Roy Reed (1930–2017)

4022. Faubus: The Life and Times of an American Prodigal, by Roy Reed (read 13 May 2005) This is a most interesting and quite well-done biography of Orval Faubus, governor of Arkansas from 1955 to 1965. His claim to notoriety is his dealing with the Little Rock Central High School desegregation crisis of September 1957--an account of which is well told in Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High, by Melba Pattillo Beals, which I read with total absorption on 22 Dec 1994. This biography of Faubus is generally unfavoring to him, though the author, a reporter for the Arkansas Gazette during the pertinent time, recognizes that Faubus' political career would have ended if he had done what was right in the crisis. Faubus' life fell apart in his declining years--he died Dec 14, 1994. This is, except for a few pages devoted to Arkansas legislative matters, a consistently interesting book.… (meer)