Workers also had to buy food, clothing, household wares, tools, seed and fertilizer at the plantation commissary, which charged exorbitant interest rates. According to the affidavits later supplied by the defendants, many of the prisoners had been beaten, whipped or tortured by electric shocks to extract testimony or confessions. "[25] Biographer Kenneth Robert Janken writes of this description: "It is likely that White exaggerated the dramatic manner of his escape, much in the way he did his childhood experiences in the Atlanta riotsurviving documents reveal several inconsistencies between what White wrote at the time and what he later recalled having happened. Walter Francis White, an NAACP attorney who visited . The Red Scare in Arkansas: A Southern State and National Hysteria. [There is] a sense of how to do it and who to draw on and what sort of arguments to make. The cases of six of the men would be sent for retrial over a technicality, while the other six defendants including named plaintiff Frank Moore had their cases argued before the United States Supreme Court. [9] White landowners controlled the economy, selling cotton on their own schedule, running high-priced plantation stores where farmers had to buy seed and supplies, and settling accounts with sharecroppers in lump sums, without listing items. A posse was dispatched and within a few hours hundreds of white men, many of them the "low down" variety, began to comb the area for blacks they believed were launching an insurrection. But World War I brought changes to the Delta, as it did in Northern urban centers. B.)] The exact number of black people killed is unknown because of the wide rural area in which they were attacked. [5][17], Governor Brough contacted the War Department and requested Federal troops. Elaine Massacre defendants Ed Hicks, Frank Hicks, Frank Moore, J. C. Knox, Ed Coleman, and Paul Hall. Organizers hoped Brattons presence would bring more pressure to bear through the courts. Efforts to teach the histories are gaining momentum even as some states try to limit how racism is discussed in schools. [6] More recent estimates in the 21st century of the number of black people killed during this violence are higher than estimates provided by the eyewitnesses, and have ranged into the hundreds. Honor or memorial gifts are an everlasting way to pay tribute to someone who has touched your life. 2023 Encyclopedia of Arkansas. [34], In September, 2019, 100 years after the event, an Elaine Massacre Memorial was unveiled. [28], The defendants originally intended to file their petition in Federal district court, but the only sitting judge was assigned to other judicial duties in Minnesota at the time and would not return to Arkansas until after the defendants' scheduled execution date. Woodruff referenced accounts of similar racial violence taking place elsewhere during this era of American life, including in . The findings blamed outside agitators for stirring up ignorant sharecroppers. In Florida, the Orange County Library Systems website has a page about the 1920 Ocoee massacre in which a white mob burned Black homes and churches with links to books, films and other materials. The Underlying Causes of the Elaine Riot of 1919. Arkansas Historical Quarterly 20 (Spring 1961): 95104. Whitaker, Robert. "[22], Arkansas Governor Charles Hillman Brough appointed a Committee of Seven to investigate. The following morning, Gov. Brough once again stayed their executions until the Arkansas Supreme Court could again review the cases. The recent centennial of the 1921 race massacre in Tulsa, Okla., which prompted President Biden to visit the city, is a prominent example. It took place in the Delta farmlands of Phillips County, Arkansas. Author Richard Wright grew up in Phillips County and discusses it in his autobiography Black Boy. [9], The all-white legislature had disenfranchised most blacks and many poor whites in the 1890s by creating barriers to voter registration. This Day in History Aug. 5, 1896: Polk County Massacre Time Periods: Industrial Revolution: 1877 - 1899 Themes: African American, Labor, Racism & Racial Identity Newspaper account of African Americans killed and wounded during labor strife in Polk County, from the New York Times; August 10, 1896. They aimed to hire a lawyer to represent them with the landlords. Upset about unfair low wages, they enlisted the help of a prominent white attorney from Little Rock, Ulysses Bratton, to come to Elaine to press for a fairer share in the profits of their labor. Legal disfranchisement stripped them of the vote and an ability to share in any benefits of citizenship. According to several accounts from white witnesses, both vigilantes and the troops committed acts of barbarism. At around 11 p.m. that night, a group of local white men, some of whom may have been affiliated with local law enforcement, fired shots into the church. Judge John Ellis Martineau of the Pulaski County chancery court issued the writ. Waterman, J. S., & Overton, E. E. (1932). They still believe non-whites are a threat to their way of life. Mr. Marshall first learned the full history of the 1919 Elaine massacre in her class. A 1961 article, "Underlying Causes of the Elaine Riot," claimed that blacks were planning an insurrection, based on interviews with whites who had been alive at the time, and that they were fairly treated by planters of the area. Richard Hall asked my father to come to Mississippi to visit him. Their initial task was to appeal the sentences given to the Elaine Twelve and ask for a new trial based on errors