{"id":51097,"date":"2024-12-10T19:05:04","date_gmt":"2024-12-10T19:05:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2024\/12\/10\/us-navy-christens-nuclear-submarine-uss-arkansas\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T20:12:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T20:12:27","slug":"us-navy-christens-nuclear-submarine-uss-arkansas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/naval\/2024\/12\/10\/us-navy-christens-nuclear-submarine-uss-arkansas\/","title":{"rendered":"US Navy christens nuclear submarine USS Arkansas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. \u2014 The nuclear submarine Arkansas was christened Saturday, almost a decade in the making since the U.S. Navy announced that a Virginia-class submarine would bear the state\u2019s name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carlotta Walls LaNier, one of the 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2018, then-Navy Secretary Ray Mabus named the six women of the Little Rock Nine as sponsors of the boat. Besides LaNier, Elizabeth Eckford and Gloria Ray Karlmark also attended the ceremony. All the sponsors had their initials welded into steel plates when the submarine\u2019s keel was laid in 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\t