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. Estimates have ranged from 25 to 853, the latter from an Arkansas Gazette reporter who named no source. The town was at the center of a rapidly changing lumber and plantation economy known for harsh working conditions. The confessions of the black men had been secured through torture. On September 29, 2019, a memorial to those who died during the massacre was dedicated in downtown Helena-West Helena. Cortner, Richard C. A Mob Intent on Death: The NAACP and the Arkansas Riot Cases. Sandy Diggs or Toby Diggs was the name father and son, Im trying to find what happened to them. Helena is home to the longest running daily radio program in the U.S., King Biscuit Time. In a final act of disrespect, they tied her dress over her head and left her body on the side of the road for several days. The account that best captured the perspective of the sharecroppers came from Ida Wells Barnett, the legendary anti-lynching crusader and journalist. They now verified that the planters had gone to the Hoop Spur church to destroy the union and that the posse had killed their own men, instead of the black people who had been accused. With the fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, the Confederate forces in the Trans-Mississippi were cut off from the rest of the Confederacy. A willow tree memorializing the African American lives lost in a 1919 massacre in Elaine, Arkansas, in one of the deadliest racial conflicts in U.S. history, was chopped down this week . Smith, C. Calvin, ed. [14], Late on July 3, Fagan sent a patrol commanded by Colonel William H. Brooks to secure the junction of the two roads leading to Little Rock. Fort Curtis 12 Points of Interest & Landmarks By Altekameraden Black people were thus blamed, sentenced and jailed for their own massacre. Omissions? [101] The Helena Confederate Cemetery includes burials of Confederate soldiers killed during the battle, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places,[102] as are the remains of the Union batteries.[103]. Scipio A. Jones. Arkansas Historical Quarterly 31 (Autumn 1972): 201219. During the American Civil War, the Battle of Helena was a deadly encounter. 1E, 6E. A memorial to those killed in the Elaine massacre of 1919 was dedicated on Sunday. In June 1863, Confederate Commander Theophilus Holmes sought to take pressure off of Vicksburg, Mississippi, by attacking the Union-held town of Helena, Arkansas. [47] Price's advance was led by the 9th Missouri Sharpshooter Battalion, who sighted the Union positions on Graveyard Hill. New York: Pegasus Books, 2020. Johnson, J. Chester. Some of the refugees were killed, some were taken prisoner, and the camp was burned by the Confederates at some point during the battle. Union, Reaction, and Riot: The Biography of a Rural Race Riot. Attorney Jacob Fink, who was appointed to represent Frank Hicks, admitted to the jury that he had not interviewed any witnesses. HWH Mayor Kevin Smith took to Facebook Wednesday morning saying the fatal shooting happened on North 6th Street. Then the real massacre began: For the next five days, Colonel Jencks and his troops, assisted by vigilantes, hunted black people over a 200-mile radius. Watson was but one of 97 Black people lynched in Arkansas in the decade spanning 1891 to 1900 93 males and 4 females. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1988. At least two historians, including myself, have settled on a reasonable estimate of 200, recognizing that the toll was most likely far greater. According to police, deputies were dispatched to the 1000 block of Cherry Street in regard to a shots fired complaint when they discovered 50-year-old Cornelius Borum on the front porch. The Arkansas Gazette reported at least fifteen black bodies in Helena's streets and it's outskirts. The City of Helena is located in Phillips County in the State of Arkansas. No one even took the time to confirm the number of kills, as if these people were as worthless as termites. The violence even claimed those who had nothing to do with the union efforts, such as brothers David Augustine Elihue Johnston, Gibson Allen Johnston, Lewis Harrison (L. H.) Johnston, and Leroy Johnston, who were returning to Helena from a hunting trip when they were attacked and killed on October 2. The union had contracted with lawyer Ulysses S. Bratton, whose son, Ocier, was at this meeting. Rogers, O. Brough, who had ridden on the train with the troops and accompanied them on a march to the Hoop Spur area. This neglect by the government came in the face of people who merely sought to exercise their basic rights to secure a lawyer to defend their property. Vigilantes from Mississippi seized another union member, Lula Black, and her four children from her house, knocked her down, pistol whipped and kicked her, then took her to jail. Brough, requesting that U.S. troops be sent to Elaine. [48] They were now in front of Battery D.