Culture of Arkansas

The culture of Arkansas is a subculture of the Southern United States that has come from blending heavy amounts of various European settlers' cultures with the cultures of African slaves and Native Americans. Southern culture remains prominent in the rural Arkansas Delta and south Arkansas. Arkansans share a history with the other southern states that includes the institution of slavery, the American Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow laws and segregation, the Great Depression, and the Civil rights movement.

On a more abstract level, Arkansas's culture can be seen and heard in its literature, music, sports, film, television and art. Arkansas is known for such authors as John Gould Fletcher, John Grisham, Charlaine Harris, and Maya Angelou; for musicians and bands such as Johnny Cash and Charlie Rich; for interest in football, hunting and fishing; for the films and television shows filmed in the state and the actors and actresses from Arkansas; and for the art created by Arkansans and inspired by the state of Arkansas.

The people of Arkansas are stereotyped both by their manners and for being highly religious. Language in Arkansas is a combination of several different sub-dialects of Southern American English found across the state. The state's culture is also influenced by its economy. Finally, Arkansas' cuisine is integral to its culture with such foods as barbecue, traditional country cooking, fried catfish and chicken, wild duck, rice, purple hull peas, okra, apples, fried green tomatoes and grits being part of the people of Arkansas's diet and economy.^{[citation needed]}

The stereotype, which is frequently characterized by a lazy, rural, poor, banjo-playing, racist, cousin-marrying hick is commonly applied to Arkansas and its residents^{[citation needed]}. Arkansas's hillbilly reputation, and its citizen's defensiveness on the subject, are a very important piece of Arkansas' culture. Many Arkansans defend the state's reputation by refuting this image, but other Arkansans embrace it^{[citation needed]}. The Old State House Museum housed an exhibit regarding the state's reputation in 2012.

The present day image of Arkansas has evolved from early diary entries written by the first visitors to the state. During the frontier period, many were exploring the new western extents of the United States and sending their findings back east. Henry Schoolcraft, George William Featherstonhaugh, and Henry Merrill were some of Arkansas's earliest detractors. Their accounts described the state as a backwater full of savages and outlaws. The travelers also commented on the self-sufficient nature and the wide range of survival skills possessed by the denizens of frontier Arkansas. This characterization was common among frontier states, but since geography prevented travelers from passing through Arkansas in subsequent years, the early commentary held in the public consciousness.

The image continued to grow when southwestern humor publications played on the backwardsness of poor whites, especially in hill country. The most enduring icon of Arkansas's hillbilly reputation is The Arkansas Traveller, a painted depiction of a folk tale from the 1840s. The tale involves gubernatorial candidate Archibald Yell and his party of politicians becoming lost in the Ozarks on a campaign trip and resorting to asking for directions at a squatter's cabin. The man continues to play his banjo and evade the traveler's questions before feeding the party and allowing them to stay the night. Although intended to represent the divide between rich southeastern plantation Arkansas planters and the poor northwestern hill country, the meaning was twisted to represent a Northerner lost in the Ozarks on a white horse asking a backwoods Arkansan for directions. The legend continued to grow, including a play named Kit, the Arkansas Traveler and the publication of a humor journal named the Arkansaw Traveler.

Another component of Arkansas's image is its history of racism and racial violence. Arkansas is socially stigmatized along with the other former slave states of the Confederacy. The presence of the Ku Klux Klan in the years which immediately followed the Civil War and events such as the Elaine Race riot continued to affirm the state's reputation for racism. The Little Rock Nine crisis at Central High School in Little Rock defined Arkansas as a state which was resistant to racial integration for many years and in the minds of many people, it also renewed the stereotype which portrayed Arkansas as a racist state. Frequently, the Little Rock Nine crisis and similar events are the only references to the state which are mentioned in history books, thus forming the opinions of many and perpetuating the state's negative reputation.

Gov. [Bill] Clinton, you attended Oxford University in England and Yale Law School in the Ivy League, two of the finest institutions of learning in the world. So how come you still talk like a hillbilly?