America’s Forgotten Mass Lynching: When 237 People Were Murdered In Arkansas

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[h2]  In 1919, in the wake of World War I, black sharecroppers unionized in Arkansas, unleashing a wave of white vigilantism and mass murder that left 237 people dead.[/h2]
The visits began in the fall of 1918, just as World War I ended. At his office in Little Rock, Arkansas, attorney Ulysses S. Bratton listened as African American sharecroppers from the Delta told stories of theft, exploitation, and endless debt. A man named Carter had tended 90 acres of cotton, only to have his landlord seize the entire crop and his possessions. From the town of Ratio, in Phillips County, Arkansas, a black farmer reported that a plantation manager refused to give sharecroppers an itemized account for their crop. Another sharecropper told of a landlord trying “to starve the people into selling the cotton at his own price. They ain’t allowing us down there room to move our feet except to go to the field.”

No one could know it at the time, but within a year these inauspicious meetings would lead to one of the worst episodes of racial violence in U.S. history. Initiated by whites, the violence—by any measure, a massacre—claimed the lives of 237 African Americans, according to a just released report  from the Equal Justice Initiative. The death toll was unusually high, but the use of racial violence to subjugate blacks during this time was not uncommon. As the Equal Justice Initiative observes, “Racial terror lynching was a tool used to enforce Jim Crow laws and racial segregation—a tactic for maintaining racial control by victimizing the entire African American community, not merely punishment of an alleged perpetrator for a crime.” This was certainly true of the massacre in Phillips County, Arkansas.

Bratton agreed to represent the cheated sharecroppers, who also joined a new union, the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America. Its founder, a black Delta native named Robert Hill, had no prior organizing experience but plenty of ambition. “The union wants to know why it is that the laborers cannot control their just earnings which they work for,” Hill announced as he urged black sharecroppers to each recruit 25 prospective members to form a lodge. Hill was especially successful in Phillips County, where seven lodges were established in 1919.

It took a lot of courage to defy the Arkansas Delta’s white elite. Men such as E.M. “Mort” Allen controlled the local economy, government, law enforcement, and courts. Allen was a latter-day carpetbagger, a Northerner who had come to Arkansas in 1906 to make his fortune. He married well and formed a partnership with a wealthy businessman. Together they developed the town of Elaine, a hub for the thriving lumber industry. Allen and the county’s white landowners understood that their continued prosperity depended on the exploitation of black sharecroppers and laborers. In a county where more than 75 percent of the population was African American, this wasn’t a task to be taken lightly. In February 1919, the planters agreed to reduce the acreage of cotton in cultivation in anticipation of a postwar drop in demand. If they gave their tenants a fair settlement, their profits would shrink further. Allen spoke for the planters when he declared that “the old Southern methods are much the best,” and that the “Southern men can handle the negroes all right and peaceably.”

There was nothing “peaceable” about the methods used to demolish the sharecroppers’ union. Late on the night of September 30, 1919, the planters dispatched three men to break up a union meeting in a rough hewn black church at Hoop Spur, a crossroads three miles north of Elaine. Prepared for trouble, the sharecroppers had assigned six men to patrol outside the church. A verbal confrontation led to gunfire that fatally wounded one of the attackers. The union men dispersed, but not for long. Bracing for reprisals from their landlords, they rousted fellow sharecroppers from bed and formed self-defense forces.

The planters also mobilized. Sheriff Frank Kitchens deputized a massive white posse, even setting up a headquarters at the courthouse in the county seat of Helena to organize his recruits. Hundreds of white veterans, recently returned from military service in France, flocked to the courthouse. Dividing into small groups, the armed white men set out into the countryside to search for the sharecroppers. The posse believed that a black conspiracy to murder white planters had just been begun and that they must do whatever it took to put down the alleged uprising. The result was the killing of 237 African Americans.

None of the perpetrators—participants in mass murder—answered for their crimes. No one was charged, no trials were held, at least not of those who had killed blacks. In the early 20th century, state-sanctioned collective violence targeting African Americans was a common occurrence in the United States. 1919 was an especially bloody year. By September, the nation had already experienced seven major outbreaks of anti-black violence (commonly called “race riots”). Riots had flared in cities as different as Knoxville, Omaha, and Washington, D.C. In Chicago, a lakefront altercation between whites and blacks escalated into a week-long riot that took the lives of 38 men (23 black, 15 white). To restore order, Illinois Gov. Frank Lowden called in thousands of state militia.

The root cause of 1919’s violence was the reassertion of white supremacy after World War I. Disfranchisement, Jim Crow laws, and biased police forces and courts had stripped African Americans of many of their constitutional rights and created deepset economic, social, and political inequities. Blacks who defied the rules and traditions of white supremacy risked personal ruin (being banished from their hometowns was one punishment), bodily harm (beatings and whippings), and death. In just five months in 1919, from January to May, more than 20 lynch mobs murdered two dozen African Americans. One of these victims was a black veteran killed for refusing to stop wearing his Army uniform. Lynchers took pride in their actions, often posing for photographs at the scenes of their crimes; few were ever charged, let alone convicted. Mob violence helped protect the racial status quo.

