Rison resident earns award at UALR

Brittany Fugate of Rison is part of a group of historians from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock who won the Lucille Westbrook Award from the Arkansas Historical Association for the best article manuscript on an aspect of local Arkansas history.

The article, “Criminal Justice in the Age of Segregation: Race, Law, and Politics in the Arkansas Cases of Robert Bell and Grady Swain, 1927-1935,” will be published in the Arkansas Historical Quarterly, according to a news release.

John Kirk, George W. Donaghey Distinguished Professor of History, co-wrote the paper with his students in the Seminar in Public History class, a capstone course that focuses on collaborative research for students who are earning a Master of Arts in public history at UA Little Rock.

The authors received their award, which includes a $1,000 prize and a framed certificate, at the annual meeting of the Arkansas Historical Association on April 22. Along with Kirk and Fugate, the UA Little Rock authors include students Kathleen Burell, Christiane Hendricks, Ellis Eugene Thompson, Michael White, and Logan Yancey.

The piece examines the criminal cases of Robert Bell and Grady Swain, two African American teenagers who were convicted of the first-degree murder of Julius McCollum and sentenced to death. Bell and Swain confessed to the crime, but later said their confessions were forced. The Arkansas Supreme Court overturned their conviction, concluding that there was not sufficient evidence to show that McCollum was murdered.

“It’s amazing to see the work we did last semester pay off,” Fugate said. “We developed this project through every step and now our work is about to be published. It’s a great feeling that I still can’t wrap my head around. The Public History program is one of a kind, and I’m so thankful to the opportunities I’ve had because of this program.”