Donations made to the CALS Foundation are tax-deductible for United States federal income tax purposes. . Wells-Barnett, Ida B. This picture of the Magnolia Inn on Roosevelt Road in Little Rock was taken in 1969. Helena-West Helena School District operates schools in what was Helena. Black people were thus blamed, sentenced and jailed for their own massacre. As racialized violence spread in both Northern and Southern cities during the Red Summer of 1919, Delta planters were paying close attention. The few who made it close to Fort Curtis were easily repulsed. 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). On November 5, 2019, the Elaine Twelve were memorialized on the Arkansas Civil Rights Heritage Trail in Little Rock. I first learned of the Elaine Massacre today, February 7, 2017, and I am both saddened and angered. When he returned home, 150 men came to ransack his house, seizing his union meeting minutes and his Masonic lodge books. They stole Wares cow, two mules, one horse, a farm wagon, his Ford car and various household goods. The population density was 710.7 inhabitants per square mile (274.4/km2). [65] Carried by momentum, some of Price's infantry charged down the hill towards Helena itself, but were driven off. The union had contracted with lawyer Ulysses S. Bratton, whose son, Ocier, was at this meeting. [90] Casualties were heaviest among the 33rd Iowa and the 33rd Missouri, while the 2nd Arkansas Infantry Regiment (African Descent) saw the first combat wounds suffered by African American soldiers in Arkansas during the war. The median age was 32 years. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. When a tribute gift is given the honoree will receive a letter acknowledging your generosity and a bookplate will be placed in a book. The conflict began on the night of September 30, 1919, when approximately 100 African Americans, mostly sharecroppers on the plantations of white landowners, attended a meeting of the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America at a church in Hoop Spur (Phillips County), three miles north of Elaine. Unions such as the Progressive Farmers represented a threat not only to the tenet of white supremacy but also to the basic concepts of capitalism. Wormser, Richard, director. When my father arrived at the address that was on the letter, a lady answered the door, but she said his uncle didnt live there. Roberts, Michael. Lancaster, Guy, ed. Details remain difficult to verify. As they ran from the posse, the Colemans saw his neighbor, Jim Miller, and his family burned alive in their house. With the success of the Russian Revolution, stopping the spread of international communism was seen as the duty of all loyal Americans. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. The first time you log in to our catalog you will need to create an account. [45], Price's attack had been delayed. [29] Remembering the surprise suffered by men under his command in the earlier Battle of Shiloh, Prentiss ordered reveille blown daily at 2 am. Bearden, Russell E. "Arkansas' Worst Disaster: The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927." Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies 34 (August 2003): 79-97. Helena, city, seat (1830) of Phillips county, eastern Arkansas, U.S., port of the Mississippi River, about 50 miles (80 km) southwest of Memphis, Tennessee, and adjacent to the city of West Helena. I am wondering if any group, agency, or government entity ever developed a list of the 100 or 237 black lynchings in 1919 in the Elaine area during that evil time in black history. Once there, Holmes provided further orders for the advance: Walker was to screen Fagan's movement to Helena with part of his command, while Price continued on to Helena from Switzer's. Ultimately, the Ware defendants were freed by the Arkansas Supreme Court after two terms of court had passed, and the state of Arkansas made no move to re-try the men. 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 . The 1920 census lists my great-great-great-grandmother as a widow. [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]. The county was named for Sylvanus Phillips, and the settlement was renamed (1821) for his daughter. 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. Colonel Jencks sent all of the white women and children to Helena by train, ordered the immediate disarming of everyone and authorized the killing of black insurgents who failed to disarm. 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. Both Holmes and Marmaduke accused Walker of dereliction of duty. The descendants of the wealthier white perpetrators, they insist, have profited, and continue to do so, from the suffering and loss that their families endured in 1919. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1988. Pascal, Olivia. [21] Walker lost only 12 men; historian Mark Christ attributes this to the weakness of his attack. . 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.. With labor conflicts escalating throughout the country at the end of World War I, government and business interpreted the demands of labor increasingly as the work of foreign ideologies, such as Bolshevism, that threatened the foundation of the American economy. This was a . The official narrative presented a picture at odds with reality. As many as several hundred African Americans and five white men were killed. State police say Officer Wallace was shot around 6:11 p.m. Thursday outside the Delta Inn on U.S. Highway 49 in Helena-West Helena. [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. The murders, thefts, violence and terror continued long after the troops had gone and the convicted men had been released. Elaine sits in Phillips County, on one of the many bends in the Mississippi, roughly 95 miles southwest of Memphis. [71] Both Price and Holmes were issuing orders independently,[72] and Holmes' orders were making things worse for the Confederates. The main attack broke through Battery C, but Union troops fended off the attackers and sealed the breach. Additional support provided by the Arkansas Community Foundation. The trial had occurred in a setting dominated by a mob spirit, violating the prisoners right to due process. 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. Carrying an ax with their guns, they then moved to another home, where they murdered yet another union member, Frances Hall. 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. Wingo has a significant record of complaints against him, and fatally shot a man while on duty in Garland County last summer. Ms. Wells Barnett provided hard evidence of the massacre, but it took the Supreme Court to expose the truth to national attention. All the white people had to do was stay away from the church while the meeting was going on. 