[75] Price then ordered Parsons to attack Battery D, but was informed that McRae had already been ordered to do that. As racialized violence spread in both Northern and Southern cities during the Red Summer of 1919, Delta planters were paying close attention. Butler Center for Arkansas Studies. 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. [25] Prentiss' men had advantages over the Confederates through their defenses, batteries, and naval support. Telephone lines to Elaine were cut. Richard Hall asked my father to come to Mississippi to visit him. Although the United States was on the winning side of World War I, supporters of American capitalism found in communism a new menace to their security. Washington is where we met. 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. [33] Holmes made a pledge that he would take personally responsibility for the results of the assault if it failed. Low Villains and Wickedness in High Places: Race and Class in the Elaine Riots. Arkansas Historical Quarterly 58 (Autumn 1999): 285313. The Forgotten History of Americas Worst Racial Massacre, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/30/opinion/elaine-massacre-1919-arkansas.html. 14 Best Things to Do in Helena-West Helena (Arkansas): Arkansas Welcome Center Phillips County Museum Fort Curtis Delta Cultural Center Robert Nighthawk Gravesite Quapaw Canoe Company King Biscuit Time Marker Sonny Boy Williamson's Boarding House Helena Confederate Cemetery Pillow Thompson House Freedom Park Frank Frost Gravesite Online at https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation/2544/ (accessed November 9, 2022). On the other hand, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in New York, which had sent Field Secretary Walter White to investigate the events in Elaine, contested such allegations from the outset. The decision by the justices was aided by two white men involved in the massacre who reversed their previous testimonies. 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. One hundred years ago this week, one of the worst episodes of racial violence in American history unfolded in Elaine, Ark., a small town on the Mississippi. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. Marking a Tragedy. Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, September 29, 2019, pp. [65] Carried by momentum, some of Price's infantry charged down the hill towards Helena itself, but were driven off. They described the wholesale massacre of hundreds of unarmed and defenseless black people, and the torture used to secure confessions. Neuman, Scott. In Moore v. Dempsey, the court in 1923 overturned the convictions of six of the Elaine 12, arguing that the confessions had been secured through torture. [4] 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. 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. [59], Holmes lost 1,636 of the 7,646 men he had taken into the battle: 173 killed, 687 wounded, and 776 missing. Stopford, Annie. [34] To protect Fagan's flank, Brooks' men were sent up the Lower Little Rock Road at around 1:30 am;[35] the detachment opened the battle in the early dawn by clashing with Union pickets. According to several accounts from white witnesses, both vigilantes and the troops committed acts of barbarism. A Union counterattack retook the hill and captured many prisoners,[79] with over 350 prisoners taken on Graveyard Hill alone. 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). The union had contracted with lawyer Ulysses S. Bratton, whose son, Ocier, was at this meeting. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Elaine: A Premeditated Massacre. MA thesis, Southern New Hampshire University, 2022. One of the largest harbors on an inland waterway was completed in the 1990s, making Helena a hub of industrial development. During the trials, Murphy became ill, and Jones became the principal counsel. [24][28] Prentiss also cancelled a planned celebration of the Fourth of July as a precaution,[19] and ordered the roads into town barricaded with felled trees. Helena was defended by about 4,100 Union troops led by Major General Benjamin Prentiss, manning one fort and four batteries. To be released, the men would have to plead guilty to second-degree murder and a sentence of five years from the date they were first incarcerated in the Arkansas State Penitentiary. (WMC) - Arkansas State Police were on the scene of a homicide investigation Tuesday night in Helena-West Helena. HWH Mayor Kevin Smith took to Facebook Wednesday morning saying the fatal shooting happened on North 6th Street. Pop. brought to you by. The median age was 32 years. Holmes planned and executed three different failed attacks on the town. Mitchell, Brian K. Soldiers and Veterans at the Elaine Massacre. In The War at Home: Perspectives on the Arkansas Experience during World War I, edited by Mark K. Christ. The charges ranged from murder to nightriding, a charge akin to terroristic threatening (as defined by Act 112 of 1909). HELENA-WEST HELENA -- Hard on the banks of the Mississippi River, the