America knows the photograph: Nine courageous teenagers walked into Little Rock Central High School while an angry white segregationist resistance made Arkansas the center of an international civil rights crisis.
America knows Daisy Bates. We know Gov. Orval Fabaus. We know President Dwight D. Eisenhower and the 101st Airborne Division.
But there is another name Americans should know: Joseph C. “J.C.” Crenchaw.
J.C. Crenchaw
Crenchaw was not simply watching history happen in 1957. He was helping build the organizational foundation that made the desegregation fight possible. He was a minister, businessman, professional tailor, civil rights activist and president of the Little Rock Branch of the NAACP during one of the most consequential confrontations over public education in American history.
Most importantly, his involvement began before September 1957, when television cameras turned Little Rock into worldwide news. Crenchaw already was publicly demanding that Little Rock obey the constitutional principles established by Brown v. Board of Education.
In February 1956, he declared the NAACP’s objective was to secure the “prompt and orderly end of segregation in the public schools.” Those words tell us something about effective leadership: Leadership does not begin when the cameras arrive; leadership begins when the cause is unpopular.
Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine, is surrounded by journalists after she is prevented from entering Little Rock’s Central High School by the Arkansas National Guard. (Getty Images)
The pulpit, the business and the movement
Crenchaw’s civil rights leadership cannot be separated from his ministry. He served as pastor of Mount Pleasant Baptist Church and belonged to a generation of Black ministers for whom the church was more than a Sunday sanctuary. The Black Church often was a meeting house, communications network, leadership incubator and refuge during the struggle against Jim Crow. Crenchaw was a professional tailor and longtime Black businessman associated with 702 West Ninth Street.
That address matters. West Ninth Street was at the heart of Little Rock’s historic Black commercial district — an Arkansas version of the Black Wall Street tradition where African Americans built businesses and institutions despite segregation.
Crenchaw therefore operated in three worlds that repeatedly intersected during the Civil Rights Movement: The church, Black business and civil rights activism.
Family and community accounts have connected Crenchaw’s tailoring business to private organizing surrounding Little Rock’s integration struggle. The specific description of the tailoring shop as a “secret meeting place” for the Little Rock Nine deserves additional archival documentation before being stated as settled historical fact. Yet his documented business presence on West Ninth Street demonstrates how deeply rooted he was in Little Rock’s Black community.
Daisy Bates, chairman of the Arkansas chapter of the NAACP, is interviewed by the local and college press in the student center at City College. Earlier the same day, president of the local chapter, J.C. Crenshaw was arrested, and posted bond, on a charge of violating the law. (Getty Images)
Standing with Daisy Bates
Daisy Bates deservedly became the most recognizable local adult leader of the Central High struggle and an extraordinary mentor to the Little Rock Nine. But she did not operate in a vacuum. Crenchaw was president of the Little Rock NAACP branch, while Bates led the Arkansas State Conference of NAACP branches. They represented complementary layers of the same movement — local and statewide leadership.
Their partnership became unmistakable when Little Rock authorities attempted to compel the NAACP to surrender organizational information and membership records. City officials ordered the arrests of Bates and Crenchaw.
On Nov. 1, 1957, Daisy Bates and Crenchaw voluntarily surrendered to police. Imagine the courage required. The world was watching Little Rock. Racial tensions were explosive. Yet this Black minister, businessman and civil rights leader refused to retreat.
Crenchaw’s faith had works. His ministry left the sanctuary and entered the struggle.
Black aviators take a final look at their map before going aloft. Left to right: Lt. John Daniels of Chicago; A/C Clayborne Lockett, of Los Angeles, CA; A/C Lawrence O’Clark, of Chicago; A/C William Melton, of Los Angeles; and civilian instructor, Milton Crenshaw, of Little Rock, Ark.. (Getty Images)
An extraordinary family legacy
Perhaps Crenchaw’s influence also is visible through the remarkable accomplishments of his sons.
Milton Pitts Crenchaw became one of America’s pioneering Black aviation figures. Milton became the first Arkansan trained by the federal government as a civilian licensed pilot and served as a primary civilian flight instructor associated with the legendary Tuskegee Airmen. He helped train scores of Black military aviators during an era when segregation insisted that African Americans were intellectually and professionally inferior.
Charles Madison Crenchaw conquered a different frontier. On July 9, 1964, Charles became the first African American to reach the summit of Denali, then officially called Mount McKinley — the highest mountain in North America. The National Park Service recognizes that historic achievement. Charles also served as a flight engineer connected to the Tuskegee Airmen before eventually working for Boeing.
Consider the symbolism. A father fought barriers on the ground in segregated Little Rock. One son trained Black Americans to conquer the skies. Another climbed to the highest point in North America.
An unsung American hero
We should be careful not to rewrite history simply to correct history’s omissions. I have not found sufficient primary-source documentation establishing the frequently repeated claim that Crenchaw was Arkansas’s first NAACP leader in 1910, only one year after the national organization’s founding in 1909. That claim deserves additional archival investigation before being repeated as fact.
Likewise, available evidence demonstrates that Crenchaw worked closely with Daisy Bates, but it does not yet establish that he was formally her mentor. What the documented record establishes is powerful enough: Crenchaw was advocating school desegregation before the Central High crisis exploded. He led Little Rock’s NAACP branch. He worked alongside Daisy Bates. He confronted segregation. He risked arrest. He surrendered to police rather than retreat from the NAACP’s struggle. He ministered to his community. He operated a Black business in the heart of historic West Ninth Street. And his children continued breaking racial barriers across America.
The Little Rock Nine were extraordinarily courageous teenagers, but teenagers do not overturn entrenched systems of segregation alone. Behind them stood parents, attorneys, ministers, teachers, journalists, businessmen, organizers and NAACP leaders. Joseph C. Crenchaw was among them. History remembers the people standing in front of the cameras. It sometimes forgets the people standing behind the cause.
Edmond W. Davis
Edmond W. Davis is a social historian, journalist, professor and documentary host. He is founder of the National HBCU Black Wall Street Career Fest. A native of Philadelphia, he lives with his wife and son in the Little Rock, Ark., area. Davis is committed to cultural empowerment and educational equity through storytelling and civic engagement.