THE TV COLUMN : AETN puts the spotlight on Lakeport Plantation
Posted on Thursday, April 17, 2008
It has been a while since we’ve heard from Jack E. Hill, the veteran reporter / producer of the informative and fascinating TeleVision for Arkansas program series that’s now featured on AETN.
Hill, however, has been busy and his latest documentary is in keeping with his usual coverage of educational and social themes that affect the lives of Arkansans.
Lakeport Lives On debuts at 6: 30 p.m. today on AETN before it begins a run on several commercial stations around the state. The film is set to encore on AETN at 6: 30 p.m. May 1, May 14, and June 5; and 5 a.m. May 16 and May 19.
The half-hour film focuses on the role played by Chicot County’s Lakeport Plantation and Lakeport Plantation House. It shows how Lakeport affected those who lived and worked on the place, as well as their descendants.
The Greek Revival-style antebellum house is in the shadow of the new U. S. 82 bridge under construction across the Mississippi. Built largely of cypress, the house faces east toward the river, contains 17 rooms and has about 8, 000 square feet.
It is the last remaining Arkansas plantation home on the Mississippi River.
The plantation was established around 1831 by Kentuckian Joel Johnson. He used slave labor to carve it out of the heavily forested wilderness along the river.
The house was built in 1859 by Joel’s son, Lycurgus, and his wife, Lydia Taylor Johnson. Their descendants remained there until it was sold to Sam Epstein in 1927.
The house was placed on the National Historic Register in 1974. Thanks to a gift in 2001 to Arkansas State University from the Sam Epstein Angel family, it has been restored and is open to the public.
ASU uses the plantation and home as a museum and educational center to research and interpret the lives of those who shaped Delta life before, during and after the Civil War.
“We share a rich history in Arkansas,” Hill says. “Part of that history comes from a time when wealthy Delta planters lived in the big house surrounded by oceans of cotton made possible by slavery. Lakeport is one of those places.” An 1858 property accounting indicates that Lycurgus Johnson owned 155 slaves. They were valued at $ 1, 000 each. Today, many of the black families that live nearby have the last name of Johnson.
“I think when Arkansas State University became interested in the house, it was because of the potential to tell stories on several levels,” says Ruth Hawkins of ASU. “We went door-to-door to the people who live down Highway 142. We had a hint that they were descendants of the slaves. They didn’t know.
“ In the very first oral history, [the woman ] said, ‘You mean, those people that lived in that big house, their name was Johnson, too ?’ We had a story.” ASU notes that the plantation “provides complete documentation of agricultural development in the region and the accompanying changes in the African American experience. These include the transition from frontier to plantation slavery, to sharecropper and tenant-farmer systems, to agricultural mechanization and the resultant mass exodus of African Americans to factories in the North, to large-scale corporate farming.” “This house with such a great historic background is hopefully going to be a device for getting us deeper into the understanding of both the white and black culture that made it,” adds Tom DeBlack of Arkansas Tech University.
Much of the documentary took place at the facility’s grand opening in September. Fall had arrived.
“Up by the big house,” Hill notes, “the cotton harvest is under way as Lakeport lives on.” Who watches this ? I don’t know who watches VH 1 ’s “celebreality” shows where cameras follow C-list celebrities around as they live their has-been lives. Somebody must, because the cable outfit has four more in production for airing down the line.
Comedian Margaret Cho has The Cho Show in the works. Luke’s Parental Advisory will feature hip-hopper Luke Campbell, his two teens and his fiancee. New York Goes to Hollywood will have Tiffany “New York” Pollard extending her 15 minutes of fame, and Brooke Hogan Knows Best has Hulk’s daughter trying to make it in Miami.
You are what you watch. View this stuff at your own peril. I’ll watch this. I can’t understand why anyone would watch the shows mentioned above, but the next one is bound to be most educational.
Pamela Anderson (Baywatch, Stacked ) is on board with E ! to star in a show titled... wait for it... Pamela. Cameras will follow her around as she lives her life “with no regrets.” I believe that anything Pamela does is endlessly fascinating and I’ll be recording the show for posterity. Proof that this will be something very, very special is that the network is touting it as an “observational documentary series.” Wow. Can’t wait. More Hank. Fox has ordered 13 more episodes of King of the Hill. It’ll be season No. 13 for the animated family from Arlen, Texas. And remember, even after all these years, “the boy ain’t right.” More drama. Showtime has renewed the Peabody Award-winning Brotherhood. The deed was done mainly for bragging rights since the show’s highest-ranking episode only pulled down 650, 000 viewers. Season three will have only eight episodes. The TV column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. E-mail mstorey@arkansasonline. com
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