World still turns, one page at a time. [5] The service was restored on October 1, 2015, and two new freight customers were quickly gained. With the fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, the Confederate forces in the Trans-Mississippi were cut off from the rest of the Confederacy. The trial had occurred in a setting dominated by a mob spirit, violating the prisoners right to due process. For example, H. F. Smiddy, one of the white witnesses to the massacre, swore in an eye-witness account in 1921 that several hundred of them began to hunt negroes and shotting [sic] them as they came to them. Anecdotal evidence also suggests that the troops from Camp Pike engaged in indiscriminate killing of African Americans in the area, which, if true, was a replication of past militia activity to put down perceived black revolts. [71] Both Price and Holmes were issuing orders independently,[72] and Holmes' orders were making things worse for the Confederates. School children are now bused to Marvell 30 minutes north. By days end, countless black women, men and children had been slaughtered. Carrying an ax with their guns, they then moved to another home, where they murdered yet another union member, Frances Hall. The Elaine massacre occurred on September 30-October 2, 1919 at Hoop Spur in the vicinity of Elaine in rural Phillips County, 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. McWhirter, Cameron. They shot him and left him to die. [24] The Union garrison would face the coming attack with 4,129 men. In 2 U.S. Cities Haunted by Race Massacres, Facing the Past Is Painful and Divisive. NPR, December 11, 2022. https://www.npr.org/2022/12/11/1137090651/elaine-massacre-tulsa-race-riot (accessed December 12, 2022). 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. Anatomy of Four Race Riots: Racial Conflict in Knoxville, Elaine (Arkansas), Tulsa and Chicago, 19191921. [22] Although Prentiss was in command of the general district around Helena, the garrison itself was operationally commanded by Brigadier General Frederick Salomon, the commander of the division. To Those Known and Unknown: The Elaine Massacre Memorial. Arkansas Times, August 2019, pp. - Police in Helena-West Helena are investigating a deadly shooting that happened on Friday night. The Underlying Causes of the Elaine Riot of 1919. Arkansas Historical Quarterly 20 (Spring 1961): 95104. For more information, contact 501-918-3025 orcalsfoundation@cals.org. The main attack broke through Battery C, but Union troops fended off the attackers and sealed the breach. [70] Fagan's lines had been badly thinned by not only Union fire but also heat and exhaustion. The CALS Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization. [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. A jury convicted 12 black men in the murders of three white men, even though two of the deaths had occurred from white people accidentally shooting each other in a frenzy. Voogd, Jan. Race Riots and Resistance: The Red Summer of 1919. Krug, Teresa. The heroism of black soldiers in the war enhanced the struggle for black freedom, causing industrialists and plantation owners to brace themselves for the return of black veterans. After hiding for two days in the woods, the Colemans returned home to find dead bodies of women and children scattered about their community. [13], Helena, Arkansas is home to historic buildings such as the Sidney H. Horner House and the Centennial Baptist Church. Brough once again stayed their executions until the Arkansas Supreme Court could again review the cases. It is impossible to establish an accurate death toll. The Confederates withdrew on July 4 of 1863. Facebook/Historic Arkansas Facts and Photos. Dillard, Tom. [7], Helena built a reproduction of Fort Curtis in 2012 that is free to the public. 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. 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. 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. Little Rock: Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, 2002. Details remain difficult to verify. J. Among the musicians who regularly visited and performed in the area at that time were Robert Johnson, Johnny Shines, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Robert Nighthawk, Howlin' Wolf, Elmore James, David "Honeyboy" Edwards, Memphis Slim and Roosevelt Sykes. 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. 