a circuit court judge and on the Arkansas Court of Appeals. Historian Grif Stockley has characterized Neal as a civil rights activist, political agitator, Arkansas Delta advocate, and "black devil incarnate to many of Marianna's whites."
His road to success was not a smooth one, and Neal tells his unique story here, with humor, candor, and hard-earned wisdom, explaining his rocky journey from hardscrabble beginnings in rural Lee County to the role of prosecutor to the judicial bench. Along the way, many whites saw him as a threat to the established order and many blacks saw him as a traitor who was prosecuting and sitting in judgment of his own people. But he emphasized fairness and equal treatment at every opportunity, saying, "The way I got past all of this was by talking to my people about what I did and why, and by telling them how difficult it was for me. And I think that many folks understood me." Looking back on these years and the people he met along the way--friend and foe alike--he offers insights into the traumas of the time and the toll they took on his mental and physical health, as well as the relationships that helped him face these trials.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781945624254 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Butler Center for Arkansas Studies |
| Publication date: | 06/01/2020 |
| Edition description: | 1 |
| Pages: | 300 |
| Sales rank: | 882,627 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d) |
About the Author
Table of Contents
Preface Olly Neal Jan Wrede 9
Part 1 Background, Family, Schooling, and Out on My Own
Chapter 1 My Family and the New Hope Community 13
Chapter 2 School Years 29
Chapter 3 Hard Times 46
Chapter 4 The Army and Vietnam 56
Chapter 5 Back to Memphis 61
Part 2 The Clinic and Civil Rights
Chapter 6 The Lee County Cooperative Clinic 71
Chapter 7 Stolen Election of November 1970 86
Chapter 8 Economic Boycott 101
Chapter 9 Integration and School Boycott 121
Chapter 10 The Big Grant 139
Chapter 11 Law School 1974-1978 149
Photos 162
Part 3 Law Career
Chapter 12 Marianna Law Practice January 1979-October 1991 181
Chapter 13 Gene Raff, the Tyrant Prosecutor 196
Chapter 14 Arkansas's First Black Prosecutor 1991-1992 203
Chapter 15 Arkansas Voting Rights: Redistricting Lawsuits, 1986-1990 220
Chapter 16 Circuit Judge 1993-1996 229
Chapter 17 Appellate Court 246
Chapter 18 Health Problems 256
Photos 264
Part 4 Family
Chapter 19 Nic Neal 283
Chapter 20 Anisha Phillips 290
Chapter 21 Nyerere Billups 297
Chapter 22 Karama Neal 303
Chapter 23 Karen Buchanan 310
Part 5 Legacy
Chapter 24 Lee County Sheriff Ocie Banks 317
Chapter 25 Karama Neal and the Arkansas Heirs Property Law 324
Chapter 26 Future of the Lee County Cooperative Clinic 329
Closing Thoughts 334
Acknowlegments 338
Index 339
About the Authors 349