Elaine Race Riot
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The Elaine massacre occurred on September 30October 2, 1919, at Hoop Spur in the vicinity of Elaine in rural Phillips County, Arkansas, where African Americans were organizing against
peonage Peon ( English , from the Spanish '' peón'' ) usually refers to a person subject to peonage: any form of wage labor, financial exploitation, coercive economic practice, or policy in which the victim or a laborer (peon) has little control ove ...
and abuses in tenant farming. As many as several hundred
African Americans African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa ...
were murdered and five
white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...
men were killed. Estimates of deaths made in the immediate aftermath of the Elaine Massacre by eyewitnesses range from 50 to "more than a hundred". da B. Wells (Wells-Barnett, I. B.)(1920). he Arkansas Race Riot https://archive.org/details/TheArkansasRaceRiot/ Walter Francis White, an
NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an American civil rights organization formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du&nbs ...
attorney who visited Elaine shortly after the incident, stated "... twenty-five Negroes killed, although some place the Negro fatalities as high as one hundred". More recent estimates in the 21st century of the number of Black people murdered during this violence are higher than estimates provided by the eyewitnesses, and have ranged into the hundreds. The white mobs were aided by federal troops (requested by Arkansas governor Charles Hillman Brough) and local terrorist organizations. Gov. Brough led a contingent of 583 US soldiers from Camp Pike, with a 12-gun machine-gun battalion. According to the ''
Encyclopedia of Arkansas The Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) ''Encyclopedia of Arkansas'' is a web-based encyclopedia of the U.S. state of Arkansas, described by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) as "a free, authoritative source of information abo ...
'', "the Elaine Massacre was by far the deadliest racial confrontation in Arkansas history and possibly the bloodiest racial conflict in the history of the United States". After the massacre, state officials concocted an elaborate cover-up, claiming that Black folks were planning an
insurrection Rebellion is an uprising that resists and is organized against one's government. A rebel is a person who engages in a rebellion. A rebel group is a consciously coordinated group that seeks to gain political control over an entire state or a ...
. National newspapers repeated the falsehood that Black community members in Arkansas were staging an insurrection. A ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' headline read, "Planned Massacre of Whites Today", and the ''
Arkansas Gazette The ''Arkansas Gazette'' was a newspaper in Little Rock, Arkansas, that was published from 1819 to 1991. It was known as the oldest newspaper west of the Mississippi River. It was located from 1908 until its closing at the now historic Gazette ...
'' (the leading newspaper in Arkansas) wrote that Elaine was "a zone of negro insurrection". Subsequent to this reporting, more than 100 African Americans were indicted, with 12 being sentenced to death by electrocution. After a years-long legal battle by the NAACP, the 12 men were acquitted. Because of the widespread racial violence during the
Red Summer The Red Summer was a period in mid-1919 during which Terrorism in the United States#White nationalism and white supremacy, white supremacist terrorism and Mass racial violence in the United States, racial riots occurred in more than three d ...
of 1919, the Equal Justice Initiative of
Montgomery, Alabama Montgomery is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Alabama. Named for Continental Army major general Richard Montgomery, it stands beside the Alabama River on the Gulf Coastal Plain. The population was 2 ...
, classified the Black murders at Elaine as lynchings in its 2015 report on the lynching of African Americans in the South.


