A commitment to civil rights had early foundations for Rockefeller. During childhood, he traveled with his family to Virginia's Hampton Institute, a historically black institution, spending vacations on campus with African American Students. In New York, Rockefeller sat on the board of the civil rights organization the National Urban League and was instrumental in helping to build its new headquarters.
When he came to Arkansas in 1953, Rockefeller caused a stir by putting his African American friend Jimmy Hudson in charge of his Winrock Farm at Petit Jean Mountain. As governor, Rockefeller actively promoted and appointed qualified African Americans to a number of state positions for the first time. He also dealt with some turbulent times as the state underwent a significant amount of school desegregation and the black power movement increasingly eclipsed the civil rights movement. After Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1968 assassination, Rockefeller was the only southern U.S. governor to hold a memorial service for the slain civil rights leader. Although civil rights was a prominent cause of Gov. Rockefeller, his commitment to social justice also made him a champion for the rights for the poor in education and health care, as well as a strong opponent of the death penalty and a supporter of prisoners' rights. One of his final acts as governor, in fact, was to commute the death sentences of all prisoners on Arkansas's death row.
Rockefeller speaks at memorial service for Martin Luther King Jr. on the steps of the Arkansas State Capitol. Rockefeller's activities in the area of civil rights and social justice are documented in Record Groups I, III, IV and VII:
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- Files in Record Group I, Personal, document his work to prevent the Little Rock School Crisis.
- Located in Record Groups III and IV, Governor's and Public Relations, are numerous materials on WR's prison reform efforts in Arkansas and files about the commutation of death sentences in 1970.
- Record Group VII includes photographs of the prisons in addition to audio sources like speeches and press conferences concerning the status of race relations, education for minorities and women, and the prisons.