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Ralph Waldo Armstrong III photographed the African-American
community of Little Rock (Pulaski County) for more than fifty
years. Between 1951 and 2006, a period of dramatic social
change, he accumulated an invaluable archive of thousands of
photographs of Little Rock’s black citizenry, houses, churches,
schools, and professional and civic organizations. Ralph
Armstrong was born on February 23, 1925, in North Little Rock
(Pulaski County) to Ralph W. Armstrong II and Callie Armstrong;
he had one older half-brother and two younger sisters. His
father worked in a Little Rock furniture factory, and his mother
took in washing to help the family meet expenses during the
Great Depression. Later, she, too, worked in the factory.
Armstrong developed an early love for classical music listening
with his parents to the Texaco-sponsored broadcasts of the
Metropolitan Opera on Saturday afternoons. He played the
saxophone in the Scipio A. Jones High School band and,