Background

Located in the
Arkansas Delta The Arkansas Delta is one of the six natural regions of the state of Arkansas. Willard B. Gatewood Jr., author of ''The Arkansas Delta: Land of Paradox'', says that rich cotton lands of the Arkansas Delta make that area "The Deepest of the Deep ...
, Phillips County had historically been developed for cotton
plantation Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tob ...
s, and its land was worked by enslaved
African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...
s before the
Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...
. In the early 20th century the county's population was still predominantly Black because most freedmen and their descendants had stayed on the land as illiterate farm workers and sharecroppers. African Americans outnumbered whites in the area around Elaine by a ten-to-one ratio, and by three-to-one in the county overall. 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. The all-white legislature had disenfranchised most blacks and many poor whites in the 1890s by creating barriers to voter registration. It excluded them from the political system via the more complicated Election Law of 1891 and a
poll tax A poll tax, also known as head tax or capitation, is a tax levied as a fixed sum on every liable individual (typically every adult), without reference to income or resources. ''Poll'' is an archaic term for "head" or "top of the head". The sen ...
amendment passed in 1892. The white-dominated legislature enacted
Jim Crow The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws introduced in the Southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that enforced racial segregation, " Jim Crow" being a pejorative term for an African American. The last of the ...
laws that established racial segregation and institutionalized efforts to impose white supremacy. The decades around the turn of the century were the period of the highest rate of lynchings across the South. White landowners often underpaid sharecroppers for their crops and paid when they saw fit. Between the prices of goods purchased from the plantation store and the crop underpayments, the white landowners kept many sharecroppers in debt. At the time of settlement, landowners generally never gave an itemized statement to the Black sharecroppers of accounts owed, nor details of the money received for cotton and seed. The farmers faced discrimination without much recourse as many had been kept illiterate by Jim Crow laws. It was an unwritten law of the cotton country that the sharecroppers could not quit and leave a
plantation Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tob ...
until their debts were paid. The period of the year around accounts settlement was frequently the time of most
lynching Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged or convicted transgressor or to intimidate others. It can also be an extreme form of i ...
s of Black people throughout the South, especially if times were poor economically. As an example, many Black sharecroppers in Phillips County, whose cotton was sold in October 1918, did not get a settlement before July of the following year. They often amassed considerable debt at the plantation store before that time, as they had to buy supplies, including seed, to start the next season. Black farmers began to organize in 1919 to try to negotiate better conditions, including fair accounting and timely payment of monies due them by white landowners. Robert L. Hill, a Black farmer from Winchester, Arkansas, had founded the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America (PFHUA). He worked with farmers throughout Phillips County. Its purpose was "to obtain better payments for their cotton crops from the white plantation owners who dominated the area during the Jim Crow era. Black sharecroppers were often exploited in their efforts to collect payment for their cotton crops." Whites tried to disrupt such organizing and threatened farmers. The PFHUA retained a white law firm based in
Little Rock Little Rock is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Arkansas, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The city's population was 202,591 as of the 2020 census. The six-county Central Arkan ...
to represent the Black farmers in getting fair settlements for their labors during the 1919 cotton harvest. The firm was headed by Ulysses S. Bratton, a native of Searcy County and former assistant federal district attorney. The postwar summer of 1919, also known as
Red Summer The Red Summer was a period in mid-1919 during which Terrorism in the United States#White nationalism and white supremacy, white supremacist terrorism and Mass racial violence in the United States, racial riots occurred in more than three d ...
, had already been marked by deadly massacres targeting African-Americans in more than three dozen cities across the country, (including
Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
,
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,
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, and
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) being targeted by white mobs. Competition for jobs and housing in crowded markets following World War I as veterans returned to the work force, stirring racial tensions. Having served their country in the Great War, many African-American veterans were no longer willing to tolerate racial discrimination and were now prepared to use violence in self defense against white mobs and terrorism. In 1919, African-Americans vigorously fought back when their communities came under attack. Labor unrest and strikes took place in several cities as workers tried to organize. Industries often intentionally hired Black workers as strikebreakers, increasing or creating resentment against them by white workers.


