Delta Grassroots Caucus Events

Credit Michael Hibblen/ KUAR News, Arkansas Public Radio; Former President Bill Clinton speaking to the Delta Grassroots Caucus on May 2, 2013, at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service, Little Rock

U. S. Senator John Boozman, Arkansas, at a Delta Grassroots Caucus meeting at the US Capitol

Brad Cole, Executive Director of the Municipal League of Illinois; previously a senior aide to former Republican US Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois, earlier Mayor of Carbondale, Illinois, veteran Delta regional advocate, speaking at the Delta regional conference in West Memphis, Arkansas on April 26, 2019.

President Bill Clinton makes a comment to Delta Caucus Director Lee Powell at a meeting in Blytheville, Arkansas (in the northeast Arkansas Delta) on Nov. 2, 2014

The Delta Caucus would like to pay tribute to the late, great U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, a powerful force in the US Senate for decades and a champion for the Delta. Sen. Cochran passed away on May 30, 2019. He spoke to the Delta Caucus on many occasions over the years (he is pictured above speaking to a Caucus event on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC) and his thoughtful, courteous and bipartisan leadership will be sorely missed.

Marcie Lawson, Executive Director, Sikeston, Missouri Regional Chamber and Area Economic Development Corporation, speaking at the Delta regional conference in West Memphis, Arkansas on April 26, 2019.

Alan Gumbel, Greater Memphis Alliance for a Competitive Workforce, Memphis, Tennessee, speaking at the Delta regional conference in West Memphis, Arkansas on April 26, 2019.

Mayor Shirley Washington of Pine Bluff, AR, speaking to the Delta Caucus at the Arkansas Capitol Rotunda in 2017.

Supporters of Sen. Fulbright Oppose Effort to Re-Name Kennedy Center for President Trump

Posted on July 31, 2025 at 04:23 PM

“Long-Time Supporters of Sen. Fulbright including Biographer Lee Powell Oppose Effort to Re-name the Kennedy Center after President Trump”

A long-time associate and biographer of Sen. J. William Fulbright and many other supporters of Fulbright’s legacy oppose Rep. Bob Onder’s (R-MO) bill to re-name the Kennedy Center after President Donald Trump.

Fulbright is the main founder of the Kennedy Center, advocating for its creation and passing appropriations to build the Kennedy Center.

“Fulbright’s cerebral, thoughtful approach to public policy issues and his founding role in the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts are diametrically opposed to President Trump’s anti-intellectual, chaotic strategy of sowing confusion and chaos,” said Lee Powell, who knew Fulbright for 20 years and wrote two books about him—one with a foreword by Fulbright and another with afterword by the senator.

The Delta Caucus and other civic-minded Delta organizations call on the region’s Congressional delegations, especially the Arkansas Congressional delegation, to block this improper effort to tamper with the legacy of both the Kennedy Center and Senator Fulbright.

Fulbright sought to make the Kennedy a renowned opera, ballet and cultural center of which all Americans could be proud. The senator would have been mortified by Trump’s effort to politicize such an iconic educational institution.

The Kennedy Center is not just a building; it is a symbol of American commitment to the arts, education, and international understanding. To erase that symbolism in favor of political theater would be a grave insult to the very ideals that Fulbright, Kennedy, and countless public servants have upheld.

Fulbright introduced legislation on Nov. 26, 1963 to name the institution after President Kennedy and appropriate the last $5 million for its construction. Mrs. John F. Kennedy expressed her appreciation to him for his efforts, and the senator replied: “Dear Jackie: Nothing I could do could ever begin to express my appreciation and gratitude that this country was privileged to have had such a President, even for so short a time.”

Kennedy’s niece Maria Shriver said Onder’s bill made her “blood boil.” Our sentiments exactly.

Rep. Onder made the ludicrous and sycophantic comment that “I cannot think of a more ubiquitous symbol of American exceptionalism in the arts, entertainment and popular culture than President Trump.”

Onder gives us quite a news flash that Trump is an expert in the arts, when he has revealed he knows little or nothing about the work of the Kennedy Center. In earlier comments Trump called for the Kennedy Center to bring in Broadway productions, when Broadway shows have been a regular feature at the center for a long time.

Trump fired the former Kennedy board members who were appointed for their involvement in the arts and replaced them with political supporters. He also called for recognizing Luciana Pavarotti with the Kennedy Honors, when Pavarotti was given that award 24 years ago.

Jeffrey Seller, producer of the Pulitzer-Prize winning “Hamilton,” gave the last word on this issue in cancelling upcoming performances at the center because his show was not consistent with “a new spirit of partisanship in the national treasure that is the Kennedy Center.”

Wilson Golden, a veteran Delta regional advocate from Mississippi, said “We should be respectful of President Kennedy and honor his memory through the Center—and this is not partisan in any form, shape or manner.”

(Note: Lee Powell is author of J. William Fulbright and His Time, foreword by President Bill Clinton and afterword by Sen. J. William Fulbright (1995); and J. William Fulbright and America’s Lost Crusade, foreword by J. William Fulbright (1084). Powell was a Presidential appointee in the Clinton administration and is executive director of the Delta Caucus. Most of the Delta Caucus partners agree with this statement, although we have some Trump supporters in our group and want to respect their wishes. This is based on Lee Powell’s knowledge of and connection with the Fulbright legacy.)