Return to The Land, a whites-only community in Arkansas, recalls a racist chapter in the state's history that no one wants to revisit.
On August 20, 1959, the Arkansas State Capitol was swarmed by a large crowd of white protesters (seen above) who each wanted to express how red-in-the-face they got at the idea of integrating Central High School. This came just two years after the bittersweet plight of the Little Rock Nine, itself a result of the historic 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling that called for the desegregation of all public schools. The immediate backlash was brutal for those young souls who put themselves on the line as pioneers — daily harassment, verbal abuse and even acid attacks only scratch the surface — but thankfully it all resulted in the fully inclusive Central High School of today that even has an onsite civil rights museum to commemorate everything those nine students had to endure.
While 66 years may seem like ample enough time to grow from past mistakes, unfortunately you’ve still got those who choose to not only harbor on the hate of yesteryear but also recreate it for a new generation of racist Arkansans. In 2025, there’s a whole community living in the Ozark hills that call themselves Return to The Land and operate based on a very played-out “whites-only” ideology.
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The “no Blacks, no Jews, no gays” requirement to be part of Return to The Land speaks for itself in terms of bigotry, and their plans for expansion to Missouri only further the cause for concern. More info below via MSNBC:
“Group co-founder Eric Orwoll recently garnered national attention for the segregated community he helped launch on roughly 150 acres in northeast Arkansas. And he garnered more attention this week after revealing that his group might launch a community in Springfield, Missouri, with his self-expressed motive basically amounting to racist, anti-diversity hysteria.
‘Whites should have the ability to live among their own people if that’s what they want to do, and mass immigration is quickly making that nearly impossible in many Western nations,’ Orwoll told KOLR-TV, the CBS affiliate in Springfield. ‘If individuals decide to live in multiracial communities, then they should be allowed to do so, but we don’t want racial forced on us in every aspect of life.’
Orwoll, who also told the outlet that he plans to help start communities in all 50 states, has effectively asserted a form of the ‘sovereign citizens’ argument in claiming that his group is allowed to discriminate because, he says, they are doing so on private land. According to The Independent, the Arkansas AG said in a statement: ‘Racial discrimination has no place in Arkansas or anywhere in a free society. These allegations raise all sorts of legal issues, including constitutional concerns. My office is reviewing the matter.’”
It’s unfortunate that Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin even had to state the obvious, but the swift action in response to such ignorance is how we should display examples of positive progression as opposed to even acknowledging the regressive thinking of a whites-only society.
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