Events

The Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America had organized chapters in the Elaine area in 1918–19. On September 29, representatives met with about 100 Black farmers at a church near Elaine to discuss how to obtain fairer settlements from landowners. Whites had resisted union organizing by the farmers and often spied on or disrupted such meetings. Approximately 100 African-American farmers, led by Robert L. Hill, the founder of the union, met at a church in Hoop Spur, near Elaine in Phillips County. Union advocates brought armed guards to protect the meeting. When two deputized white men and a black trustee arrived at the church, shots were exchanged. Railroad Policeman W.D. Adkins, employed by the
Missouri Pacific Railroad The Missouri Pacific Railroad , commonly abbreviated as MoPac, was one of the first railroads in the United States west of the Mississippi River. MoPac was a Class I railroad growing from dozens of predecessors and mergers. In 1967, the railroad o ...
, was killed and the other white man wounded; it was never determined who shot first. According to ''Revolution in the Land: Southern Agriculture in the 20th Century'' (2002), in a section called "The Changing Face of Sharecropping and Tenancy": The parish sheriff called for a posse to capture suspects in the killing. The county sheriff organized the posse and whites gathered to put down what was rumored as a "black insurrection". Additional armed white men entered the county from outside to support the hunt and a mob of 500 to 1,000 armed men formed. They attacked Black people on sight across the county. Local whites requested help from Arkansas Governor Charles Hillman Brough, citing a "Negro uprising". Sensational newspaper headlines published by the ''
Arkansas Gazette The ''Arkansas Gazette'' was a newspaper in Little Rock, Arkansas, that was published from 1819 to 1991. It was known as the oldest newspaper west of the Mississippi River. It was located from 1908 until its closing at the now historic Gazette ...
'' and others reported that an "insurrection" was occurring, and that Black people had planned to murder white leaders. Governor Brough contacted the War Department and requested Federal troops. After considerable delay, nearly 600 U.S. troops arrived, finding the area in chaos. White men roamed the area randomly attacking and killing Black people. Killings in the area lasted for three days before the troops ended the violence. The federal troops disarmed both parties and arrested 285 Black residents, putting them in stockades for investigation, and according to them, protection, until they were vouched for by their employers. Although official records of the time count eleven Black men and five white men killed,Rogers, O. A. (1960). "The Elaine Race Riots of 1919". ''The Arkansas Historical Quarterly''. 19 (2): 142. there are estimates from 100 to 237 African Americans killed, and more wounded. At least two and possibly more victims were killed by Federal troops. The exact number of Black people killed is unknown because of the wide rural area in which they were attacked, and the state hiding the numbers.Elaine Massacre, Arkansas Encyclopedia of History and Culture
accessed April 3, 2008.
Walter Francis White, ''A Man Called White: The Autobiography of Walter White'',
University of Georgia The University of Georgia (UGA or Georgia) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Athens, Georgia, United States. Chartered in 1785, it is the oldest public university in th ...
Press, Athens, GA reprint, 1995, p. 49.


Press coverage

A dispatch from
Helena, Arkansas Helena is the eastern portion of Helena–West Helena, Arkansas, a city in Phillips County, Arkansas, located on the west bank of the Mississippi River. It was founded in 1833 by Nicholas Rightor and is named after the daughter of Sylvanus Phil ...
, to ''The New York Times'', datelined October 1, said: "Returning members of the posse brought numerous stories and rumors, through all of which ran the belief that the rioting was due to propaganda distributed among the negroes by white men." The next day's report added:
Additional evidence has been obtained of the activities of propagandists among the negroes, and it is thought that a plot existed for a general uprising against the whites." A white man had been arrested and was "alleged to have been preaching social equality among the negroes". Part of the headline was: "Trouble Traced to Socialist Agitators."
A few days later a Western Newspaper Union dispatch was captioned, "Captive Negro Insurrectionists". Arkansas Governor Charles Hillman Brough appointed a Committee of Seven to investigate. The group was composed of prominent local white businessmen. Without talking to any of the Black farmers, they concluded that the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America was a socialist enterprise and "established for the purpose of banding negroes together for the killing of white people". This version of events has persisted in many histories of the riot.


