Washington is where we met. A conference on the matter in Helena in 2000 resulted in no closure for the people in Phillips County. [48] They were now in front of Battery D.[50], Marmaduke has his own problems in his sector on the line. UPDATE: Officer killed in Helena-West Helena shooting identified Elaine was probably the largest massacre of black people in post-Civil War history, yet no federal investigation was ever conducted. The next morning, the Phillips County sheriff sent out a posse to arrest those suspected of being involved in the shooting. Dillard, Tom. I first learned of the Elaine Massacre today, February 7, 2017, and I am both saddened and angered. [73] Holmes ordered the 8th Missouri Infantry Regiment (Burns') to attack Fort Curtis,[66] but upon seeing the regiment charge, the rest of Parsons' men joined in, believing a general attack was beginning. The main attack broke through Battery C, but Union troops fended off the attackers and sealed the breach. The Delta city has been awarded a $1 million grant speci They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. After hiding for two days in the woods, the Colemans returned home to find dead bodies of women and children scattered about their community. 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 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. Throughout the day at least 1,000 white vigilantes came from all over the state and from Mississippi to join plantation owners, their managers, sheriffs, deputies and the veterans to put down what they called an uprising. There she interviewed the 12 prisoners accused of murder, their wives, and many others, publishing her findings in a 1920 pamphlet. 14 Best Things to Do in Helena-West Helena (Arkansas) At 11 p.m., a band of white men shot into the church. Police say detectives have interviewed several people who might have been with . . Fort Curtis 12 Points of Interest & Landmarks By Altekameraden [47] Price's advance was led by the 9th Missouri Sharpshooter Battalion, who sighted the Union positions on Graveyard Hill. As they surrounded his house, another man inside, Charlie Robinson, tried to run away. Memphis: Memphis State University Press, 1970. [20]. Holmes planned and executed three different failed attacks on the town. [50] Price's command consisted of the brigades of Brigadier Generals Dandridge McRae and Mosby Monroe Parsons, and was led by the 9th Missouri Sharpshooter Battalion and a company of Arkansans local to the Helena area. After troops arrived in Elaine on the morning of October 2, 1919, the white mobs began to depart the area and return to their homes. The trial had occurred in a setting dominated by a mob spirit, violating the prisoners right to due process. By late November, Jones was working with Murphys firm to save the Elaine Twelve. With labor conflicts escalating throughout the country at the end of World War I, government and business interpreted the demands of labor increasingly as the work of foreign ideologies, such as Bolshevism, that threatened the foundation of the American economy. As a result, sixty-five others quickly entered plea-bargains and accepted sentences of up to twenty-one years for second-degree murder. Marking a Tragedy. Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, September 29, 2019, pp. The Arkansas Race Riot. N.p. One African-American, William Pickens, described the region as the American Congo. Elaine, though an isolated plantation region, was part of the broader social upheaval following World War I that came in the form of massive strikes and racial confrontations, both at home and abroad. The Elaine, Arkansas, Race Riots, 1919. Special Issue. If we dont teach ALL AMERICAN HISTORY we miss a opportunity to learn about our part, examine our present, and plan and prepare for our future as, ONE NATION, UNDER GOD, INDIVISIBLE, WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL. But World War I brought changes to the Delta, as it did in Northern urban centers. 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]. [7], On June 9, Holmes learned that the strength of the Union forces in Helena was about 3,000 or 4,000 men, and decided against an attack. Phillips County Arrest, Court, and Public Records | StateRecords.org Additional support provided by the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation Inc. ed. The Arkansas Gazette reported at least fifteen black bodies in Helena's streets and it's outskirts. A Union counterattack retook the hill and captured many prisoners,[79] with over 350 prisoners taken on Graveyard Hill alone. Stockley, Grif, Brian K. Mitchell, and Guy Lancaster. (Union leader Robert Lee Hill was hidden by friends during the violence and later escaped to Kansas.) 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. [32] Their plans were also hampered by poor reconnaissance. [81] The Union troops had taken advantage of the severe disorganization and scattering of the Confederate forces to take the prisoners. [51] His dismounted cavalrymen were pushed back by the 29th Iowa and part of the 36th Iowa Infantry Regiment, and his flank was threatened by the 5th Kansas Cavalry Regiment and the 1st Indiana Cavalry Regiment, which were commanded by Powell Clayton. [26] Prentiss was originally intended to be reinforced by three vessels from the Union Navy, but only one, the timberclad USS Tyler,[a] was available when the Confederate attack struck. During the American Civil War, the Battle of Helena was a deadly encounter. [4] After, a loss of rail service in early 2015, a successful effort was launched by the Helena-West Helena/Phillips County Port Authority to have freight service restored. Confederate infantry deserted in large numbers, their morale shattered. She had been driven from her home in Memphis to Chicago because of her activism. Salomon would make many of the decisions in the upcoming battle. Facebook/Historic Arkansas Facts and Photos. [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. The following morning, Gov. Consequently, plantation owners and lumber mills had to pay higher wages to have the cotton picked or timber milled. Blood in Their Eyes: The Elaine Massacre of 1919. In December 1860, the state of South Carolina seceded from the United States, as a result of several disagreements with the federal government, slavery chief among them. Eliza Miller Junior High School and Central High School, the designated secondary schools, were in West Helena. On November 5, 2019, the Elaine Twelve were memorialized on the Arkansas Civil Rights Heritage Trail in Little Rock. [72] Many Confederates surrendered. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2020. [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. New York: Peter Lang, 2008. Families of union members found no welcome when they returned to their homes. The Helena-West Helena Police Department says the body of Fredrick Willis, 23, of Helena-West Helena, was found late Tuesday evening. In fact, local police were complicit in the killing of untold numbers of African-Americans. Helena-West Helena mayor explains how town got $1 million grant to Krugler, David F. 1919, The Year of Racial Violence: How African Americans Fought Back. Hundreds of black citizens were killed in Elaine, Ark., a century ago this week. : 1920. [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. Holmes and Price arrived on the hill, and finding that the Union guns could not be used, ordered Tilden's Missouri Battery and Marshall's Arkansas Battery to begin to come up. [88] The unit had not completed formation at the time of the battle and was poorly trained, so it had been positioned in an area where it was unlikely to be directly engaged. White attorneys from Helena were appointed by Circuit Judge J. M. Jackson to represent the first twelve black men to go to trial. Ms. Wells Barnett gathered testimonies that described the sheer horror of the massacre from those who endured and lived to tell their stories. [18][19], Helena previously had a Catholic grade school for black children, St. Cyprian School; it closed in 1963. Arkansas governor Charles Hillman Brough told a St. Louis, Missouri, audience during the war that there existed no twilight zone in American patriotism and called Wisconsin senator Robert LaFollete, who opposed the war, a Bolshevik leader. [21] Walker lost only 12 men; historian Mark Christ attributes this to the weakness of his attack. 25 federal indictments come from Helena-West Helena, federal partnership Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America. 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. As many as several hundred African Americans and five white men were killed. On Oct. 31, a grand jury indicted 122 black men and women for offenses ranging from murder to night riding. 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. Lancaster, Guy, ed. That was 97 years ago but little has changed in the hearts of people. Additional support provided by the Arkansas Humanities Council. And heres our email: letters@nytimes.com. Rogers, O. Race, Labor, and Violence in the Delta: Essays to Mark the Centennial of the Elaine Massacre. Americans have yet to reckon with this horrible past. Fort Curtis was not directly attacked at the Battle of Helena since the Confederacy focused its attacks on the outlying batteries. Military reports were intentionally vague. [86] Prentiss claimed the capture of more than 1,100 Confederate soldiers and stated that over 300 dead Confederates were buried by Union troops. 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. [75] Price then ordered Parsons to attack Battery D, but was informed that McRae had already been ordered to do that. 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. [10], Once formed, the plan called for Price, with his 3,095 infantry, to move from Jacksonport to Cotton Plant on June 22, along with Marmaduke's 1,750 cavalry; that 1,339 infantry commanded by Brigadier General James F. Fagan would move from Little Rock to Clarendon, and that Brigadier General Lucius M. Walker would screen Helena with his 1,462 cavalry. The Confederates charged Fort Curtis in their last attack, but the heavy artillery inside kept the attack from reaching the fort. Helena, Arkansas - Wikipedia Telephone lines to Elaine were cut. The 1920 census lists my great-great-great-grandmother as a widow. [4] My anger comes from this being hidden/erased from history like the lives that were taken that day. Any information would be helpful. HELENA-WEST HELENA -- Hard on the banks of the Mississippi River, the World still turns, one page at a time. He was elderly and handicapped, and ran too slowly. Pierce, Michael, and Calvin White, eds. 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). By early morning Oct. 1, the sheriff sent white veterans from the American Legion post to suppress what he deemed an insurrection. 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. Central Arkansas Library System, Little Rock, Arkansas. A couple in Garland County is suing Officer Ryan Wingo in Garland. Historian Robert Kerby describes the Confederate plan as "a model of brutal irresponsibility". REX NELSON: Helena's new mayor - Arkansas Online Although the exact number is unknown, estimates of the number of African Americans killed by whites have ranged into the hundreds; five white people lost their lives. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2020. For historic sites related to the battle, see. They secured new trials for six of the men, known as the Ware defendants, based on the fact that the trial judge had not required jurors to indicate the degree of murder on their ballot forms.The convictions of the other six men, known as the Moore defendants, were affirmed. The community, originally settled in 1797 and first called Monticello and then St. Francis, grew around a warehouse built for barge shipping. 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. The 1919 cotton crop was the most profitable in history and they stood to make a good amount of money. This picture of the Magnolia Inn on Roosevelt Road in Little Rock was taken in 1969. [30] The Confederates had support from the local white populace.
