The city of Fayetteville is honoring part of its history. As Ozarks at Large’s Jack Travis reports, the City Council recently unanimously approved a new local historic district in the southeast part of town called the Black Historic District.
Tommie Flowers Davis is a Fayetteville native. She grew up in the valley behind the Washington County Courthouse, which has come to be known as the Spout Spring neighborhood, a historically Black community. But life has moved her all across the Natural State, from Jonesboro for college to Little Rock for a career as a counselor. Davis has lived all over. But now she's back home. And although this story does have a happy ending, she says it was a series of tragedies that brought about her return.
"In 2016, I had a car accident, brain injury, all the things that go along with that. And my doctors decided they would not release me to go back to doing what I was doing, which was pretty devastating for me because that was my identity."
As Davis navigated her recovery in Little Rock, her family needed her in Fayetteville.
"So in 2016, my brother had heart issues and so I was able to be his, not his caretaker, I guess more companion care. To be with him, to go with him to medical appointments and assessments and that kind of thing. And so he passed in April of 2017. My mother, who was already having issues, heart issues and those kind of things. I became her once again, her companion. And she passed in July of 2017. Both of them had property here in Fayetteville. And so I was back and forth between Little Rock and Fayetteville trying to manage the property."
So here she was in Fayetteville unsure of what to do next.
"What is it that I wanted to do? Realizing that I probably didn't want to go back into therapy at that point in time. Social work. And so I can only say this because I have a strong faith belief in the Lord. I basically heard a message that said, 'Tommie, you need to look around.' I was in Fayetteville. 'You need to look around at what's happening in Fayetteville.' And so from that, I started looking at all the building, all the development that was happening here and thought, 'Well, maybe that's what I need to be doing right now.'"
She decided to go back to school. Davis enrolled in the Northwest Arkansas Community College's construction technology program in 2022. She graduated and founded Another Door Opens Construction. So now she's a business owner in her hometown. But she says that something in her city still felt off from when she was a child.
"So when I was basically really trying to get reacclimated to Fayetteville, what's going on in Fayetteville? And I saw all the changes in my community, which I knew it had been changing over time anyway. And I just really felt like the community was no longer the Black community anymore. And I was really concerned about all the history that was being lost, all the history that was being told, some of it accurate, some of it inaccurate. And realized that even the inaccurate history that people were telling us, they weren't doing it maliciously, but they were doing it based on what they knew and what they understood."
At that point, much of Fayetteville's Black history was unofficial, so to speak. She says that there was so much that Black residents endured that you wouldn't understand unless you lived it.
"And so that's what was missing, I think, out of a lot of the history that was written about the Black community in Fayetteville. And so I contacted the city and I said, 'Okay, are we a part of Washington-Willow District?' And they said, 'No.' 'Well, are we a part of Sequoyah?' I said, because they call us South Sequoyah. 'Well, no.' 'Okay. So are we a part of the downtown?' 'No.' 'So what are we a part of?' And they said, 'You're not.' I said, 'So we're not included in any of the districts that are already formed.' And they said, 'No.' And so I thought, 'Well, that to me is a problem.' Nobody wanted us. That's what I was saying. Nobody wanted us. And so then I really felt like we had a story to tell. Our community had a story to tell."
That's when Davis decided to start pursuing a Black historic district.
"Right as Oak Grove was kind of going through the process to be established formally as a local historic district, I was also reviewing the petition and preparing a report for the Black Historic District here in Fayetteville. So that one is pretty different."
That's Kylee Cole, long-range and preservation planner for the City of Fayetteville.
Oak Grove Historic District was the city's first local historic district that included more than one building. Shout-out to White Hangar at Drake Field. She says Oak Grove and the Black Historic District required different processes because they had different reasons for preservation.
Oak Grove was deemed significant by the Planning Commission, the Historic District Commission and City Council because the homes are architecturally significant. Geologist Noah Fields Drake built many of them in his distinctive fieldstone style and helped plan the neighborhood during the 1920s. That history is well documented, so researching is pretty straightforward. On the other hand, the Black historic district Davis was looking for would be culturally significant.
