Elaine Massacre
By
John C Abercrombie
Today we look at day 5 of 28 mini-series
The Elaine, Arkansas massacre is another event in American history that is seldom talked about. As we consider this incident it is necessary to frame the economic climate of the times. The year is 1919, well after the Civil War, but many practices that followed were similar to what preceded the war.
It should be recognized that the White landowners were settling land that had been taken away from the native inhabitants of the area, the true owners, the Native Americans. Given this “free” land and provided with free labor (slaves) they were becoming rich. The value of the slave produced goods was well over 52% of the entire American GNP.
We see as in so many practices and laws that Blacks were not able to take advantage of the “free” landowner ship that would be given to Whites through out the county of America from coast to coast.
There was the practice of share cropping, an innocent sounding practice that was similar to slavery in so many ways. Because slaves were not permitted to own property when the Civil War ended, they had no place to call their own. They did not own land or have places of employment leaving them vulnerable to the preying of people still intent on free labor to make themselves rich.
They came up with share cropping. The former slaves would contribute all of the labor of planting and harvesting the crop in return for an equitable share of the crop. This is not how it worked in real life. The landowners provided a “store” with usually marked up prices 30 – 60% thereby ensuring a sizable profit for the landowner to start with. Then there was the matter of the books. You will remember that education for Blacks was against the law giving unfair advantage of unscrupulous landowners.
No matter the size or quality of the crop, the share cropping former slave was always in debt with no possibility of getting financial freedom. The future for sharecroppers was bleak at best.
The Black community then decided to form a union, “The Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America” to fight for an equitable share of the crop for their hard work. Aware of the risks of doing anything that would be equitable, they held a meeting for the purpose of organizing. They stationed guards outside but were confronted by White law enforcement. In the events leading to the Elaine Massacre, a shot was fired, and it is not clear who fired first.
Word was spread by the Whites that the Blacks were planning an insurrection intent on killing all White people. Blacks outnumbered Whites in Phillips County 10 to 1.
Elaine is a small city in Phillips County Arkansas in the Arkansas Delta region of the Mississippi River. It is best known as the location of the Elaine Massacre which took place on the days of September 30 thru October 1, 1919. It is estimated that 237 Blacks wee killed compared to 5 Whites. It is recognized as one of the worst racial incidents in American history.
Rather than a meeting seeking an equitable share of the proceeds from their labor, the Whites reported the meeting as an insurrection to kill all Whites in the area. Appeals went out to the governor for federal intervention and soldiers from Camp Pike located near Little Rock, Arkansas. The Ku Klux Klan was also involved. Reports were than the soldiers killed many Blacks without emotion.
As a result of the reports by Whites, hundreds of Blacks were charged with crimes including 12 who were tried and sentenced to death. The cause was eventually taken up by Black attorney Scipio Africanus Jones. The original attorney admitted in court that he had not spoken with the defendants or any witnesses, never challenged any of the jury members and never raised an objection during the trial.
There was testimony that Blacks were tortured to obtain statements and confessions from them, yet it went unchallenged. The case eventually became known as Moore v Dempsey where the convictions of the 12 were overturned by the United States Supreme Court.
We see once again how American history is purged of any material that may cast shadows on the actions of the American government. We purge the contributions of all but the same people giving a very distorted view of history and the people involved.
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For Black History Month 2020, we posted daily. The series focuses on the horrors of being Black in America and concludes with the landmark Brown v Board of Education case which was actually 5 cases consolidated (see days 20 -29). To see the posts, click here
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Elaine Massacre:
The bloodiest racial conflict in U.S. history | Dark History | New York Post American streets ran with blood in 1919 during what would become known as “Red Summer”. In the small town of Elaine, Arkansas, racial tensions turned to riots after African-American sharecroppers tried to unionize. A staggering 237 people were estimated to be hunted down and
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Black Boys Burning:
The 1959 Fire at the Arkansas Negro Boys Industrial School On the morning of March 5, 1959, Luvenia Long was listening to gospel music when a news bulletin interrupted her radio program. Fire had engulfed the Arkansas Negro Boys Industrial School in Wrightsville, thirteen miles outside of Little Rock. Her son Lindsey had been confined there since January 14, after a judge for juveniles found him guilty of stealing from a neighborhood store owner. To her horror, Lindsey was not among the forty-eight boys who had clawed their way through the windows of the dormitory to safety. Instead, he was among the twenty-one boys between the ages of thirteen and seventeen who burned to death.
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THE PURGE:
“1919 ELAINE, ARKANSAS MASSACRE”
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Blood in Their Eyes:
The Elaine Massacre of 1919 On September 30, 1919, local law enforcement in rural Phillips County, Arkansas, attacked black sharecroppers at a meeting of the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America. The next day, hundreds of white men from the Delta, along with US Army troops, converged on the area “with blood in their eyes.” What happened next was one of the deadliest incidents of racial violence in the history of the United States, leaving a legacy of trauma and silence that has persisted for more than a century. In the wake of the massacre, the NAACP and Little Rock lawyer Scipio Jones spearheaded legal action that revolutionized due process in America.
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New details emerge about Elaine Race Massacre
Our black history month series ends with one of the bloodiest race riots in the country — and it happened right here in Arkansas.
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Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education A New York Times Best Seller Merging real stories with theory, research, and practice, a prominent scholar offers a new approach to teaching and learning for every stakeholder in urban education. Drawing on his own experience of feeling undervalued and invisible in classrooms as a young man of color and merging his experiences with more than a decade of teaching and researching in urban America, award-winning educator Christopher Emdin offers a new lens on an approach to teaching and learning in urban schools. For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood…and the Rest of Y’all Too is the much-needed antidote to traditional top-down pedagogy and promises to radically reframe the landscape of urban education for the better.
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Arkansas Week Special Edition:
The Elaine Massacre (A Sad Centennial) It happened 100 years ago. An event that stained Arkansas but altered the course of American law. (Plantation ‘Justice’) It may have well been the worst, deadliest episode of racial violence in the nation’s history. (An Uncertain History) To this day we cannot know for sure how many people were killed. (Trail and Appeal) Only that the vast majority were black and that a dozen men almost certainly would have died were spared only through a heroic and dangerous quest for justice. The massacre at Elaine. An Arkansas Week Special Edition.
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The Elaine Massacre and Arkansas:
A Century of Atrocity and Resistance, 1819-1919 Although it occurred nearly a century ago, the Elaine Massacre of 1919 remains the subject of intense inquiry as historians try to answer a multitude of questions, such as why authorities in the Arkansas Delta used such overwhelming violence to put down a farmers’ union, exactly how many people were killed in the massacre, and how the event shaped the following century.
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“Black Holocaust”:
The Elaine Arkansas Race Massacre Of 1919″ with Dr. Robert Franklin Support The W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Movement!!! Donate online:
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Damaged Heritage:
The Elaine Race Massacre and A Story of Reconciliation The 1919 Elaine Race Massacre, arguably the worst in our country’s history, has been widely unknown for the better part of a century, thanks to the whitewashing of history. In 2008, Johnson was asked to write the Litany of Offense and Apology for a National Day of Repentance, where the Episcopal Church formally apologized for its role in transatlantic slavery and related evils.
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We see once again history being distorted to maintain an image rather than accuracy. Pretending that it di not happen is not the mature way to solve problems. We alienate people on the basis of race when we should be seeking understanding and taking a civilized approach to solving these long lingering festering open wounds.
Let’s face reality and move EVERYBODY ahead. We have the foundations of an even greater America if we face the facts and work together to resolve any lingering problems.