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. In Phillips County, this struggle directly challenged planter dominance. It was effectively an invasion. The racial makeup of Helena is 67.93% Black or African American, 30.59% White, 0.13% Native American, 0.60% Asian, 0.17% from other races, and 0.59% from two or more races. One hundred years ago this week, one of the worst episodes of racial violence in American history unfolded in Elaine, Ark., a small town on the Mississippi. More controversial is the view that the military participated in the murder of blacks. Legal disfranchisement stripped them of the vote and an ability to share in any benefits of citizenship. Joseph Bledsoe's Missouri Battery was brought up to provide artillery support, and two of its guns opened on the Union positions. By late November, Jones was working with Murphys firm to save the Elaine Twelve. They stole Wares cow, two mules, one horse, a farm wagon, his Ford car and various household goods. The convictions were again affirmed. One of the convicted 12 wrote to her from prison, requesting help. Military reports were intentionally vague. The few who made it close to Fort Curtis were easily repulsed. The Arkansas Democrat sent . Dr. Woodruff is a historian and the author of American Congo: The African American Freedom Struggle in the Delta.. 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. [24] Each of the four batteries was located on a high point of Crowley's Ridge. News also reached the Union forces at Helena of a major Union victory at the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. Online at https://archive.org/details/TheArkansasRaceRiot (accessed August 16, 2022). Sharecroppers worked the land for a small share of the crop and were forced to sell their cotton to the landowners, who paid less than market prices. 1E, 6E. Online at https://arktimes.com/news/cover-stories/2019/08/02/to-those-known-and-unknown (accessed August 16, 2022). Courageously, she dressed up as a sharecropper and went to Arkansas. The purpose of the meeting, one of several by black sharecroppers in the Elaine area during the previous months, was to obtain better payments for their cotton crops from the white plantation owners who dominated the area during the Jim Crow era. Paul Hall was one of the twelve men who were slated to be electrocuted, and I believe he was my relative. For additional information: My sadness comes from the senseless murder of human beingsso many that there isnt an exact number, which is wrong on so many levels. Pierce, Michael, and Calvin White, eds. 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. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. No one even took the time to confirm the number of kills, as if these people were as worthless as termites. Any information would be helpful. [32] Their plans were also hampered by poor reconnaissance. Salomon would make many of the decisions in the upcoming battle. [99], Helena was reinforced and in mid-August, Union forces began a campaign against Little Rock, with Helena as the staging ground. Lancaster, Guy, ed. 1831-12-25 Louisiana & Arkansas are first states to observe Christmas as holiday. Historical Events. For the next year, it served as a command post for the Union since it was centrally located on the Mississippi River. 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). 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. The Arkansas Race Riot. N.p. [38] Either at 3:30 am[29] or shortly after 4:00 am, Fort Curtis fired a warning shot, alerting the Union defenders to the Confederate approach. Williams, Lee E., and Lee E. Williams II. Helena is home to the longest running daily radio program in the U.S., King Biscuit Time. Elaine sits in Phillips County, on one of the many bends in the Mississippi, roughly 95 miles southwest of Memphis. American Congo: The African American Freedom Struggle in the Delta. 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. One idea was an attack on Helena. [8] He thought the attack would be too costly, and instead suggested placing an artillery battery along the Mississippi river to intercept Union shipping. 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 . More atrocities were later reported, including cutting souvenirs from black bodies and . Police say that Borum was . Jackson: University and College Press of Mississippi, 1972. It was a system intended to keep black people in debt and dependent upon planters. Stockley, Grif, Brian K. Mitchell, and Guy Lancaster. Local authorities blocked press coverage. The Elaine Riot of 1919: Race, Class, and Labor in the Arkansas Delta. PhD diss., University of WisconsinMilwaukee, 2019. The Confederates charged Fort Curtis in their last attack, but the heavy artillery inside kept the attack from reaching the fort. Race, Labor, and Violence in the Delta: Essays to Mark the Centennial of the Elaine Massacre. There were 2,312 households, out of which 32.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 33.8% were married couples living together, 28.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 33.3% were non-families. Grif Stockley [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. [62] Price's Missouri sharpshooters found positions from which they could pick off the gunners in Battery C.