NAACP involvement

The NAACP promptly released a statement from a contact in Arkansas providing another account of the origins of the violence, noting efforts by Ulysses Simpson Bratton to assist African Americans in
peonage Peon ( English , from the Spanish '' peón'' ) usually refers to a person subject to peonage: any form of wage labor, financial exploitation, coercive economic practice, or policy in which the victim or a laborer (peon) has little control ove ...
:
The whole trouble, as I understand it, started because a Mr. Bratton, a white lawyer from Little Rock, Ark., was employed by sixty or seventy colored families to go to Elaine to represent them in a dispute with the white planters relative to the sale price of cotton.
It referred to a report in ''
The Commercial Appeal ''The Commercial Appeal'' (also known as the ''Memphis Commercial Appeal'') is a daily newspaper of Memphis, Tennessee, and its surrounding metropolitan area. It is owned by the Gannett Company; its former owner, the E. W. Scripps Company, also ...
'' of
Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in Shelby County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. Situated along the Mississippi River, it had a population of 633,104 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of municipalities in Tenne ...
, on October 3 that quoted Bratton's father: The
NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an American civil rights organization formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du&nbs ...
sent its Field Secretary, Walter F. White, from New York City to Elaine in October 1919 to investigate events. White was of mixed, majority-European ancestry; blond and blue-eyed, he could pass for white. He was granted credentials from the ''
Chicago Daily News The ''Chicago Daily News'' was an afternoon daily newspaper in the midwestern United States, published between 1875 and 1978 in Chicago, Illinois. History The ''Daily News'' was founded by Melville E. Stone, Percy Meggy, and William Dougherty ...
.'' He gained an interview with Governor Charles Hillman Brough, who gave him a letter of recommendation for other meetings with whites, as well as an autographed photograph. According to his own account, White had been in Phillips County for a brief time when he learned there were rumors floating about him. He quickly took the first train back to
Little Rock Little Rock is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Arkansas, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The city's population was 202,591 as of the 2020 census. The six-county Central Arkan ...
. The conductor told the young man that he was leaving "just when the fun is going to start", because they had found out that there was a "damned
yellow Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In t ...
nigger passing for white and the boys are going to get him." When White asked what the boys would do to the man, the conductor told White that "when they get through with him he won't pass for white no more!""Walter White: Mr. NAACP, 2003, p. 52" 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 riot...surviving documents reveal several inconsistencies between what White wrote at the time and what he later recalled having happened." White had time to talk with both Black and white residents in Elaine. He reported that local people said that up to 100 Blacks had been killed. White published his findings in the ''Daily News'', the ''
Chicago Defender ''The Chicago Defender'' is a Chicago-based online African-American newspaper. It was founded in 1905 by Robert S. Abbott and was once considered the "most important" newspaper of its kind. Abbott's newspaper reported and campaigned against Jim ...
,'' and ''
The Nation ''The Nation'' is a progressive American monthly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper ...
,'' as well as the NAACP's magazine ''
The Crisis ''The Crisis'' is the official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). It was founded in 1910 by W. E. B. Du Bois (editor), Oswald Garrison Villard, J. Max Barber, Charles Edward Russell, Kelly M ...
.'' He "characterized the violence as an extreme response by white landowners to black unionization".Jason McCollom, "Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America (PFHUA)"
2015, ''Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture''; accessed February 18, 2016
Governor Brough asked the
United States Post Office Department The United States Post Office Department (USPOD; also known as the Post Office or U.S. Mail) was the predecessor of the United States Postal Service, established in 1792. From 1872 to 1971, it was officially in the form of a Cabinet of the Un ...
to prohibit the mailing of the ''Chicago Defender'' and ''Crisis'' to Arkansas, while local officials attempted to
enjoin An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a special court order compelling a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. It was developed by the English courts of equity but its origins go back to Roman law and the equitable ...
distribution of the ''Defender.'' Years later, White said in his memoir that people in Elaine told him that up to 200 Black folks had been killed.


