Elaine massacre facts for kids

The Elaine massacre happened on September 30 and October 1, 1919. It took place in Hoop Spur, a small community near Elaine, Arkansas in Phillips County, Arkansas. During this terrible event, many African-Americans were killed. Some estimates say hundreds of black people died, along with five white men. White groups, helped by federal soldiers and groups like the Ku Klux Klan, were involved in the violence.

Historians say the Elaine Massacre was the deadliest racial conflict in Arkansas. It might even be one of the bloodiest in U.S. history. After the massacre, state leaders tried to hide what really happened. They falsely claimed that black people were planning a rebellion. Newspapers across the country repeated this lie. For example, The New York Times wrote, "Planned Massacre of Whites Today." The Arkansas Gazette called Elaine "a zone of negro insurrection."

Because of these false reports, over 100 African Americans were charged with crimes. Twelve of them were sentenced to death by electric chair. However, the NAACP fought for years to help them. In the end, all 12 men were found innocent. The Equal Justice Initiative later called the deaths of black people during this time "lynchings." This was because white mobs attacked black communities across the country in 1919, a period known as the Red Summer.

Why the Elaine Massacre Happened

Phillips County, Arkansas, was a place where many cotton plantations used to be. Before the American Civil War, enslaved African-Americans worked on these lands. Even in the early 1900s, most people in the county were black. Many of them were sharecroppers, meaning they farmed land owned by others and shared the crops.

In the Elaine area, there were ten black people for every one white person. In the whole county, there were three black people for every one white person. White landowners controlled everything. They decided when to sell cotton and ran stores where farmers had to buy supplies at high prices. They also settled accounts with sharecroppers without showing them detailed lists of what they owed or earned.

In the 1890s, laws were passed that made it very hard for most black people and many poor white people to vote. These were called disenfranchisement laws. The state also passed Jim Crow laws. These laws created racial segregation and tried to keep white people in charge. This time was also when many lynchings happened in the South.

Sharecropping, the African Americans had been having trouble in getting settlements for the cotton they raised on land owned by whites. Both the Negroes and the white owners were to share the profits when the crop was sold for the year. Between the time of planting and selling, the sharecroppers took up food, clothing, and necessities at excessive prices from the plantation store owned by the planter.

—O. A. Rogers Jr., President of the Arkansas Baptist College in Little Rock, Arkansas, Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Summer 1960 issue

Landowners often sold the cotton whenever they wanted. They usually did not give black sharecroppers a detailed statement of their earnings or debts. Many farmers could not read or write, which made it harder for them. It was a rule that sharecroppers could not leave a plantation until their debts were paid. Lynchings of black people often happened around the time accounts were settled, especially if money was tight. For example, many black sharecroppers in Phillips County did not get paid for their 1918 cotton crop until July 1919. By then, they had already built up a lot of debt at the plantation store.

In 1919, black farmers started to organize. They wanted fair payments for their cotton and honest accounting from landowners. Robert Lee Hill, a black farmer, started the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America (PFHUA). This union aimed to help black sharecroppers get fair pay for their crops. White landowners tried to stop these efforts. The PFHUA hired a white law firm from Little Rock, Arkansas to help the farmers. The firm was led by Ulysses S. Bratton.

The summer of 1919 was called the Red Summer. Many deadly attacks against African-Americans happened in cities like Chicago, Knoxville, Tennessee, Washington, D.C., and Omaha, Nebraska. After World War I, soldiers came home, and there was competition for jobs and homes. This caused racial tensions. Many African-American veterans had fought for their country. They were no longer willing to accept unfair treatment and were ready to defend themselves. In 1919, black communities fought back when they were attacked. There were also many worker strikes, and sometimes black people were hired to replace striking white workers, which increased anger.

What Happened During the Massacre

The Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America had groups in the Elaine area by 1918–1919. On September 29, about 100 black farmers met at a church near Elaine. They wanted to discuss how to get fair payments from landowners. White people often spied on or broke up these meetings. The union members brought armed guards to protect their meeting. Two white deputies and a black trustee arrived at the church. Shots were fired, but no one knows who shot first.

The local sheriff called for a posse (a group of armed citizens) to find those responsible. White people gathered, believing there was a "black insurrection" or uprising. More armed white men came from outside the county. A large group of 500 to 1,000 armed men formed. They attacked black people they saw across the county. Local white leaders asked Arkansas Governor Charles Hillman Brough for help, saying there was a "Negro uprising." Newspapers like the Arkansas Gazette printed dramatic headlines, reporting an "insurrection" and claiming black people planned to kill white leaders.