[63], Price's first attack was repulsed, as was a second. Additional support provided by the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation Inc. What is certain is that the massacre cast a long shadow for decades, with fear of reprisals silencing those who witnessed and survived the terror. [56], Around the time Fagan's men approached Battery D at 7:00 am, Price's attack began. [97] Vicksburg had surrendered on July 4, and the Confederate garrison at Port Hudson, Louisiana fell within a week. Helena has been called the cradle of the Delta Blues, and each October the citys King Biscuit Blues Festival draws fans from around the world. All the white people had to do was stay away from the church while the meeting was going on. According to Christ, Prentiss lost 220 of the 4,129 men he took into battle: 57 killed, 127 wounded, and 36 missing. 0:00. . Rogers, O. 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 . Despite dawn beginning to be visible in the sky, Price misunderstood Holmes' order to attack at daylight and held back his troops, until Holmes came over to explain his orders. It was founded in 1833 by Nicholas Rightor and is named after the daughter of Sylvanus Phillips, an early settler of Phillips County and the namesake of Phillips County. The main attack broke through Battery C, but Union troops fended off the attackers and sealed the breach. [78] Including the men of the 37th Arkansas, about 250 Confederates surrendered in Fagan's sector. McCool, B. Boren. He returned to Little Rock the next day and told a press conference, The situation at Elaine has been well handled and is absolutely under control. All Rights Reserved. The 1920 census lists my great-great-great-grandmother as a widow. [41] Fagan's charge took the first line of Union defenses, but his men started taking fire from Batteries C and D. Minutes after Fagan's men became engaged, Marmaduke's men on the north end of the Confederate line entered the action, driving Union skirmishers back towards Battery A. Clancy, Sean. [96], Most of the Confederates withdrew from the area the next morning,[97] falling back to Jacksonport,[59] although Walker's men remained behind to harass any Union troops that sallied forth from the city. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2022. Praying at the dedication of the Elaine Massacre Memorial. [87] Almost all of the Confederate losses were from the brigades of Fagan, Parsons, and McRae, who took 32 percent of their attacking forces as casualties. Helena is the birthplace of many notable people including prominent African Americans and Arkansas' former senior United States senator, Blanche Lincoln. Anthony, Steven. The Edwardian Inn is located on land occupied by Union forces during the Siege of Vicksburg in 1863, and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.[14]. Workers also had to buy food, clothing, household wares, tools, seed and fertilizer at the plantation commissary, which charged exorbitant interest rates. [57] Confusion was initially caused by the two brigades being separated by a ridge and unable to see each other. Edgar Hoover and the Red Summer of 1919. Journal of American Studies 28 (April 1994): 3959. When Abraham Lincoln, the newly elected President of the United States, called for 75,000 volunteers to put down the rebellion, this proved the catalyst for the southern state of Arkansas to secede and join the Confederacy. As they surrounded his house, another man inside, Charlie Robinson, tried to run away. 1859-02-28 Arkansas legislature requires free blacks to choose exile or slavery. McRae sent about 200 men to attack the battery, but they were unsuccessful. The city was a Union supply depot during the American Civil War, and the Battle of Helena (July 4, 1863) was a futile attempt by the Confederates to capture it. The violence occurred not only in the more familiar urban centers of Chicago and Washington, but also in the hinterlands of Omaha; Charleston, S.C.; Longview, Tex. A couple in Garland County is suing Officer Ryan Wingo in Garland. Helena was the county seat of Phillips County[3] until January 1, 2006, when it merged its government and city limits with neighboring West Helena. [8], Helena is located at 343134N 90365W / 34.52611N 90.60139W / 34.52611; -90.60139 (34.526223, 90.601377).[9]. Crime fighting efforts in Helena-West Helena, Arkansas are getting a big boost from the federal government. Confident that a single regiment could hold off Walker, Salomon pulled the 1st Indiana Cavalry towards Fort Curtis and a new line was formed in that vicinity using the Indiana cavalrymen and parts of the 33rd Iowa, 33rd Missouri, and 35th Missouri. Peacock, Leslie Newell. Historian Robert Kerby describes the Confederate plan as "a model of brutal irresponsibility". Major support provided through a partnership with the Arkansas Department of Parks & Tourism. 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. When a tribute gift is given the honoree will receive a letter acknowledging your generosity and a bookplate will be placed in a book. 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. This project is funded in part by a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant award. The Memphis Press stated that white locals were so enraged that they were firing bullets into black corpses as they left Helena en route to Elaine. [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.
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