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. No one even took the time to confirm the number of kills, as if these people were as worthless as termites. [32] Walker's specific orders were to "act against the enemy as circumstances may justify", a vague order that left him under his own initiative and resulted in him accomplishing little in the coming battle. On September 29, 2019, a memorial to those who died during the massacre was dedicated in downtown Helena-West Helena. St. Francis National Forest is immediately to the north. HELENA-WEST HELENA -- Hard on the banks of the Mississippi River, the World still turns, one page at a time. Troops and vigilantes, he noted, went into the canebrakes in search of negro desperadoes, leaving dead bodies lying in the road a few miles outside of the city. 30.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 13.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. [56] Historian Robert E. Shalhope wrote that the Confederate attacks were repulsed "perhaps less by the powerful Union entrenchments than by their own poorly co-ordinated attack". If Elaine residents need something, they must drive to Helena, 30 minutes away - past silver metal silos with angled tops, modest one-story houses, John Deere tractors and the Lake View community, where a number of trailers and motor homes are parked along Old . Whitaker, Robert. If you can, provide 1-2 sources of information backing up this correction. The twelve men were: Frank Moore, Frank Hicks, Ed Hicks, Joe Knox, Paul Hall, Ed Coleman, Alfred Banks, Ed Ware, William Wordlaw, Albert Giles, Joe Fox, and John Martin. 100 years after hundreds of African Americans were reportedly killed in Elaine, Arkansas, a memorial is set to bring details of the tragedy to light Some observers say the number of people who. Taylor, Kieran. (Students Tapping Academic Resources for Success) Academy (alternative school), This page was last edited on 26 April 2023, at 19:58. Omissions? Emboldened by their war experience, African-American veterans returned to the Delta to demand the full rights of citizenship and justice, not only before the law but also in their labors. Fort Curtis 12 Points of Interest & Landmarks By Altekameraden Elaine Race Massacre: Red Summer in Arkansas. Differing interpretations of Holmes' order to attack at daylight resulted in Brigadier General James F. Fagan's troops attacking Battery D unsupported, and Major General Sterling Price's attack against the Union center was made after Fagan's had largely fizzled out. Online at https://dc.uwm.edu/etd/2040/ (accessed November 9, 2022). The committee met with Gov. Praying at the dedication of the Elaine Massacre Memorial. Many denied the massacre had occurred, leaving accounts of the slaughter to witnesses, reports from Wells Barnett, and stories passed down through families of the victims. Many families described how they had run into the woods for safety from bloodthirsty mobs, hoping to surrender themselves to the federal troops for safety. One union member, Ed Ware, told her that men had fired into the Hoop Spur church, killing several people, then burned it down the next day with bodies inside. [59], Holmes lost 1,636 of the 7,646 men he had taken into the battle: 173 killed, 687 wounded, and 776 missing. Families of union members found no welcome when they returned to their homes. New York: Peter Lang, 2008. If we cant get people to recognize we matter, we will never get past the color of our skin being the reason for unemployment, violence, and intolerance by authorities simply because were black. After Marmaduke's withdrawal, Union troops attempted to attack Walker's flank, but the Confederate cavalrymen withdrew from the field before they were caught. Within days of the initial shoot-out, 285 African Americans were taken from the temporary stockades to the jail in Helena, the county seat, although the jail had space for only forty-eight. [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. Collins, Ann V. All Hell Broke Loose: American Race Riots from the Progressive Era through World War II. 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. http://visualizingtheredsummer.com/ (accessed August 16, 2022). New York: Pegasus Books, 2020. More controversial is the view that the military participated in the murder of blacks. Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America. Pierce, Michael, and Calvin White, eds. Smith, C. Calvin, ed. On Oct. 31, a grand jury indicted 122 black men and women for offenses ranging from murder to night riding. The re-trials of the Ware defendants began on May 3, 1920. [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. Sandy Diggs or Toby Diggs was the name father and son, Im trying to find what happened to them. Holmes planned and executed three different failed attacks on the town. In Little Rock and at the headquarters of the NAACP in New York, efforts began to fight the death sentences handed down in Helena, led in part by Scipio Africanus Jones, the leading black attorney of his era in Arkansas, and Edgar L. McHaney. The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. New York: Crown, 2008. [55] Walker's men spent the rest of the morning primarily skirmishing with Clayton's cavalry and firing at long range. The converging attack would be difficult, and the generals interpreted Holmes' order to begin the attack at "daylight" differently. The account that best captured the perspective of the sharecroppers came from Ida Wells Barnett, the legendary anti-lynching crusader and journalist. Brough once again stayed their executions until the Arkansas Supreme Court could again review the cases. 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). [74] Holmes ordered Parsons to attack Battery D to support Fagan, but as Parsons' men were too badly disorganized at the time, McRae was given the order to attack. (WMC) - Areas of Eastern Arkansas are sending more violent offenders to federal court. Butler Center for Arkansas Studies. Charles H. Brough of Arkansas and a World War I veteran, Col. Issac Jencks, personally escorted 583 soldiers, including a machine gun battalion, from Camp Pike in Little Rock, the state capital, to Elaine. The Forgotten History of Americas Worst Racial Massacre, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/30/opinion/elaine-massacre-1919-arkansas.html.
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