Governor Brough asked the War Department for federal troops. About 600 U.S. soldiers arrived. They found the area in chaos. The fighting lasted for three days until the troops stopped the violence. The federal troops took weapons from both sides. They arrested 285 black residents and put them in holding areas. They said this was for investigation and protection until their employers could confirm their identities.

News Reports and Cover-Up

A news report from Helena, Arkansas in The New York Times on 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 that there was "Additional evidence... of the activities of propagandists among the negroes." It suggested a plot for a general uprising against white people. A white man was arrested for "preaching social equality among the negroes." Part of the headline read: "Trouble Traced to Socialist Agitators."

A few days later, another news report showed a picture titled, "Captive Negro Insurrectionists."

Arkansas Governor Charles Hillman Brough created a group called the Committee of Seven to investigate. This group was made up of important local white businessmen. They did not talk to any of the black farmers. They decided that the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America was a socialist group. They claimed it was "established for the purpose of banding negroes together for the killing of white people." This false story was believed by many for a long time.

NAACP Steps In

The NAACP quickly released a statement. It gave a different reason for the violence. It mentioned that Ulysses Simpson Bratton was helping African Americans who were being forced to work without pay, a practice called peonage.

The NAACP statement said:

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 also mentioned a report in The Commercial Appeal from Memphis, Tennessee on October 3. This report quoted Bratton's father:

It had been impossible for the negroes to obtain itemized statements of accounts, or in fact to obtain statements at all, and that the manager was preparing to ship their cotton, they being sharecroppers and having a half interest therein, off without settling with them or allowing them to sell their half of the crop and pay up their accounts.... If it's a crime to represent people in an effort to make honest settlements, then he has committed a crime.

The NAACP sent its Field Secretary, Walter F. White, from New York City to Elaine in October 1919. He went to investigate what happened. Walter White had light skin and could "pass for white." He got a press pass from the Chicago Daily News. He even got an interview with Governor Charles Hillman Brough, who gave him a letter of recommendation and an autographed photo.

Walter White said he was in Phillips County for a short time. He heard rumors about himself and quickly took the first train back to Little Rock, Arkansas.

While in Elaine, White talked to both black and white residents. He reported that local people said up to 100 black people had been killed. White published his findings in the Daily News, the Chicago Defender, and The Nation. He also wrote about it in the NAACP's magazine, The Crisis. He said the violence was an extreme reaction by white landowners to black farmers trying to form a union.

Governor Brough asked the United States Post Office Department to stop the Chicago Defender and Crisis from being mailed to Arkansas. Local officials also tried to stop the Defender from being distributed.

Unfair Trials

In October and November 1919, an all-white grand jury in Arkansas charged 122 black people. At that time, most black people could not vote because of unfair laws. This meant they could not serve on juries. So, only white people were on the juries for these trials. The only people charged for the events were 122 African Americans. Seventy-three of them were charged with murder. Others were charged with conspiracy and rebellion.

Black people who agreed to testify against others or work without fair shares for their landlords were set free. Those who refused or were seen as leaders were charged.

The trials happened in 1920 at the courthouse in Elaine, Phillips County, Arkansas. Crowds of armed white people were outside the courthouse. Some white people in the courtroom also carried weapons. The lawyers for the black defendants did not call witnesses to help their clients. They also did not let their clients speak in court.

Twelve of the defendants were found guilty. They became known as the 'Arkansas Twelve' or 'Elaine Twelve'. Most were found guilty as "accomplices" and sentenced to death. Others were found guilty of lesser crimes and sent to prison. The trials for these twelve men often lasted less than an hour. The juries took less than ten minutes to decide they were guilty and sentence them to death.

After these convictions, 36 other defendants chose to plead guilty to second-degree murder instead of going to trial. Sixty-seven other defendants were found guilty of various charges and sentenced to up to 21 years in prison. Later, six of the 'Moore' defendants made a deal in a lower court. They were sentenced to the time they had already served and were released.

Fighting for Justice: Appeals

The NAACP took on the job of helping the defendants appeal their death sentences. The NAACP raised money to hire a legal team. For a while, the NAACP tried to keep its role secret because of the strong anger against their reports on the violence and trials. But once they started, they worked hard. They raised over $50,000 and hired Scipio Africanus Jones, a respected African-American lawyer from Arkansas. They also hired Colonel George W. Murphy, a 79-year-old former Attorney General for Arkansas. Moorfield Storey, a descendant of abolitionists and the first president of the NAACP, also joined the team when the Moore cases went to the Supreme Court.

The lawyers for the defendants managed to get the Arkansas Supreme Court to overturn the verdicts for six of the twelve death penalty cases. These were known as the Ware defendants. The court said the jury had not clearly stated if the defendants were guilty of first- or second-degree murder. These cases were sent back to the lower court for new trials. The new trials began on May 3, 1920. On the third day, Murphy collapsed in the courtroom.

Scipio Jones had to handle most of the remaining trials. The all-white juries quickly found the six defendants guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced them to 12 years each in prison. Jones appealed these new convictions. The State Supreme Court overturned them again. The court found that excluding black people from juries meant the defendants did not get a fair trial. This violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1875. The lower courts did not retry the men within the two years required by Arkansas law. So, the defense finally got them released in 1923.

The Moore Cases Go to the Supreme Court

The Arkansas Supreme Court upheld the death sentences for Moore and the other five defendants. They said the challenge to the all-white juries was too late. They also said that the angry mob atmosphere and forced testimonies did not mean the defendants were denied a fair trial. These defendants then asked the Supreme Court of the United States to review the Arkansas Supreme Court's decision, but their request was denied.

The defendants then asked for a special legal order called a habeas corpus. They argued that their trials in the Arkansas state court only looked fair on the surface. They claimed they were not properly defended and were found guilty because of pressure from the mob, ignoring their constitutional rights.

The defendants first planned to file their request in a Federal district court. But the judge there was busy in Minnesota and would not return until after the defendants' planned execution date. Judge John Ellis Martineau of the Pulaski County court issued the order. Even though the Arkansas Supreme Court later overturned his order, his action delayed the execution long enough for the defendants to seek help in Federal court.

U.S. District Judge Jacob Trieber issued another order. The State of Arkansas defended the convictions by saying they followed the law, based on an earlier U.S. Supreme Court decision. The United States district court agreed and denied the order. However, it found enough reason for an appeal and allowed the defendants to take their case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In the case of Moore v. Dempsey (1923), the Supreme Court of the United States overturned these six convictions. The Court said that the angry mob at the trial and the use of forced testimony meant the defendants did not get a fair trial, as required by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. A well-known lawyer, George Rose, wrote a letter to Governor Thomas McRae. He asked the governor to find a way to release the remaining defendants if they agreed to plead guilty to second-degree murder. Rose wanted to prevent the new Governor-Elect, Thomas Jefferson Terral, who was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, from getting involved.

Just hours before Governor McRae left office in 1925, he told Scipio Africanus Jones that the remaining defendants had been given "indefinite furloughs." This meant they were freed. Jones used these furloughs to get the prisoners released secretly at night. He arranged for them to be quickly taken out of the state to protect them from being lynched. The NAACP helped them leave safely.

What Happened After

The Supreme Court's decision in Moore v. Dempsey was very important. It started a new time when the Supreme Court began to look more closely at criminal cases. They wanted to make sure states followed the Due Process Clause and the Bill of Rights. Ten years later, the Supreme Court reviewed the case of the Scottsboro boys. The victory for the Elaine defendants made the NAACP more respected as a group fighting for African Americans' rights. Walter F. White's brave investigation helped him advance in the organization. He later became the chief operating officer of the NAACP and led the group in many more legal challenges and civil rights efforts.

Since the late 1900s, researchers have studied the Elaine race riot more deeply. For many years, the event was too painful to talk about openly in the area. The widespread violence stopped black farmers from organizing unions. White oppression continued, threatening every black family. Historian Robert Whitaker said it was "one of those shameful events best not talked about."

Another reason for the silence was that the second Ku Klux Klan became active in Arkansas in 1921. They focused on areas with many black people. They used threats and attacks to keep black people from speaking up.

In early 2000, a meeting about the Elaine riot was held at the Delta Cultural Center in Helena, Arkansas. This meeting aimed to review the facts, but it did not bring "closure" for the people of Phillips County. The Associated Press spoke with author Grif Stockley, who wrote a book about the riot. He said that in 2000, there were still two versions of the riot. He called them the "white" version, which claimed the union planned an attack on whites, and a "black" version, which said farmers were trying to get fair payments for their crops. Stockley said there "was plenty of evidence to say whites attacked blacks indiscriminately."

Memorial

In September 2019, 100 years after the event, a memorial for the Elaine Massacre was revealed.

See also

In Spanish: Disturbios raciales de Elaine de 1919 para niños