Jonesboro, AR – (JonesboroRightNow.com) – Aug. 19, 2025 – The Craighead County NAACP president expressed concern over the temporary closure of the E. Boone Watson Center during public comments of Tuesday’s city council meeting.
The center was closed to the public as part of the relocation of various government services originally housed in the Justice Complex building. The complex was closed in June after the need to reinforce a roof rafter was discovered during an inspection.
Craighead County NAACP president Shamal Carter said the public could no longer access the community room, kitchen, or the Craighead County-Jonesboro African American Culture Center housed inside the E. Boone Watson Center. Other NAACP members stood with Carter as he spoke.
“The E. Boone Watson Center is more than just a community center to the Black community – it is a repository of our history,” Carter said during public comments. “I have received numerous calls from residents expressing concern that our history could be forgotten while the center is being used for warrants, parole, and probation services.”
He asked that the city council consider finding an alternative location to house those services, so the E. Boone Watson Center could be reopened.
READ MORE: Discover Jonesboro’s rich Black History at the African American Cultural Center
Court Services and the Jonesboro Police Department’s warrants division were moved to the E. Boone Watson Center when Justice Complex services were relocated, city attorney Carol Duncan told JRN. City officials said information in these departments is “highly sensitive,” hence why the center is closed to the public.
“Those services come with some highly sensitive, state-required services as far as documentation and evidence and just personal information,” Jonesboro chief administrative officer Brian Richardson told JRN. “In the midterm, we would definitely like to be able to get E. Boone back accessible to the public, so we’re going to be looking at options as soon as we have a better picture on the Justice Complex in the next couple of days.”
In a video posted to the Craighead County NAACP’s Facebook page shortly after the meeting, Carter said he’d spoken with Jonesboro Mayor Harold Copenhaver, and that a meeting to further discuss the issue would happen sometime next week.
“They are already working on a plan to get the center open and back operating,” Carter said in the video.
During the mayor’s reports of the city council meeting, Copenhaver provided a brief update on the status of the Justice Complex.
He said city leadership, including Jonesboro Police Chief Rick Elliott, city engineer Craig Light, building maintenance director Ronnie Shaver, and Richardson, met Tuesday afternoon with a structural engineer to evaluate any further damage to the complex for safety and insurance purposes.
Information about the structure, he said, was expected to be received within 10 days. When that information is received, it will be distributed to the public.
Brian Emison, chair of the bond task force, said that once information about the complex is received, the task force will meet again, with a meeting tentatively scheduled for Sept. 16.
The bond task force was established when the city council in June approved a $17.5 million revenue bond to fund various city capital improvement projects. One of those projects is a new E-911/Real Time Crime Center, for which the task force members are to recommend the final location.
READ MORE: Location for Jonesboro E-911 Center remains undetermined
In previous task force meetings, two locations have been proposed: on property next to the Jonesboro Police Department on Caraway Road, or, possibly, tearing down the Justice Complex, which is in downtown Jonesboro, and building the new center in its place.
Emison said the reason a final selection has not been made is because he and task force members have been awaiting final numbers on the cost efficiency of repairing or demolishing the Justice Complex.
“I think at that time [the next task force meeting], we’ll have a lot of that information in front of us, and we’ll be able to really kind of dig over some data and figure out what our next steps are in that process,” Emison said.
Watch the full meeting here.
