Grif Stockley (left) and James “Buster” Corley (right) found opportunity in Arkansas. Stockley died Jan. 4, and Corley died Jan. 2.
Two men died last week who, though not native born, left their marks on Arkansas in profoundly different but significant ways.
Grif Stockley, a lawyer, writer and historian, was born in Memphis but raised in Marianna. Author of “Blood in Their Eyes: The Elaine Race Massacres of 1919,” “Daisy Bates: Civil Rights Crusader from Arkansas,” and “Black Boys Burning: The 1959 Fire at the Arkansas Negro Boys Industrial School,” Stockley looked squarely at the past and wrote about his findings. This history is hard to confront but essential to know if we want to avoid repeating terrors of the past.
Historian Brian Mitchell called Stockley “a conscience of Arkansas,” saying, “He was always fighting for the underdog and always trying to do the right thing.”
James “Buster” Corley had very different skills, skills of the entrepreneurial kind. Corley, born in Brookhaven, Mississippi, co-founded Dave & Buster’s, the publicly traded entertainment chain based in Coppell, Texas, that has more than 150 locations.
The concept for Dave & Buster’s, however, was born in Little Rock, an outgrowth of Corley’s immensely popular Buster’s Bar & Restaurant and Dave Corriveau’s Slick Willy’s World of Entertainment. In an interview with Arkansas Business in 2015, Corley said the funding to open the first Dave & Buster’s in 1982 in Dallas came out of Arkansas, “just based on Dave’s family connections and our good Arkansas reputation.”
Of his time in the state, Corley said, “It was a glorious adventure and it worked out great. I don’t think things would have been the same if I hadn’t journeyed through Arkansas.”
Arkansas provided opportunity to two contrasting yet talented men. The state was enriched in return.
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