Member of Little Rock Nine christens nuclear submarine named in honor of Arkansas
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — The USS Arkansas nuclear submarine was named Saturday, nearly a decade after the U.S. Navy announced a Virginia-class submarine would be named after the state.
Carlotta Walls LaNier, one of nine black students who desegregated Little Rock Central High School in 1957, threw a bottle of sparkling wine into the hull of the Virginia-class submarine at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia.
In 2018, then-Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus named the six women of the Little Rock Nine as sponsors of the ship. Besides LaNier, Elizabeth Eckford and Gloria Ray Karlmark also attended the ceremony. All sponsors had their initials welded onto steel plates during the laying of the submarine’s keel in 2022.
“History is full of collective groups of people coming together to make things happen,” he says. Arkansas Democratic Gazette reported LaNier said in a speech to the crowd at the shipyard. “There are many people behind the submarine we named today. This is similar to the quote on our currency, E pluribus unum – “Out of many, one”. We have SSN 800, but many have participated in the reality of its presence today.
Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro called the ship “the best of our underwater capabilities.”
“She will always be propelled by the proud legacy of her namesake, represented here today by three of her courageous sponsors, who overcame immense adversity as members of the Little Rock Nine,” Del Toro said.
A number of speakers also noted the 83rd anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the event that launched the United States into World War II.
The submarine is the fifth naval vessel named after Arkansas, including a battleship. The most recent was a guided missile cruiser which was decommissioned in 1988.
The Arkansas is the 27th in a series of Virginia-class submarines and the 13th built at Newport News, a massive shipyard owned by Huntington Ingalls Industries. The other submarines are built at General Dynamics Corp.’s Electric Boat shipyard in Connecticut.
Arkansas is expected to launch in 2025.