Trials

In October and November 1919, an all-white Arkansas state grand jury returned indictments against 122 Black people. Since most Black folks had been disenfranchised by Arkansas' 1891 Election Law and 1892 poll tax amendment, which created barriers to voter registration, Black folks as non-voters were excluded from juries. All-white juries rendered verdicts on the defendants in trials following the Elaine race riot. The only men prosecuted for these events were 122 African Americans, with 73 charged with murder. Those Black farmers willing to testify against others and to work without shares for terms as determined by their landlords, were set free. Those who refused to comply with those conditions, or were labeled as ringleaders or were judged unreliable, were indicted. 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. They were threatened with death if they recanted their testimony. A total of 73 suspects were charged with murder; other charges included conspiracy and insurrection. The trials were held in 1920 in the county courthouse in Elaine, Phillips County. Mobs of armed whites milled around the courthouse. Some of the white audience in the courtroom also carried arms. The lawyers for the defense did not subpoena witnesses for the defense and did not allow their clients to testify. Twelve of the defendants (who became known as the "Arkansas Twelve" or "Elaine Twelve") were convicted, most of them as "accomplices", and sentenced to
death Death is the end of life; the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. Death eventually and inevitably occurs in all organisms. The remains of a former organism normally begin to decompose sh ...
in the
electric chair The electric chair is a specialized device used for capital punishment through electrocution. The condemned is strapped to a custom wooden chair and electrocuted via electrodes attached to the head and leg. Alfred P. Southwick, a Buffalo, New Yo ...
by all-white juries for the murder of a white deputy at the Adkins church. Others were convicted of lesser charges and sentenced to prison. The lawyer of one defendant did not interview any witnesses, ask for a change of venue, nor challenge any jurors. The trials of these twelve lasted less than an hour in many cases; the juries took fewer than ten minutes to deliberate before pronouncing each man guilty and sentencing them to death. The ''
Arkansas Gazette The ''Arkansas Gazette'' was a newspaper in Little Rock, Arkansas, that was published from 1819 to 1991. It was known as the oldest newspaper west of the Mississippi River. It was located from 1908 until its closing at the now historic Gazette ...
'' applauded the trials as the triumph of the "rule of law", because none of the defendants were
lynched Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged or convicted transgressor or to intimidate others. It can also be an extreme form of in ...
. These men became known as the "Elaine Twelve". After those convictions, 36 of the remaining defendants chose to plead guilty to second-degree murder rather than face trial. Sixty-seven other defendants were convicted of various charges and sentenced to terms up to 21 years. When the cases were remanded to the state court, the six "Moore" defendants settled with the lower court on lesser charges and were sentenced to time already served.


Appeals

During appeals, the death penalty cases were separated. The NAACP took on the task of organizing the defendants' appeals. The
NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an American civil rights organization formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du&nbs ...
assisted the defendants in the appeals process, raising money to hire a defense team, which it helped direct. For a time, the NAACP tried to conceal its role in the appeals, given the hostile reception to its reports on the rioting and the trials. Once it undertook to organize the defense, it went to work vigorously, raising more than $50,000 and hiring
Scipio Africanus Jones Scipio Africanus Jones (August 3, 1863 – March 2, 1943) was an American educator, lawyer, judge, philanthropist, and Republican politician from the state of Arkansas. He was most known for having guided the appeals of the twelve African-Am ...
, a highly respected African-American attorney from
Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the West South Central region of the Southern United States. It borders Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, Texas to the southwest, and Oklahoma ...
, and Colonel George W. Murphy, a 79-year-old Confederate veteran and former Attorney General for the State of Arkansas. Moorfield Storey, descended from Boston abolitionists and founding president of the NAACP since 1909, became part of the team when the Moore cases went to the Supreme Court. He had been president of the
American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary association, voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students in the United States; national in scope, it is not specific to any single jurisdiction. Founded in 1878, the ABA's stated acti ...
in 1895. The defendants' lawyers obtained reversal of the verdicts by the Arkansas Supreme Court in six of the twelve death penalty cases, known as the ''Ware'' defendants. The grounds were that the jury had failed to specify whether the defendants were guilty of murder in the first or second degree; those cases (known as Ware et al.) were sent back to the lower court for retrial. The lower court retried the defendants beginning on May 3, 1920. On the third day of the trials, Murphy collapsed in the courtroom. Scipio Jones had to carry most of the responsibility for the remaining trials. The all-white juries quickly convicted the six defendants of second-degree murder and sentenced them to 12 years each in prison. Jones appealed these convictions, which were overturned by the State Supreme Court. It found that the exclusion of Black folks from the juries resulted in a lack of
due process Due process of law is application by the state of all legal rules and principles pertaining to a case so all legal rights that are owed to a person are respected. Due process balances the power of law of the land and protects the individual p ...
for the defendants, based on violations of the Fourteenth Amendment (especially
Due Process Clause A Due Process Clause is found in both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, which prohibit the deprivation of "life, liberty, or property" by the federal and state governments, respectively, without due proces ...
) and the
Civil Rights Act of 1875 The Civil Rights Act of 1875, sometimes called the Enforcement Act or the Force Act, was a United States federal law enacted during the Reconstruction era in response to civil rights violations against African Americans. The bill was passed by the ...
, due to exclusion of Black people from the juries. 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.


Moore et al.

