By Andrew DeMillo | Editor-in-Chief
Good morning, Advocate readers! Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the state’s top education official were eager to point to the latest test scores as a sign her education overhaul is working. And today is Juneteenth, which marks the end of slavery in the United States. We provide a guide on this weekend’s Juneteenth events in Arkansas. You can find more Arkansas politics and government news here.
From left: Arkansas Education Secretary Jacob Oliva and Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders tout the improvements in public school students’ test scores at a press conference at the Arkansas Capitol on June 18, 2026. (Photo by Tess Vrbin/Arkansas Advocate)
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
By Antoinette Grajeda
Arkansas students saw overall improvement in their annual test scores, according to data released by state officials Thursday.
Signs outside the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center in Little Rock, Arkansas detail the history of the historic west 9th Street district on Thursday, June 18, 2026. (Photo by Andrew DeMillo/Arkansas Advocate)
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
By Andrew DeMillo
Festivals, concerts and lectures are planned throughout Arkansas this weekend to mark Juneteenth, which marks the day the last enslaved people in the United States learned they were free.
A historical marker on the history of Juneteenth in Galveston, Texas on July 13, 2022. (Photo by Andrew DeMillo/Arkansas Advocate)
COMMENTARY
By The Conversation
Juneteenth made clear that freedom was not just confined to someone’s physical enslavement, but mental enslavement as well, bound in the laws that barred enslaved people from receiving an education in Southern states.
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