committed by the trial court. Colonel Jenckss report of his mission supported this view, claiming only two black people and one of his corporals had died. From Race Riot to Sit-in: 1919 to the 1960s. The 1920 census lists my great-great-great-grandmother as a widow. But in 1919, the Black sharecroppers of Elaine, Arkansas had had enough. As many as several hundred African Americans and five white men were killed. Here are some tips. Smith, C. Calvin, ed. [15] This view has been generally discounted by historians publishing since the late 20th century. "Elaine Massacre of 1919." Encyclopedia of Arkansas. Hostility toward him was so great from local white residents that, out of fear for his life, he was said to sleep at a different black familys house every night during the trials. She had been driven from her home in Memphis to Chicago because of her activism. In 1910, 78.6% of the population of Phillips County was black. One African-American, William Pickens, described the region as the American Congo. Elaine, though an isolated plantation region, was part of the broader social upheaval following World War I that came in the form of massive strikes and racial confrontations, both at home and abroad. Krug, Teresa. Though some local white residents of Phillips County still contend that white people at the time acted appropriately to prevent a slaughter in the Elaine area in 1919, the modern view of most historians of this crisis is that white mobs unjustifiably killed an undetermined number of African Americans. Home Law and Justice James White, a member of the Elaine Legacy Center, stands on one of the alleged sites of the 1919 race massacre. The Elaine massacre was among the worst instances of racial violence in American history, and it took place in a region, the Delta, that defined itself by its violence and oppression. The white leaders put forward their view that black residents had been about to revolt. The courts were another matter altogether. They described the wholesale massacre of hundreds of unarmed and defenseless black people, and the torture used to secure confessions. They secured new trials for six of the men, known as the Ware defendants, based on the fact that the trial judge had not required jurors to indicate the degree of murder on their ballot forms.The convictions of the other six men, known as the Moore defendants, were affirmed. Two Narratives: How a 1919 Massacre Tore Elaine, Ark., Apart. Howard Center for Investigative Journalism, November 15, 2021. https://lynching.cnsmaryland.org/2021/11/14/two-narratives-how-a-1919-massacre-tore-elaine-ark-apart/ (accessed August 16, 2022). She and her seven siblings . Williams, Lee E., and Lee E. Williams II. The Elaine Massacre occurred at the end of Red Summer of 1919 a series of brutal attacks on African Americans in more than three dozen cities including Chicago, Washington, D.C., Norfolk, Knoxville, and more cities. Many wept as they told of murder, land theft, forced migration and the legacies of living in a region where fear of retribution silenced people over generations. The black press picked up the story and other papers began to integrate Whites counter-narrative into their accounts, galvanizing support for the defendants. Brough led a contingent of 583 US soldiers from Camp Pike, with a 12-gun machine gun battalion. Americans have yet to reckon with this horrible past. "Elaine Massacre of 1919." Encyclopedia of Arkansas. The State of Arkansas defended the convictions from a narrowly legalistic position, based on the US Supreme Court's earlier decision in Frank v. Mangum (1915). They managed to find death certificates in a local funeral homes collection that confirmed deaths that had gone unreported at the time. He arranged for these men to be quickly escorted out of state to prevent them from being lynched. [9] The lower court retried the defendants beginning on May 3, 1920. [12] The lower courts failed to retry the men within the two years required by Arkansas law, and the defense finally gained their release in 1923. [3][2] Robert Whitaker estimated 856 people were killed in his 2008 book on this topic. According to Lentz, when we narrate the black freedom struggle in the 20th century, we actually need to shift our timeline and the pins we put on the timeline for the moments of significant breakthrough and accomplishments. Despite Moore vs. Dempsey being relatively obscure, if the U.S. civil rights movement is understood as an effort to secure the full social, political, and legal rights of citizenship, then 1923 marks a significant event, writes Francis. Clancy, Sean. Charles C. Alexander, "Defeat, Decline, Disintegration: the Ku Klux Klan in Arkansas, 1924 and After", Mass racial violence in the United States, Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America, Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, List of incidents of civil unrest in the United States, Elaine Massacre, Arkansas Encyclopedia of History and Culture, https://archive.org/details/TheArkansasRaceRiot/, "The white press has a history of endangering black lives going back a century", "A rural town confronts its buried history of mass killings of black Americans", "History of Lynchings in the South Documents Nearly 4,000 Names", Butts, J. W., and Dorothy James. Until the Arkansas Supreme court could again review the cases Richard Hall asked my father to to... County and discusses it in his 2008 book on this topic to be quickly out. I brought changes to the Delta, as it did in Northern urban.! 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