The
Arkansas Supreme Court The Supreme Court of Arkansas is the highest court in the state judiciary of Arkansas. It has ultimate and largely discretionary appellate jurisdiction over all state court cases that involve a point of state law, and original jurisdiction ...
upheld the death sentences of Moore and the other five defendants. It rejected the challenge to the all-white juries as untimely, and found that the mob atmosphere and use of coerced testimony did not deny the defendants the due process of law. Those defendants unsuccessfully petitioned the
United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...
for a writ of ''
certiorari In law, ''certiorari'' is a court process to seek judicial review of a decision of a lower court or government agency. ''Certiorari'' comes from the name of a prerogative writ in England, issued by a superior court to direct that the recor ...
'' from the Arkansas Supreme Court's decision.Moore v. Dempsey, 261 U.S. 86 (1923) The defendants next petitioned for a writ of ''
habeas corpus ''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a legal procedure invoking the jurisdiction of a court to review the unlawful detention or imprisonment of an individual, and request the individual's custodian (usually a prison official) to ...
,'' alleging that the proceedings that took place in the Arkansas state court, while ostensibly complying with trial requirements, in fact complied only in form. They argued that the accused had not been adequately defended and were convicted under the pressure of the mob, with blatant disregard for their constitutional rights. 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 Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...
at the time and would not return to Arkansas until after the defendants' scheduled execution date. Judge John Ellis Martineau of the Pulaski County
chancery court The Court of Chancery was a court of equity in England and Wales that followed a set of loose rules to avoid a slow pace of change and possible harshness (or "inequity") of the common law. The Chancery had jurisdiction over all matters of eq ...
issued the writ. Although the writ was later overturned by the Arkansas Supreme Court, his action postponed the execution date long enough to permit the defendants to seek ''habeas corpus'' relief in Federal court. U.S. District Judge Jacob Trieber issued another writ. 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). It did not dispute the defendants' evidence of torture used to obtain confessions nor of mob intimidation at the trial, but the state argued that, even if true, these elements did not amount to a denial of due process. The
United States district court The United States district courts are the trial courts of the United States federal judiciary, U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each United States federal judicial district, federal judicial district. Each district cov ...
agreed, denying the writ, but it found there was probable cause for an appeal and allowed the defendants to take their case to the U.S. Supreme Court. In '' Moore v. Dempsey'' , the United States Supreme Court vacated these six convictions on the grounds that the mob-dominated atmosphere of the trial and the use of testimony coerced by torture denied the defendants'
due process Due process of law is application by the state of all legal rules and principles pertaining to a case so all legal rights that are owed to a person are respected. Due process balances the power of law of the land and protects the individual p ...
as required by the
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Considered one of the most consequential amendments, it addresses Citizenship of the United States ...
. Walter L. Brown, "Reviewed Work: ''A Mob Intent on Death: The NAACP and the Arkansas Riot Cases'' by Richard C. Cortner"
''The Arkansas Historical Quarterly'' Vol. 48, No. 3 (Autumn, 1989), pp. 289-291, accessed February 13, 2017.
Prominent Little Rock attorney George Rose wrote a letter to outgoing Governor Thomas McRae requesting that he find a way to release the remaining defendants if they agreed to plead guilty to second-degree murder. Rose's letter was an attempt to prevent Governor-Elect Thomas Jefferson Terral, a known member of the
Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to KKK or Klan, is an American Protestant-led Christian terrorism, Christian extremist, white supremacist, Right-wing terrorism, far-right hate group. It was founded in 1865 during Reconstruction era, ...
, from getting involved in the matter. Just hours before Governor McRae left office in 1925, he contacted Scipio Jones to inform him that indefinite furloughs had been issued for the remaining defendants. He freed these six men in 1925 in the closing days of his administration. Jones used the furloughs to obtain release of the prisoners under cover of darkness. He arranged for these men to be quickly escorted out of state to prevent them from being lynched. The NAACP helped them leave the state safely.


