Beginning with the defeat of Governor Francis Cherry by Orval Faubus, the son of a hillbilly socialist, at the end of the Joseph McCarthy era, Dumas traces the development of a modern political cast that eventually produced Arkansas's first president of the United States--also exploring what brought about the second-ever impeachment of an American president. Journalist Ernest Dumas has written about politics for more than sixty years, since 1954, the year that the stolid Cherry fell to Faubus. The book is also a political memoir that describes not only Dumas's education in the ways of politicians but also the politicians' own education and miseducation in how to win voters and then how to get things done. Through the eyes of a journalist, this book collects the mostly untold stories, often deeply personal, that reveal the inner struggles and sometimes the tribulations of the state's leaders--Cherry, Faubus, Winthrop Rockefeller, Dale Bumpers, David Pryor, John McClellan, J. William Fulbright, Bill Clinton, Jim Guy Tucker, and others.

Under segregation and in its aftermath, black teachers and principals created havens of dignity and uplift for their students and communities. In Arkansas, where even education for white children has always been underfunded, the work of these administrators has been particularly heroic. This book, researched and prepared by the Research Committee of the Retired Educators of Little Rock and Other Public Schools, outlines the challenges to generations of black administrators in the state, and it maps their achievements. It also offers the first reference guide to the personnel who have educated generations of black children through the most extreme of circumstances.