NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — The nuclear-powered submarine USS Arkansas was christened Saturday, nearly a decade in the making since the U.S. Navy announced a Virginia-class submarine would bear the state’s name.
Carlotta Walls LaNier, one of nine black students who desegregated Little Rock Central High School in 1957, launched a bottle of sparkling wine into the hull of the Virginia-class submarine at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia.
In 2018, then-Navy Secretary Ray Mabus named the six women of the Little Rock Nine as the ship’s sponsors. In addition to LaNier, Elizabeth Eckford and Gloria Ray Karlmark were also present at the ceremony. When the submarine’s keel was laid in 2022, all sponsors had their initials welded into steel plates.
“History is full of groups of collective people coming together to make something happen,” he says Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported LaNier said in a speech to the crowd at the shipyard. “Many people are behind the submarine we named today. It is similar to the quote on our currency, E pluribus unum – ‘Out of many, one.’ We have SSN 800, but many participated in the reality that it is here today.
Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro called the ship “the very best of our submarine capabilities.”
“She will always be propelled by the proud legacy of her namesake, represented here today by three of her courageous sponsors, who overcame tremendous adversity as members of the Little Rock Nine,” said Del Toro.
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 Navy ship named after Arkansas, including a battleship. The most recent was a guided missile cruiser that was decommissioned in 1988.
The Arkansas is the 27th in a series of Virginia-class submarines and the 13th built at Newport News, a huge shipyard owned by Huntington Ingalls Industries. The other submarines are being built at General Dynamics Corp.’s Electric Boat shipyard. in Connecticut.
The Arkansas is expected to launch in 2025.