Aftermath

The Supreme Court's decision marked the beginning of an era in which the Supreme Court gave closer scrutiny to criminal justice cases and reviewed state actions against the Due Process Clause and the Bill of Rights. A decade later, the Supreme Court reviewed the case of the Scottsboro boys. The victory for the Elaine defendants gave the
NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an American civil rights organization formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du&nbs ...
greater credibility as the champion of African Americans' rights. Walter F. White's risk-taking investigation and report contributed to his advancing in the organization. He later was selected as executive secretary of the NAACP, essentially the chief operating officer, and served in this position for decades, leading the organization in additional legal challenges and civil rights activism. "It is documented that five whites, including a soldier died at Elaine, but estimates of African American deaths, made by individuals writing about the Elaine affair between 1919 and 1925, range from 20 to 856; if accurate, these numbers would make it by far the most deadly conflict in the history of the United States. The ''Arkansas Encyclopedia of History and Culture'' notes that estimates of African-American deaths range into the "hundreds". Since the late 20th century, researchers have begun to investigate the Elaine race riot more thoroughly. For decades, the riot and numerous murders were too painful to be discussed openly in the region. The wide-scale violence ended union organizing among Black farmers. White oppression continued, threatening every Black family. Historian Robert Whitaker says, "As with many racial histories of this kind," it was "one of those shameful events best not talked about".Jay Jennings, "12 Innocent Men"
''New York Times'', June 22, 2008; accessed February 17, 2016.
Another reason for silence was that the second
Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to KKK or Klan, is an American Protestant-led Christian terrorism, Christian extremist, white supremacist, Right-wing terrorism, far-right hate group. It was founded in 1865 during Reconstruction era, ...
began to be active in Arkansas in 1921, concentrating in Black-majority areas. It used intimidation and attacks to keep Black farmers suppressed. Author Richard Wright grew up in Phillips County and discusses it in his autobiography ''Black Boy.'' He wrote that when he questioned his mother about why their people did not fight back, "the fear that was in her made her slap me into silence". A 1961 article, "Underlying Causes of the Elaine Riot", claimed that Black farmers 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. It repeated rumors of 1919 that certain planters were targeted for murder.Butts, J. W., and Dorothy James. "The Underlying Causes of the Elaine Riot of 1919"
''Arkansas Historical Quarterly'' 20 (Spring 1961): 95–104
This view has been generally discounted by historians publishing since the late 20th century. In early 2000, a conference on the Elaine riot was held at the Delta Cultural Center in the county seat of
Helena, Arkansas Helena is the eastern portion of Helena–West Helena, Arkansas, a city in Phillips County, Arkansas, located on the west bank of the Mississippi River. It was founded in 1833 by Nicholas Rightor and is named after the daughter of Sylvanus Phil ...
.''Reconsidering the Elaine Race Riots of 1919''
Conference, February 10–11, 2000, Delta Cultural Center
It was an effort to review the facts but did not result in "closure" for the people of Phillips County. The
Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...
spoke with author Grif Stockley, who has published a book on the riot. He said that in 2000, there were still two versions of the riot, which he characterized as the "white" version, related to their idea that the union planned an attack on whites, and a "black" version, related to farmers' efforts to gain fair settlements of their crops. Stockley said there "was plenty of evidence to say whites attacked blacks indiscriminately". Local electoral offices were divided between the races in West Helena and the county.Associated Press, "Conference to dredge up bloody past of 1919 Arkansas race riot"
''Lubbock Avalanche-Journal,'' February 2009


Memorial

In September 2019, 100 years after the event, an Elaine Massacre Memorial was unveiled. A Memorial Willow Tree planted at the memorial in April 2019 had been cut down in August, and a "memorial tag" stolen. Local residents wanted the vandalism investigated as a
hate crime Hate crime (also known as bias crime) in criminal law involves a standard offence (such as an assault, murder) with an added element of bias against a victim (individual or group of individuals) because of their physical appearance or perceived ...
, but the case was still unsolved as of 2021.A new monument will honor the victims of a century-old racist massacre. Some say it's not where it should be
/ref>


Representation in other media

* Wormser, Richard, director. ''The Elaine Riot: Tragedy & Triumph.'' VHS Documentary. Little Rock: Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, 2002. * Evans, Josh, composer. ''Elaine.'' Jazz Composition. New York: Jazz at Lincoln Center, 2021.