What made 1919 unique was the armed resistance that black Americans mounted against white mobs trying to keep them “in their place.” During the United States’ brief but transformative involvement in World War I, almost 370,000 black men served in the military, most of them in the Army. On the homefront, African American men and women bought war bonds, volunteered for the Red Cross, and worked in defense factories. They were fighting to make the world safe for democracy, as President Woodrow Wilson defined the war’s purpose, yet they didn’t have equal rights and opportunities at home. When the war ended, African Americans resolved to make America safe for democracy. In May 1919, civil rights activist and prolific writer W.E.B. Du Bois declared, “We return from fighting. We return fighting.  Make way for Democracy! We saved it in France, and by the Great Jehovah, we will save it in the United States of America, or know the reason why.”

Whether they had served in the military or not, African Americans answered Du Bois’s clarion call. When a white mob in Longview, Texas, tried to seize a black man named S.L. Jones to lynch him for insulting the honor of a white woman, a self-defense force organized by Jones’s friends opened fire, dispersing the mob and saving Jones’s life. When police in Chicago failed to stop white gangs from attacking blacks, veterans of the 370[sup]th[/sup]Regiment, 93[sup]rd[/sup]   Division (an all-black unit recently returned from France) put on their uniforms, armed themselves, and took to the streets. And when white servicemen and veterans joined with civilians to form mobs in Washington, D.C., hundreds of black Washingtonians lined the streets of Uptown (now called Shaw) to prevent these mobs from marauding in the neighborhood known for its black-owned businesses and theaters.

The Arkansas sharecroppers who stood up against the white planters of Phillips County were a major part of black resistance during 1919. Their courage came with heavy costs. As word of the trouble spread, white vigilantes from Mississippi crossed the river and began attacking blacks. The posse organized by Sheriff Kitchens scoured the canebrakes and fields, firing on blacks. Meanwhile, Arkansas Gov. Charles Brough cabled the War Department to request the deployment of infantry units. Almost 600 white troops and officers soon arrived from Camp Pike. Told that a black uprising was underway, the soldiers rounded up African Americans and, like the Mississippi vigilantes and local posse, killed indiscriminately. A special agent for the Missouri Pacific Railroad who led a force of approximately 50 white men later said the Mississippi mob “shot and killed men, women and children without regard to whether they were guilty or innocent of any connection with the killing of anybody, or whether members of the union or not.” One of the county’s richest white men, Gerard Lambert, observed soldiers shoot a black man who had tried to run from a hiding place. Let that “be a lesson,” the troops told blacks who were also present. Vigilantes killed a black woman, pulled her dress over her head, and left her body on a road, another brutal “lesson” of what happened when African Americans forgot their “place.”

The sharecroppers did the best they could to defend themselves and their families and neighbors. A group of sharecroppers and a black veteran in uniform shot back when part of the posse opened fire. Hearing the shots, union member Frank Moore rallied the men with him. “Let’s go help them people out,” he shouted. But the sharecroppers were outgunned and outmanned. By October 3, most had been captured and jailed. Sheriff’s deputies and special agents for the Missouri Pacific Railroad tortured them to extract false confessions to a conspiracy to murder whites. Rigged trials brought swift convictions and death sentences for 12 men whose only crime was their attempt to obtain fair earnings for their labor. Protracted appeals, supported by the NAACP, resulted in a Supreme Court decision (Moore v. Dempsey, 1923) that helped free the men. The ruling also established the federal government’s obligation to ensure that state trial proceedings preserve the Constitution’s guarantee of due process and equal protection of the laws, a standard the Arkansas trials certainly had not met.

This legal victory couldn’t give back the lives of the black residents killed by the posse, vigilantes, and troops in Phillips County. The death toll of 237 reported by the Equal Justice Initiative is a new figure, based on extensive research. In 1919, sources as varied as the NAACP and the Bureau of Investigation (forerunner of the FBI) estimated the number of killed African Americans at 25 to 80. Writer Robert Whitaker, who has identified 22 separate killing sites of African Americans during the massacre, put the death toll at more than 100. NAACP official Walter White, who risked his life in October 1919 to investigate the killings, stated that the “number of Negroes killed during the riot is unknown and probably never will be known.” In contrast, just four whites died, all of them posse members; one or two may have died as a result of friendly fire.

Say the number of African Americans killed in Phillips County in 1919 was 25. Or 80. Or 237. The very fact that, almost one hundred years after the massacre, we are still trying to pinpoint the death toll should lead us to a larger reckoning: coming to terms with one of the most violent years in the nation’s history, bloodshed that resulted from efforts to make America safe for democracy.
 
OP tryna set a record for most race threads in the shortest time. I believe in you OP

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Red Summer

Not many today care unfortunately. There was a thread on this a while back though (not specifically Ak but the entire thing).

Reminds me of the Draft riots in NYC and the countless other unreported atrocities committed against black ppl in this country.
 