[50], Marmaduke has his own problems in his sector on the line. [4] After, a loss of rail service in early 2015, a successful effort was launched by the Helena-West Helena/Phillips County Port Authority to have freight service restored. Battery K, 1st Missouri Light Artillery Regiment, 2nd Arkansas Infantry Regiment (African Descent), Troop engagements of the American Civil War, 1863, "Batteries A, B, C, and D (Battle of Helena)", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_Helena&oldid=1141530720, Battles of the American Civil War in Arkansas, Battles of the Trans-Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War, Union victories of the American Civil War, Short description is different from Wikidata, Pages using Sister project links with hidden wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 25 February 2023, at 14:50. Although the exact number is unknown, estimates of the number of African Americans killed by whites have ranged into the hundreds; five white people lost their lives. Local authorities blocked press coverage. Jones began to raise money in the black community in Little Rock for the defense of the Elaine Twelve, as the convicted men came to be known. Marking a Tragedy. Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, September 29, 2019, pp. They shot him and left him to die. Little Rock: Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, 2002. They stole Wares cow, two mules, one horse, a farm wagon, his Ford car and various household goods. Crime fighting efforts in Helena-West Helena, Arkansas are getting a big boost from the federal government. Gov. He lost 121 acres of cotton and corn. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2022. Thrown into this highly combustible mix was the return to the United States of black soldiers who often exhibited a less submissive attitude within the Jim Crow society around them. A defensive position known as Fort Curtis already existed to the west of Helena, but four new batteries, named with the letters A, B, C, and D, were ordered built. HELENA-WEST HELENA, Ark. [80] Between 10:30 and 11:00 am, Fagan received orders to retreat from before Battery D. Part of the 37th Arkansas Infantry Regiment was trapped during the retreat and was captured. Stopford, Annie. He praised his troops for their restraint in suppressing the rebellion. Brough responded by gaining permission from the Department of War to send more than 500 battle-tested troops from Camp Pike, outside of Little Rock (Pulaski County). In June 1863, Confederate Commander Theophilus Holmes sought to take pressure off of Vicksburg, Mississippi, by attacking the Union-held town of Helena, Arkansas. Damaged Heritage: The Elaine Race Massacre and a Story of Reconciliation. All the white people had to do was stay away from the church while the meeting was going on. The Delta city has been awarded a $1 million grant speci Fort Curtis was built in August 1862 by Union soldiers and freed slaves in Helena. The Elaine Legacy Center, in conjunction with the Dewitt Proctor Conference, held a Truth Hearing in February where 12 commissioners heard several descendants convey powerful stories of the massacre handed down through their families. Dillard, Tom. 0.73% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. Roberts, Michael. Throughout the day at least 1,000 white vigilantes came from all over the state and from Mississippi to join plantation owners, their managers, sheriffs, deputies and the veterans to put down what they called an uprising. [7], On June 9, Holmes learned that the strength of the Union forces in Helena was about 3,000 or 4,000 men, and decided against an attack. A shooting incident that occurred at a meeting of the Progressive Farmers and Household Union escalated into mob violence on the part of the white people in Elaineand surrounding areas. New York: Crown, 2008. The Confederates withdrew on July 4 of 1863. While its deepest roots lay in the states commitment to white supremacy, the events in and around Elaine (Phillips County)stemmed from tense race relations and growing concerns about labor unions. Joseph Bledsoe's Missouri Battery was brought up to provide artillery support, and two of its guns opened on the Union positions. Ms. Wells Barnett gathered testimonies that