See also

* Lynching of William Turner 23 miles (37 km) from Hoop Spur in rural Phillips County, Arkansas *
Mass racial violence in the United States In the broader context of racism in the United States, mass racial violence in the United States consists of ethnic conflicts and race riots, along with such events as: * Racially based targeted attacks against African Americans by White Ameri ...
*
Nadir of American race relations The nadir of American race relations was the period in African-American history and the history of the United States from the end of Reconstruction in 1877 through the early 20th century, when racism in the country, and particularly anti-bl ...
*
Racism in the United States Racism has been reflected in discriminatory laws, practices, and actions (including violence) against Race (human categorization), racial or ethnic groups throughout the history of the United States. Since the early Colonial history of the Uni ...
*
Red Summer The Red Summer was a period in mid-1919 during which Terrorism in the United States#White nationalism and white supremacy, white supremacist terrorism and Mass racial violence in the United States, racial riots occurred in more than three d ...
(1919) * '' Moore v. Dempsey'' (1923) * Racial Equality Proposal, 1919 *
List of ethnic riots This is a list of ethnic riots by country, and includes riots based on Ethnic conflict, ethnic, Sectarian violence, sectarian, xenophobic, and Racial conflict, racial conflict. Some of these riots can also be classified as pogroms. Africa A ...
*
List of incidents of civil unrest in the United States Listed are major episodes of civil unrest in the United States. This list does not include the numerous incidents of destruction and violence associated with various sporting events. 18th century *1783 – Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, June ...


References


Further reading

*
Butts, J. W., and Dorothy James. "The Underlying Causes of the Elaine Riot of 1919"
''Arkansas Historical Quarterly'' 20 (Spring 1961): 95–104 * Collins, Ann V. ''All Hell Broke Loose: American Race Riots from the Progressive Era through World War II.'' Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2012. * Cortner, Richard. ''A Mob Intent On Death: The NAACP and the Arkansas Riot Cases''; Wesleyan University Press * Dillard, Tom. "Scipio A. Jones." ''Arkansas Historical Quarterly'' 31 (Autumn 1972): 201–219. * Holland, Thomas D., and Michael R. Dolski. " 'A Solemn Promise Kept': The 1919 Elaine Race Riot and the Broadening of Habeas Corpus 100 Years Later." ''Tulsa Law Review'' . 57 (2021): 65+. * Janken, Kenneth Robert. ''Walter White: Mr. NAACP.'' Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina, 2006; * * Johnson, J. Chester, ''Damaged Heritage: The Elaine Race Massacre And A Story Of Reconciliation.'' New York: Pegasus, 2020. * Lancaster, Guy. "The Elaine Massacre and Memory: An Informed Polemic on Commemoration and Contestation Regarding the Nature of Atrocity." ''Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies'' (Aug 2023) 54#2 pp. 13–139. * Lancaster, Guy (ed.), ''The Elaine Massacre and Arkansas: A Century of Atrocity and Resistance, 1819–1919'' (2018) * Lancaster, Guy (ed.), ''Bullets and Fire: Lynching and Authority in Arkansas, 1840–1950.'' Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2018. * McCool, B. Boren. ''Union, Reaction, and Riot: The Biography of a Rural Race Riot.'' Memphis: Memphis State University Press, 1970. * McWhirter, Cameron. ''Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America.'' New York: St. Martin's, 2011. * Pierce, Michael, ed. ''Race, Labor, and Violence in the Delta: Essays to Mark the Centennial of the Elaine Massacre'' (University of Arkansas Press, 2022) * Smith, C. Calvin, ed. "The Elaine, Arkansas, Race Riots, 1919." Special Issue. ''Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies'' 32 (August 2001). * Stockley, Grif Jr. ''Blood in Their Eyes: The Elaine Race Massacre of 1919'', University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, 2001. * Stockley, Grif, and Jeannie M. Whayne. "Federal Troops and the Elaine Massacres: A Colloquy." ''Arkansas Historical Quarterly'' 61.3 (2002): 272–283
online
* Voogd, Jan. ''Race Riots & Resistance: The Red Summer of 1919'' (Peter Lang, 2008)
online
* Whayne, Jeannie M. "Low villains and wickedness in high places: Race and class in the Elaine riots." ''Arkansas Historical Quarterly'' 58.3 (1999): 285–313
online


External links


''Reconsidering the Elaine Race Riots of 1919,'' Material and website for Conference, February 10–11, 2000, Delta Cultural Center
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