"And that's something that, as preservationists, the field is really taking a turn towards to really try to make sure that underrepresented groups are better represented in our historic building inventory. So doing survey work and trying to identify historically Black owned residences, areas associated with LGBTQ history, areas associated with Latino history, things like that, that aren't necessarily associated with a single builder or architect or style, but just show a more diverse portion of our shared history."
Still, Cole had to comb through records to verify Black-owned and built homes rather than looking at builder history or exterior architectural style.
"I was actually going through every single property in this proposed area and doing a complete chain of title, doing deed research. And then from that deed research, taking those names and looking at city directories, census records, obituaries, things like that to try to identify whether those were Black individuals and families or not, to really support this idea that this was a primarily historically Black neighborhood."
Through the information that Cole uncovered and conversations with neighbors, Davis and organizers like Emma Willis had to modify the boundaries of their proposed district. At first, it stretched west to College Avenue, east to Fletcher Avenue, north to Spring Street and south to Seventh Street.
But there's another historic district in the works for South Fayetteville, below Nelson Hackett Boulevard, and it was originally part of Davis' proposal. However, that area did not have a majority of historically Black ownership. South Fayetteville was a working-class neighborhood and Black residents owned property there and attended Jefferson School, but it was not an area of majority Black ownership.
"That was history before, I guess, it was incorporated into Fayetteville. And so any time that we functioned with community oriented kind of things, Seventh Street would be our cut off. Right there by Jefferson School was our cut off. And so when we had a smaller boundary to work within, then of course it didn't require as many signatures because you have to get 51% of the households to sign the petitions. And so going through that whole signature process, we had so many other people outside the community that were helping us with petitions, getting them signed. It was a really good collaboration with several different organizations that worked with us on getting those petitions signed."
While a smaller boundary was more accurate and manageable, it changed the signature requirements, too.
"I'm thinking, 'Okay, we made it this time. We had enough signatures,' and then I would get a call from Kara or someone in the clerk's office saying, 'I'm going to send this back to you because you all are going to have to get 15 more,' or something like that. And when you feel like you've exhausted every single household that you possibly could, then where are we going to get these other signatures from?"
The goalposts were regularly moving, yet Davis was undeterred. She had to overcome generations of built-up apprehension.
"Well, the whole issue with the Black community is distrust with the city. And there's been so many things that have happened over time that has created this them, them and us. And they've never seen the city do anything in support of the community. I mean, some people, it was like, 'They're not going to do anything anyway, so why should I sign?' And 'What does this mean? Are they going to take our property now?' They've always been trying, just so much distrust between the Black community and the city.
"And I was willing to put my name on the line for this because I believed in what we were doing. And so I think based on … I had a community member, he said, 'Oh, no, I'm not going to sign it. So and so didn't sign it.' And I said, 'Yes, they did sign it.' 'No,' he said, he wasn't going to sign it. And so when I knew he and his wife both had signed it, and this is his cousin being so, he said, 'Well, I don't want to be involved in it anyway.' So I had the cousin talk with him and let him know that he did sign it, and so he convinced him to go on and sign it. Someone else and his family was opposed to it. And I talked with one of his cousins who doesn't even live here, but he's a property owner here. And he called him and he basically said, 'You all need to do this. You all have to do this. So whatever Tommie needs, that's what you all need to do. You need to do it because this is something for us. And if you all don't support it, it's not going to happen.'
"So I would strategically find people that I knew they would listen to and get them involved in really talking to. They didn't really know a whole lot about what this meant, like, 'What does this really mean?' But they knew that this was something that in the long run could benefit us and would allow us to hold on to some aspect of our community that's been basically going away over these years."
Davis says distrust was built over decades of injustice. One demolished building at a time.
"When you start attacking certain institutions, whether it's the community center, whether it's Sherman's Tavern. Those are… Lincoln School. Even when Lincoln didn't have school there anymore, it was a building we used for summer school. It was a building we used for community activities."
She says the local bar, Sherman's Tavern, was especially important. Certain residents of the neighborhood worked in the courthouses as custodians and would sometimes overhear officials planning on which homes to condemn. Those residents would then return to the neighborhood and warn the homeowners in the evening at the neighborhood bar.
"And so that was a little thing that they, the community, had going on. And that's a true community. And when you move up like you tear down Lincoln School and Sherman's. Even though it was a hole in the wall, it was a very social arena for community. That's where people would gather. That's how you learned about your neighbor and what's going on and all that. And that's how you became supportive. You had their back. They had your back. That was community. And that changed over time because those institutions no longer existed."