described the sheer horror of the massacre from those who endured and lived to tell their stories. Krugler, David F. 1919, The Year of Racial Violence: How African Americans Fought Back. My anger comes from this being hidden/erased from history like the lives that were taken that day. [31], On July 3, Holmes, Price, Walker, Fagan, and Marmaduke gathered to formulate the plan of assault. Late in the evening of Sept. 30, black sharecropper families gathered in the Hoop Spur church near Elaine. Descendant of Arkansas Elaine Massacre Victims Push for Restorative Justice. Facing South, October 7, 2020. https://www.facingsouth.org/2020/10/descendants-arkansas-elaine-massacre-victims-push-restorative-justice (accessed August 16, 2022). [Editors note: A professor at UA Little Rock is working to compile such a list.]. About 38.4% of families and 41.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 54.9% of those under age 18 and 24.1% of those age 65 or over. As many as several hundred African Americans and five white men were killed. Union troops captured the city in July 1862, and had been using it as a base of operations. The perpetrators suppressed coverage of the events, and the victims, terrified black families, had no one to turn for help. The official narrative presented a picture at odds with reality. From Race Riot to Sit-in: 1919 to the 1960s. All Rights Reserved. (Students Tapping Academic Resources for Success) Academy (alternative school), This page was last edited on 26 April 2023, at 19:58. He was elderly and handicapped, and ran too slowly. The murders, thefts, violence and terror continued long after the troops had gone and the convicted men had been released. Race relations in this area of Arkansas are currently quite strained for a number of reasons, including the events of 1919. Online at https://archive.org/details/TheArkansasRaceRiot (accessed August 16, 2022). [7], Helena built a reproduction of Fort Curtis in 2012 that is free to the public. [48] The 43rd Indiana Infantry Regiment had been facing Fagan's Confederates, and was reinforced by parts of the 33rd Iowa Infantry Regiment and the 35th Missouri Infantry Regiment, under orders from Salomon. Police say detectives have interviewed several people who might have been with . The Malco theater in Helena has served as both a place to see a movie and as a movie location in Arkansas. The Forgotten History of Americas Worst Racial Massacre, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/30/opinion/elaine-massacre-1919-arkansas.html. [82] Either around the time that Battery C fell to Price's attack[83] or as Fagan's withdrawal was ending, Brooks placed a 6-pounder field gun on a hilltop and began to fire on the Union positions, but Battery K, 1st Missouri Light Artillery and Tyler drove it off. That was 97 years ago but little has changed in the hearts of people. On October 31, 1919, the Phillips County grand jury charged 122 African Americans with crimes stemming from the racial disturbances. Military reports were intentionally vague. A Rural Town Confronts Its Buried History of Mass Killings of Black Americans. The Guardian, August 18, 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/18/a-rural-town-confronts-its-buried-history-of-mass-killings-of-black-americans (accessed February 22, 2023). [36] Brooks' Confederates also encountered a camp of African-American refugees. I know for a fact my fathers people were involved in the Elaine Riot. Butts, J. W., and Dorothy James. [97] Vicksburg had surrendered on July 4, and the Confederate garrison at Port Hudson, Louisiana fell within a week. Barry, John M. Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America. Research Materials for Blood in Their Eyes: The Elaine Race Massacres of 1919. Two white members of the Phillips County posse, T. K. Jones and H. F. Smiddy, stated in sworn affidavits in 1921 that they committed acts of torture at the Phillips County jail and named others who had also participated in the torture. Edgar Hoover and the Red Summer of 1919. Journal of American Studies 28 (April 1994): 3959. [56], Around the time Fagan's men approached Battery D at 7:00 am, Price's attack began. Eliza Miller Junior High School and Central High School, the designated secondary schools, were in West Helena. Burke, Jordan C. White Discipline Black Rebellion: A History of American Race Riots from Emancipation to the War on Drugs. PhD diss., University of New Hampshire, 2020. A steel gondola car was hauled back and forth on the railroad track, he said, adding, the men inside firing from the shelter of the steel walls of the car, shooting