William Harold Flowers was a major leader of the civil rights struggle in Arkansas in the 1940s. Born in Stamps in 1911, Flowers witnessed the 1927 lynching of John Carter in Little Rock and vowed to fight for civil rights.
He established a law practice in Pine Bluff in 1938 and was soon involved in voter registration work, raising the percentage of Black voters from 1.5 to 17.3 percent in seven years. In 1947 he succeeded in seating Black jurors for the first time since Reconstruction, helping to acquit two Black murder suspects. As counsel to Silas Hunt, he helped desegregate the University of Arkansas School of Law in 1948 and a year later sued for equal facilities in DeWitt’s segregated schools.
In 1977 he was the first Black special circuit judge in Jefferson County and three years later was named associate justice in the state court of appeals. He was ordained a Methodist minister in 1971 and was active in the church until his death in 1990.
To learn more, visit encyclopediaofarkansas.net.