Kylee Cole says that history of upheaval is still sitting in the county's property records, and one of the reasons the petition was so hard. State law gives every owner listed on a deed one signature toward the 51% threshold. So 51% of property owners had to actually sign Davis' petition.
"You know, these were families who, for a variety of reasons, maybe didn't have the resources, time, didn't know that property records needed to be updated."
She says there were many individuals listed on the deeds who were deceased, which inaccurately inflated the number of signatures required. There were also unclear name changes and properties owned by out-of-towners or businesses. She says some properties also just exist in limbo.
"I do think some of the property record clean up was kind of unique to this neighborhood. There's even one property, really interestingly, that I know of that has an individual listed who has been deceased for a very, very long time. And it doesn't appear that they have any descendants who have claimed that property. So it's just kind of floating out there with no one taking care of it. And it's, I guess, hasn't reached the point that the county is trying to take it to auction or however they dispose of property that they're not collecting taxes on.
“But I think that is also echoed in the historic record where I saw quite a bit of property shifting back and forth between private ownership and then the land commissioner or the county because of unpaid taxes or legal issues or whatever. And it really just goes to show some of the challenges that our neighbors can have when they don't have access to resources or equitable representation in some of these very confusing legal processes. So that was very enlightening for me to just kind of compare historically what had happened and kind of what we're still seeing today."
As of Aug. 4, City Council unanimously approved Fayetteville's Black Historic District with official boundaries running from North Washington Avenue, North Willow Avenue, East Center Street, East Mountain Street, South Washington Avenue and East Rock Street.
But let's take a step back. What does a local historic district actually do again? Cole says it's less than people fear, but property owners will still have to navigate some changes.
She says there's been a misunderstanding about what historic preservation means, while there are limitations and strict guidelines for what can or can't happen to houses within the historic district. It's very responsive to what neighbors want for their area.
“And I think we're also kind of writing a new, more modern historic preservation ethic for Fayetteville. And with different preservationists that are coming onto the scene of a more realistic way of doing historic preservation that is more responsive to individuals' community priorities and making sure that we have resilient neighborhoods that are ready for the future and for climate change and all of those things. So I think it's just we're in the middle of a shift and that can be really difficult for people to grapple with and trust that it's not going to be the paint color regulation type of historic preservation, but it's really the preserving stories, preserving character for the future so that this is still a place that you could come back and recognize as your neighborhood."
For years, Cole says that the assumption around Fayetteville was that nobody would ever go for a local historic district, but now residents are attempting to establish a third.
"This has shown not once, but twice, and we're moving on to maybe three times. And then there's another one in the wings. So maybe four times that people actually do want this. And people are willing to have some property regulations if it means that they have a say in how their neighborhoods are protected and continue into the future."
The third district, South Fayetteville, went to City Council recently and got sent back to the Historic District Commission over its boundaries.
Davis, meanwhile, says approval is a starting line, not a finish. She's proud of growing up in Fayetteville, and many of her neighbors are, too. But after struggling through systemic oppression and injustices, the Black community is still regaining trust with the city.
"They have a strong alliance with growing up in Fayetteville, Arkansas, as I did. And there were a lot of hurtful things that happened over time. And I think they're saying, 'Okay, so maybe they do see us. Maybe they do acknowledge us somewhat.' But I think the other side of that is we have to continue the course and make that real. Just because we've been deemed a historic district, if we don't do anything to develop that, then it's just a name."
She says she would like to see an African American museum in Fayetteville. More businesses near the neighborhood. Reasons for people who left to come back. What she's doing herself is building. Right now, she's working to put up homes across from Buddy Hayes Park, on land her mother owned first, which she unsuccessfully tried to develop years ago.
"She was before her time, actually, because what I'm doing now, she did back then with even less of a voice than I have now. But she didn't have the support. She didn't have the words. She didn't have the backing. It was just her going against this big city who said, if you don't like it, take us to court."
Davis has the backing now. Fayetteville's Black Historic District is official. And while you're at it, maybe drive down Rock Street to the new Buddy Hayes Park and set a spell.
The Historic Black Community of Southeast Fayetteville: Historic Context Statement
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