black people. There, in the early fall of 1919, a different struggle for democracy was taking place. It is a deliberately planned insurrection of the Negroes against the whites directed by an organization known as the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America, established for the purpose of banding Negroes together for the killing of white people.. The community, originally settled in 1797 and first called Monticello and then St. Francis, grew around a warehouse built for barge shipping. Donations made to the CALS Foundation are tax-deductible for United States federal income tax purposes. This picture of the Magnolia Inn on Roosevelt Road in Little Rock was taken in 1969. Clancy, Sean. In their view a deliberately planned insurrection had occurred, where black sharecroppers had intended to murder the plantation owners to seize the land. Anatomy of Four Race Riots: Racial Conflict in Knoxville, Elaine (Arkansas), Tulsa and Chicago, 19191921. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. The military placed several hundred African Americans in makeshift stockades until they could be questioned and vouched for by their white employers. Rev. Since Prentiss was aware of a coming attack, the Confederates would not have the advantage of surprise. As they ran from the posse, the Colemans saw his neighbor, Jim Miller, and his family burned alive in their house. 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. 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. The Helena-West Helena Police Department says the body of Fredrick Willis, 23, of Helena-West Helena, was found late Tuesday evening. On the third try, the Confederates managed to overrun Battery C, but the men from the 33rd Missouri had time to spike one cannon and take supplies necessary for firing before the Confederates captured the guns. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. The governor, who was reported as saying he was going to Elaine to obtain correct information, accepted the authority of the committee in return for its commitment that no lynchings would take place in Helena (Phillips County). The Battle of Helena was fought on July 4, 1863, near Helena, Arkansas, during the American Civil War. White wrote in the Chicago Daily News on October 19, 1919, that the belief there had been an insurrection was only a figment of the imagination of Arkansas whites and not based on fact. He said, White men in Helena told me that more than one hundred Negroes were killed. Famed journalist and anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells-Barnett secretly interviewed some of the prisoners in Helena, from which she produced the pamphlet The Arkansas Race Riot. This work also challenged allegations of an insurrection and documented the torture and other depredations the prisoners had suffered. 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. The sharecroppers who gathered at a small church in Elaine, Arkansas, in the late hours of September 30, 1919, knew the risk they were taking. Further Reading: Richard C. Courtner, A Mob Intent on Death: The N.A.A.C.P. Peacock, Leslie Newell. The decision by the justices was aided by two white men involved in the massacre who reversed their previous testimonies. What a travesty of justice. and the Arkansas Riot Cases; Ida Wells Barnett, The Elaine Race Riot; Guy Lancaster, The Elaine Massacre and Arkansas: A Century of Atrocity and Resistance, 1819-1919; Grif Stockley, Blood in Their Eyes: The Elaine Arkansas Race Massacre., Nan Elizabeth Woodruff us an emeritus professor of African American studies and modern United States history at Pennsylvania State University and the author of American Congo: The African American Freedom Struggle in the Delta.. On Oct. 31, a grand jury indicted 122 black men and women for offenses ranging from murder to night riding. [70] Fagan's lines had been badly thinned by not only Union fire but also heat and exhaustion. The next morning, the Phillips County sheriff sent out a posse to arrest those suspected of being involved in the shooting. Paul Hall was one of the twelve men who were slated to be electrocuted, and I believe he was my relative. [57] Confusion was initially caused by the two brigades being separated by a ridge and unable to see each other. The first time you log in to our catalog you will need to create an account. Updates? Hundreds of black citizens were killed in Elaine, Ark., a century ago this week. At the same time, the New York offices of the NAACP, upon the advice of Arkansas attorney Ulysses S. Bratton, hired the Little Rock law firm of George Murphy, a