The Line - West 9th Street & Dreamland

There is a 3-story, brick building that sits along I-630 West on West 9th Street adorned in patriotic American bunting. There are not many other buildings on the street or a significant amount of consistent traffic, but that has not always been the case. It may be difficult to imagine it today, but this building – and the street it sits on – were once the heart of the Black business district for the city of Little Rock. Born from Arkansas’ emancipation of slaves, West 9th Street thrived economically from Black dollars circulated through Black-owned businesses spanning six blocks long.

The lone building, Taborian Hall, helped continue this momentum throughout those years. It catered to Black soldiers of World War I & II, hosted social events, boxing matches, dances, and basketball games. It was one of the Chitlin’ Circuit’s prime stops making West 9th Street Little Rock’s Beale Street attracting well-noted Black entertainers, such as Cab Calloway, Etta James, Red Foxx, Duke Ellington, Sammie Davis, Jr., Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, B.B. King, Sam Cooke, and Ray Charles.

​The story and legacy of the building and the street does not get the consistent notoriety that it deserves, but its relevance to Black Arkansas remains the same. To fully appreciate that relevance, you must – at the very least – understand the history of West 9th Street. An ideal place to start is November 6, 1860.

A COUNTRY DIVIDED

Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States in 1860 amid decade-long tensions over slavery. Several southern state governments disapproved of President Lincoln's election and his goals, thus positioned themselves to secede from the United States of America – also called the Union. By February 1, 1861, seven states proceeded with their secession, dividing the United States of America into the Union and the Confederate States of America – better known as the Confederacy.

Arkansas’ government rejected seceding with the Confederacy out of concern of its image. However, opposing influences initiated reconsideration, and Arkansas voters elected for a Secession Convention to determine its official stance on February 18, 1861. The convention began in early March after President Lincoln was sworn into office. On April 12, he ordered troops from Arkansas (Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee) to recapture Fort Sumter in Charleston, North Carolina from the Confederacy. Arkansas did not want to fight against its neighboring states, so the Secession Convention adjourned with Arkansas joining the Confederacy on May 6th, 1861.

These occurrences, and other long-lived discrepancies before them, incited the beginning of the Civil War on April 12, 1861. Since the primary cause of it all was the right to own slaves, President Lincoln issued an executive order called the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. It stated that "all persons held as slaves…are, and henceforward shall be free". Unfortunately, the Confederacy would not conform, and the war continued state by state.

On September 10, 1863, the Engagement at Bayou Fourche, or the Battle of Little Rock, took place along the Arkansas River east of Willow Beach Lake, just east of Bill & Hillary Clinton National Airport. It resulted in a Union victory and the first time that the Union had complete control of the Arkansas River since the war began.

Arkansas did not emancipate slaves until April 14, 1865, but the Bayou Fourche victory set it in motion, and slave owners had to release their slaves. The emancipated slaves migrated by foot or were brought to a federal, Union-occupied encampment in Little Rock, just west of Mount Holly Cemetery, not too far from what will be known as West 9th Street. There were so many of them that military commanders had to create housing for them hastily, which consisted of tents and shacks. The area would be called Blissville.

PROSPEROUS RACE