
Gretchen Hall, president and CEO of the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau.
The Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site is under consideration for “world heritage” status by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO.
The site is among 16 civil rights landmark sites in eight states that are up for the designation.
According to Gretchen Hall, president and CEO of the Little Rock Convention & Visitors Bureau, the other sites include the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama; the Greyhound Bus Station at Montgomery, Alabama; and other churches, schools and museums that are iconic to the civil rights movement.
At a news conference on Tuesday, Hall said the nomination process began about a year ago and that it could take several more years before the sites are officially approved. If successful, the Central High site will be Arkansas’ first UNESCO World Heritage site.
There are about 1,000 such sites throughout the world and 22 in the U.S. They include the Great Wall of China, Ephesus in Turkey, Machu Picchu in Peru and several national parks in the U.S.
“You can see the level of these designations worldwide and the tourism this designation would bring,” Hall said.
The goal for the 16 civil rights sites is to have them reviewed for a group or serial nomination to UNESCO. The LRCVB is working with other cities and organizations, including the Alabama Tourism Department and the city of Birmingham.
“Obtaining UNESCO designation is a multi-year process, but the international recognition and increased awareness will definitely help increase tourism,” Hall said.
She said the bureau hasn’t studied the potential economic impact the designation could have but plans to do so.
Little Rock Central High School was the site of the 1957 integration crisis, in which Gov. Orval Faubus refused to allow nine black students to attend the all-white school. His refusal prompted President Dwight Eisenhower send troops to escort the students inside. The widely watched event was the first test of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark “Brown vs. Board of Education” decision of 1954.
The site is now a national park, is on the National Register of Historic Places and has been designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark.
In May 1961, the Greyhound Bus Station was the site of a violent attack on civil rights demonstrators. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2011.
The Edmund Pettus Bridge was the site of the Bloody Sunday conflict on March 7, 1965. That’s when armed police attacked civil rights demonstrators who were marching to the state capital. The bridge was named a National Historic Landmark in 2013.
Other civil rights landmarks that are part of the nomination:
- Bethel Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama
- Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site, Topeka, Kansas
- Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama
- Foster Auditorium, Tuscaloosa, Alabama
- Frank M. Johnson Jr. Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse, Montgomery, Alabama
- The Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C.
- International Civil Rights Center & Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina
- Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site, Atlanta, Georgia
- Medgar Evers House, Jackson, Mississippi
- National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel, Memphis, Tennessee
- 16th Street Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama
- Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site, Tuskegee, Alabama
- West Hunter Street Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia