Unions such as the Progressive Farmers represented a threat not only to the tenet of white supremacy but also to the basic concepts of capitalism. Brough, requesting that U.S. troops be sent to Elaine. 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. South of Price, Fagan was to attack Battery D on Hindman's Hill, while Marmaduke, supported by Walker, was to attack from the north, take Rightor's Hill, and then use the hill as an artillery position to fire on Batteries A and B. As racialized violence spread in both Northern and Southern cities during the Red Summer of 1919, Delta planters were paying close attention. They seek redress, not in the form of apologies, but in recognition of the harm done, and of the way generations continue to suffer the consequences. [67] A critical moment in the battle had arrived: if the Confederates could get enough artillery onto Graveyard Hill, they could shell the Union forces into submission. Even worse from the planters perspective, the much-feared radical Industrial Workers of the World, or Wobblies, were rumored to be organizing in the fields and mills. Historical Events. Union media later greatly embellished the role played by the regiment in the fighting. The obligations of the past weigh heavily upon the present. Fort Curtis was not directly attacked at the Battle of Helena since the Confederacy focused its attacks on the outlying batteries. [6] In late May, with Union troops heavily pressuring Vicksburg, Confederate authorities sent a message to General Joseph E. Johnston suggesting that forces from the Trans-Mississippi Department be used to relieve the pressure on Vicksburg. Marmaduke followed up the bombardment with an attack against Battery A, but fog that had concealed the advance dissipated and the attack was repulsed by the 29th Iowa, who mounted a counterattack. This was a . Ferguson, Bessie. [56] Historian Robert E. Shalhope wrote that the Confederate attacks were repulsed "perhaps less by the powerful Union entrenchments than by their own poorly co-ordinated attack". Butler Center for Arkansas Studies. As of the 2000 census, this portion of the city population was 6,323. Facebook/Historic Arkansas Facts and Photos. He also told how soldiers brought a suspected union leader to his company store for interrogation, poured kerosene over his body and tossed a match. Though some local white residents of Phillips County still contend that white people at the time acted appropriately to prevent a slaughter in the Elaine area in 1919, the modern view of most historians of this crisis is that white mobs unjustifiably killed an undetermined number of African Americans. The descendants of the wealthier white perpetrators, they insist, have profited, and continue to do so, from the suffering and loss that their families endured in 1919. Butler Center for Arkansas Studies. [43] Meanwhile, on the Lower Little Rock road, Brooks ran into trouble, taking fire from Battery K, 1st Missouri Light Artillery Regiment and Tyler. 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. Helena-West Helena mayor explains how town got $1 million grant to [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. St. Francis National Forest is immediately to the north. Marking a Tragedy. Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, September 29, 2019, pp. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. Updates? The town was at the center of a rapidly changing lumber and plantation economy known for harsh working conditions. These are the same people who dont understand why African Americans choose Black Lives Matter as a valid starting point. Major funding provided by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. After hiding for two days in the woods, the Colemans returned home to find dead bodies of women and children scattered about their community. 30.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 13.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. Gov. Jones began to raise money in the black community in Little Rock for the defense of the Elaine Twelve, as the convicted men came to be known. The main attack broke through Battery C, but Union troops fended off the attackers and sealed the breach. There is no danger of any lynching. New York: Crown, 2008. The Nevada County Depot in Prescott was photographed circa 1960 with the Reader Railroad engine in the foreground. [46] Meanwhile, Fagan's men attacked the second Union line of works. Consequently, plantation owners and lumber mills had to pay higher wages to have the cotton picked or timber milled. 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. 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. Americans have yet to reckon with this horrible past. [47] Price's advance was led by the 9th Missouri Sharpshooter Battalion, who sighted the Union positions on Graveyard Hill. Authorities say Wallace and other police officers were looking for Howard, who was wanted on charges in connection to a shooting in Helena-West Helena about a week ago. (WMC) - Areas of Eastern Arkansas are sending more violent offenders to federal court. 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. So sad. Trauma and Repair: Confronting Segregation and Violence in America. 1831-12-25 Louisiana & Arkansas are first states to observe Christmas as holiday. During the trials, Murphy became ill, and Jones became the principal counsel. 10. (Union leader Robert Lee Hill was hidden by friends during the violence and later escaped to Kansas.) One of the convicted 12 wrote to her from prison, requesting help. Robert Palmer noted that in the mid-1930s Helena was "the blues capital of the Delta". With the success of the Russian Revolution, stopping the spread of international communism was seen as the duty of all loyal Americans. Grif Stockley Krug, Teresa. Additional support provided by the Arkansas Humanities Council. Smith, C. Calvin, ed. Seventy-nine-year-old Ed Coleman had remained at home with his wife when people fleeing Hoop Spur came to his house and warned them to leave. Voogd, Jan. Race Riots and Resistance: The Red Summer of 1919. 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. On Oct. 31, a grand jury indicted 122 black men and women for offenses ranging from murder to night riding. [75] Price then ordered Parsons to attack Battery D, but was informed that McRae had already been ordered to do that. Colonel Isaac Jenks, commander of the U.S. troops at Elaine, recorded the number of African Americans killed by U.S. troops as only two. The information you have provided is great for families that lost people and is greatly needed. As a result, sixty-five others quickly entered plea-bargains and accepted sentences of up to twenty-one years for second-degree murder. 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. Dunaway, L. S. What A Preacher Saw Through a Keyhole in Arkansas. The white citizens of the county deserve unstinting praise for their actions in preventing mob violence., From this point forward, two versions of what occurred at Elaine exist. They ushered her out the door." Helena-West Helena Police confirmed they were called to the Walmart Thursday just after noon to a report of a subject having a. 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. This was murder on the part of the white population. One of the largest harbors on an inland waterway was completed in the 1990s, making Helena a hub of industrial development. The troops were aided by seven machine guns. [8] He thought the attack would be too costly, and instead suggested placing an artillery battery along the Mississippi river to intercept Union shipping. At 11 p.m., a band of white men shot into the church. Collins, Ann V. All Hell Broke Loose: American Race Riots from the Progressive Era through World War II. He was elderly and handicapped, and ran too slowly. Arkansas - USA - Historical Events & People - On This Day Jackson: University and College Press of Mississippi, 1972. [56], Around the time Fagan's men approached Battery D at 7:00 am, Price's attack began. In Helena, the age distribution included 32.5% of the population under the age of 18, 10.0% from 18 to 24, 22.1% from 25 to 44, 20.0% from 45 to 64, and 15.5% who were 65 years of age or older. In contrast, the correspondent for the Memphis Press on October 2, 1919, wrote, Many Negroes are reported killed by the soldiers. Other anecdotal information suggests that U.S. troops also engaged in torture of African Americans to make them confess and give information. In 1811 the steamboat New Orleans called there, opening a prosperous era of river traffic. The Moore defendants were granted a new hearing after the U.S. Supreme Court, in the case of Moore v. Dempsey, ruled that the original proceedings in Helena had been a mask, and that the state of Arkansas had not provided a corrective process that would have allowed the defendants to vindicate their constitutional right to due process of law on appeal. A local schoolteacher saw 28 black people killed, their bodies thrown into a pit and burned, and 16 African Americans killed, their bodies hanging from a bridge outside of Helena., A Memphis reporter described events on Oct. 2 after the troops had arrived. The converging attack would be difficult, and the generals interpreted Holmes' order to begin the attack at "daylight" differently. The military placed several hundred African Americans in makeshift stockades until they could be questioned and vouched for by their white employers. He made an agreement with Price, who was much more popular with the general public, that he would publicly support the decision of the attack in the case of a failure. Central Arkansas Library System, Little Rock, Arkansas. Brough once again stayed their executions until the Arkansas Supreme Court could again review the cases. Helena is the eastern portion of HelenaWest Helena, Arkansas, a city in Phillips County, Arkansas. [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. They stole Wares cow, two mules, one horse, a farm wagon, his Ford car and various household goods. 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. [93][94] The battle also destroyed any positive relationships remaining between Holmes and Price,[95] with the former believing that the latter should have reinforced Fagan. [85] Walker's withdrawal occurred at about 2:00 pm. Holmes planned and executed three different failed attacks on the town. Though accounts of who fired the first shots are in sharp conflict, a shootout in front of the church on the night of September 30, 1919, between the armed black guards around the church and three individuals whose vehicle was parked in front of the church resulted in the death of W. A. Adkins, a white security officer for the Missouri-Pacific Railroad, and the wounding of Charles Pratt, Phillips Countys white deputy sheriff. In June 1863, Confederate Commander Theophilus Holmes sought to take pressure off of Vicksburg, Mississippi, by attacking the Union-held town of Helena, Arkansas. The Forgotten History of Americas Worst Racial Massacre, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/30/opinion/elaine-massacre-1919-arkansas.html. [24] The Union garrison would face the coming attack with 4,129 men. The assaults failed, and Vicksburg fell the same day. Arkansas Residents Make a Case for Reparations 100 Years after the Elaine Massacre. American Prospect, September 30, 2019. https://prospect.org/justice/arkansas-reparations-elaine-race-massacre/ (accessed August 16, 2022). 1808-11-10 Osage Treaty / Treaty of Fort Clark, Osage Nation cedes territory in Missouri and Arkansas to the US. Williams, Lee E., and Lee E. Williams II. Washington is where we met. Improve this listing Full view All photos (4) Top ways to experience nearby attractions Memphis City Tour with Optional Riverboat Cruise & Sun Studio Add-On Options 438 Recommended Bus Tours from $40.00 per adult Courageously, she dressed up as a sharecropper and went to Arkansas. The City of Helena is located in Phillips County in the State of Arkansas. Salomon would make many of the decisions in the upcoming battle. Anatomy of Four Race Riots: Racial Conflict in Knoxville, Elaine (Arkansas), Tulsa and Chicago, 19191921. [53] Bledsoe's two guns were driven off, but neither side could defeat the other. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2020. News also reached the Union forces at Helena of a major Union victory at the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. Battle of Helena - Wikipedia Invest in the future of great journalism in Arkansas Elaine Race Massacre: Red Summer in Arkansas. Paul Hall was one of the twelve men who were slated to be electrocuted, and I believe he was my relative. [4] Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2012. Over 7,500 Confederate troops led by Lieutenant General Theophilus Holmes attempted to capture Helena in hopes of relieving some of the pressure on the Confederate army besieged in Vicksburg, Mississippi. State police say Officer Wallace was shot around 6:11 p.m. Thursday outside the Delta Inn on U.S. Highway 49 in Helena-West Helena. Read our Privacy Policy. This neglect by the government came in the face of people who merely sought to exercise their basic rights to secure a lawyer to defend their property. Flood of 1927 - Encyclopedia of Arkansas [14], Late on July 3, Fagan sent a patrol commanded by Colonel William H. Brooks to secure the junction of the two roads leading to Little Rock. 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. Many wept as they told of murder, land theft, forced migration and the legacies of living in a region where fear of retribution silenced people over generations. 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. and the Arkansas Riot Cases; Ida Wells Barnett, The Elaine Race Riot; Guy Lancaster, The Elaine Massacre and Arkansas: A Century of Atrocity and Resistance, 1819-1919; Grif Stockley, Blood in Their Eyes: The Elaine Arkansas Race Massacre., Nan Elizabeth Woodruff us an emeritus professor of African American studies and modern United States history at Pennsylvania State University and the author of American Congo: The African American Freedom Struggle in the Delta.. Roberts, Michael. 0.73% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. [30] The Confederates had support from the local white populace. Males had a median income of $27,203 versus $17,250 for females. . [52] The two Union cavalry regiments were holding a position behind a levee. 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. In June 1863, Confederate Commander Theophilus Holmes sought to take pressure off of Vicksburg, Mississippi, by attacking the Union-held town of Helena, Arkansas. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. She had been driven from her home in Memphis to Chicago because of her activism. During the 1910 census, my great-great-great-grandfather was listed. [21], The Union troops in Helena were commanded by Major General Benjamin Prentiss and consisted of the Thirteenth Division of the XIII Corps. The wife of Frank Moore had hidden for four weeks. Helena Confederate Cemetery 20 Cemeteries By VictoriaElizabethK The cemetery is understandably peaceful but to walk amongst the stones, it is very moving to see how many of the dead. A steel gondola car was hauled back and forth on the railroad track, he said, adding, the men inside firing from the shelter of the steel walls of the car, shooting black people. Bearden, Russell E. "Arkansas' Worst Disaster: The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927." Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies 34 (August 2003): 79-97. [25] Trees were felled in front of the Union lines, although it is unclear if they were simply left where they fell as an obstruction or were converted into abatis. It was effectively an invasion. On September 10, Union troops took Little Rock. The Elaine Riot of 1919: Race, Class, and Labor in the Arkansas Delta. PhD diss., University of WisconsinMilwaukee, 2019. 72201. Union troops captured the city in July 1862, and had been using it as a base of operations. [13] Rains and high stream levels slowed Price's approach,[14] and though Marmaduke's men reached Switzer's on time, the infantry was delayed at the crossing of the Cache River. During this Red Scare, the threat of Bolshevism seemed to be everywhere: not only in the labor strikes led by the radical Industrial Workers of the World but also in the cotton fields of Arkansas. http://visualizingtheredsummer.com/ (accessed August 16, 2022). The confessions of the black men had been secured through torture. To the north, Confederate cavalry commanded by Brigadier Generals John S. Marmaduke and Lucius M. Walker failed to act in concert and accomplished little. Helena is home to the longest running daily radio program in the U.S., King Biscuit Time. 25 federal indictments come from Helena-West Helena, federal partnership [66] Many men from the 7th Missouri Infantry Regiment (Lewis') were captured at this time. Once there, Holmes provided further orders for the advance: Walker was to screen Fagan's movement to Helena with part of his command, while Price continued on to Helena from Switzer's. Find directions to Helena, browse local businesses, landmarks, get current traffic estimates, road conditions, and more. The community, originally settled in 1797 and first called Monticello and then St. Francis, grew around a warehouse built for barge shipping. HELENA-WEST HELENA, Ark. New York: St. Martins, 2011. Volunteers rush to aid animals at closed Ark. shelter - WREG.com Helena, AR Map & Directions - MapQuest https://ualrexhibits.org/elaine/ (accessed August 16, 2022).