"Negro Boys Industrial School."(March 5,1959)

Before the dawn,the dormitory at the school caught fire.The two doors

leading out of the room were locked.Newspaper interviews reveal witness testimonies.One survivor said he saw clusters of children fighting to get of the window.Forty-eight boys escaped by forcing metal screens off two windows.But 21 others died.Fourteen children were found stacked on top of each other at the southwest corner of the dorm,burned beyond recognition. The building burned entirely to the ground.At the time authorities said,these children were burned at the Haven Rest Cemetery in a massive now grave.Through the years,the cemetery has had several owners,and without a headstone the new grounds keeper Sam Jarvis can only estimate where the bodies are.Nearly 50 years later,the land where the industrial school stood now houses an Arkansas Department of Corrections men's boot camp.There aren't any plaques or markings to indicate that the Industrial Boy's School was ever there,but the 21 children who died there are not forgotten.At the request of then Governor Orval Faubus a committee investgated the fire and found the school,the state and the community responsible for the children's deaths,but it didn't recommended a punishment and somehow the story faded into the backdrop on the Civil Rights Movement.
Fifty years later,the event is little remembered.The graves,hard by a ditch ar now narked with yellow flagging tape.
In Memory of the boys that died...
1.Lindsey Cross
15 Years Old
North Little Rock,Arkansas.
2.Willie C.Horner
16 Years Old
North Little Rock, Arkansas.
3.Carl E.Thorton
15 Years Old
North Little Rock Arkansas.
4.Frank Barnes 15 Years Old.
Lake Village,Arkansas.
4.R.D.Brown
16 Years Old
Emerson,Arkansas.
5.Jessie Carpenter Jr.
16 Years Old.
Forrest City, Arkansas.
6.Joe Crittenden
16 Years Old.
Bytheville,Arkansas.
7.John Daniel 16 Years Old.
El Dorado,Arkansas.
8.Roy Chester Powell
16 Years Old.
Forrest City,Arkansas.
9.Cecil Preston 17
Years Old
Bytheville,Arkansas.
10.Charles L.Thomas
15 Years Old
Little Rock,Arkansas.
11.Johnnie Tillison
16 Years Old
LaGrange (Lee County)
12.Edward Tolston Jr.
15 Years Old
Wilmot,Arkansas.
13.Charles White
15 Years Old
Malvern,Arkansas
16.William Loyd Piggee
13 Years Old
Dewitt,Arkansas
17.O.T.Meadows
13 Years Old
El Dorado,Arkansas
18.Henry Daniels
15 Years Old
Little Rock Arkansas
19.John Alfred George
15 Years Old
Little Rock Arkansas.
20.Roy Hegwood
15 Years Old
El Dorado,Arkansas
21.William Lee Williams
15 Years Old
Helena,Arkansas
22.Amos Guice
16 Years old.