former attorney general and candidate for governor, as counsel for the twelve men. [8] He thought the attack would be too costly, and instead suggested placing an artillery battery along the Mississippi river to intercept Union shipping. During this Red Scare, the threat of Bolshevism seemed to be everywhere: not only in the labor strikes led by the radical Industrial Workers of the World but also in the cotton fields of Arkansas. Collins, Ann V. All Hell Broke Loose: American Race Riots from the Progressive Era through World War II. The white citizens of the county deserve unstinting praise for their actions in preventing mob violence., From this point forward, two versions of what occurred at Elaine exist. My mother said she believed his uncle Richard was there, but he was afraid to come outside for fear someone would be there to take him back to Arkansas. Find directions to Helena, browse local businesses, landmarks, get current traffic estimates, road conditions, and more. Pre-European Exploration, Prehistory through 1540, European Exploration and Settlement, 1541 through 1802, Louisiana Purchase through Early Statehood, 1803 through 1860, Civil War through Reconstruction, 1861 through 1874, Post-Reconstruction through the Gilded Age, 1875 through 1900, Early Twentieth Century, 1901 through 1940, World War II through the Faubus Era, 1941 through 1967, Divergent Prosperity and the Arc of Reform, 19682022, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation/2544/, http://history.msu.edu/files/2010/04/Mark-Ellis.pdf, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/18/a-rural-town-confronts-its-buried-history-of-mass-killings-of-black-americans, https://lynching.cnsmaryland.org/2021/11/14/two-narratives-how-a-1919-massacre-tore-elaine-ark-apart/, https://prospect.org/justice/arkansas-reparations-elaine-race-massacre/, https://www.facingsouth.org/2020/10/descendants-arkansas-elaine-massacre-victims-push-restorative-justice, https://arktimes.com/news/cover-stories/2019/08/02/to-those-known-and-unknown, https://www.npr.org/2022/12/11/1137090651/elaine-massacre-tulsa-race-riot, https://archive.org/details/TheArkansasRaceRiot. [5], By early 1863, holding Helena provided the Union with significant advantages, such as serving as a supply depot for the ongoing Vicksburg campaign, providing a marshalling point for a future advance against Little Rock, and securing northeastern Arkansas. Wed like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. [13], Helena, Arkansas is home to historic buildings such as the Sidney H. Horner House and the Centennial Baptist Church. After hiding for two days in the woods, the Colemans returned home to find dead bodies of women and children scattered about their community. Major funding provided by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation. Wingo has a significant record of complaints against him, and fatally shot a man while on duty in Garland County last summer. Enraged citizens fired at the bodies of the dead negroes as they rode out of Helena toward Elaine.. The Moore defendants were granted a new hearing after the U.S. Supreme Court, in the case of Moore v. Dempsey, ruled that the original proceedings in Helena had been a mask, and that the state of Arkansas had not provided a corrective process that would have allowed the defendants to vindicate their constitutional right to due process of law on appeal. Arkansas has a rich history of movie theaters, many that hold a spot on the National Register of Historic Places and are still in operation today. Black sharecroppers were often exploited in their efforts to collect payment for their cotton crops. According to the United States Census Bureau, Helena had a total area of 8.9 square miles (23km2), all land. More atrocities were later reported, including cutting souvenirs from black bodies and . [69] Believing a full-fledged attack to be a suicide charge, McRae had his men simply fire on the rifle pits in hopes of diverting attention away from Fagan's command. When I was a little girl, I remember my father, Willie Hall, receiving a letter from his uncle, Richard Hall, who was his fathers brother. Fort Curtis was not directly attacked at the Battle of Helena since the Confederacy focused its attacks on the outlying batteries. By contrast, 16 white males were lynched during the same time. [59] The cannons in Battery C were manned by men from the 33rd Missouri Infantry Regiment, and they, along with a portion of the 33rd Iowa, poured a deadly fire into Parsons' men, while Battery B fired at McRae's brigade.
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