Man the more I learn the more I realize how WORTHLESS history is as they teach it in school...

They literally just pick and choose what's gonna be history and what will be forgotten..

It's kinda sad, even more sad the majority of folks will never know the truth.. Because you really gotta do independent research to enlighten yourself.. Or else you're being brainwashed and you never even knew it...it was just life as you knew it.


As usual, much respect hand2handking hand2handking for teaching me something I didn't know. Your posts are both refreshing and enlightening..

To those that don't wanna discuss race or feel as tho OP posts too much about race its simple, don't participate. Some of us dig what he has to say.. The message is getting to the people it was supposed to.
 
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These type of threads make me hate
Make me feel a hatred toward white folks
But then I think to myself
Is it right to hate them
Like am I hating them
The same way they hate us
Then I think damn doesn't god say love everyone even ur enemies
But then I think damn do I REALLY believe in god
Then I think DAMN I believe in evil
Which makes me say well damn I believe in the devil then don't I believe in god
Cause can't believe in one without the other
But then I also think damn I believe in aliens
Then I think damn civilization is so damn ****** up
That I don't even know what to believe in
And then I think do I believe in god JUST so I don't go to hell
But then if I think there is a hell then I must believe in god
:smh: :smh: :smh:
Life is so confusing
 
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These type of threads make me hate
Make me feel a hatred toward white folks
But then I think to myself
Is it right to hate them
Like am I hating them
The same way they hate us
Then I think damn doesn't god say love everyone even ur enemies
But then I think damn do I REALLY believe in god
Then I think DAMN I believe in evil
Which makes me say well damn I believe in the devil then don't I believe in god
Cause can't believe in one without the other
But then I also think damn I believe in aliens
Then I think damn civilization is so damn ****** up
That I don't even know what to believe in
And then I think do I believe in god JUST so I don't go to hell
But then if I think there is a hell then I must believe in god
:smh: :smh: :smh:
Life is so confusing

:lol:


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People disregard the fact that this happened 3 generations ago.

Like... Our grandparents were taught by the very people who went through all this...

So imagine you're a black person that had their land stripped... With two kids...

The kids grow up cowering and fearing white people...

Which is passed down to your parents...

To you...

And no... It may not be turn and hide fear...

But the fact that you THINK this person is better than you because of skin color...

I think that very fact permeates a lot of young folk today. That inferiority complex that I'm supposed to not be ****.
 
good post. But some how even after this blacks still get labeled as thugs and animals smh
 
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good post. But some how even after this blacks still get labeled as thugs and animals smh

They fear us for weirdo reasons. Obama became the president and gun sales went up because they feared a "black takeover". They have some sick fetish for black people and I don't quite get it
 
And **** hasn't changed in the minds of some.

I had a friend of a "friend" (white dude I guess I went to school with even though I don't remember him) on fb call me the n word with an "er" yesterday after calling me a liberal and calling the POTUS my "messiah" because I called an anti-Islamic post out for what is was: ignorance. It just confirmed, not reminded me, of what I always suspect anyway.

Thanks for the history lesson OP.
 
And **** hasn't changed in the minds of some.

I had a friend of a "friend" (white dude I guess I went to school with even though I don't remember him) on fb call me the n word with an "er" yesterday after calling me a liberal and calling the POTUS my "messiah" because I called an anti-Islamic post out for what is was: ignorance. It just confirmed, not reminded me, of what I always suspect anyway.

Thanks for the history lesson OP.

That's that weirdo **** I was talking about. They **** they say is so stupid all I can do is laugh.
 
I get it, white people did some messed up racist stuff and still do. Yes, america has transformed from an overtly racist nation to one where it is now subtle and concealed though some still express these beliefs while hiding behind the anonymity of the internet.

But im just amazed at all the black plight sympathy threads just on the first page alone .... can we have a breather?
 
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I get it, white people did some messed up racist stuff and still do. Yes, america has transformed from an overtly racist nation to one where it is now subtle and concealed though some still express these beliefs while hiding behind the anonymity of the internet.

But im just amazed at all the black plight sympathy threads just on the first page alone .... can we have a breather?

Truth hurts huh?
 
I get it, white people did some messed up racist stuff and still do. Yes, america has transformed from an overtly racist nation to one where it is now subtle and concealed though some still express these beliefs while hiding behind the anonymity of the internet.

But im just amazed at all the black plight sympathy threads just on the first page alone .... can we have a breather?

you mad?
 
I get it, white people did some messed up racist stuff and still do. Yes, america has transformed from an overtly racist nation to one where it is now subtle and concealed though some still express these beliefs while hiding behind the anonymity of the internet.

But im just amazed at all the black plight sympathy threads just on the first page alone .... can we have a breather?
do you say that during independence day?

Do you say that during presidents day?

Did you say that in us history class?


It makes you uncomfortable because its the harsh reality?
 
I have no interest in making white people comfortable when it involves their evil doings. Bad enough I can't even shop in peace without them coincidently wanting to fold clothes by me
 
Hey guys. Please don't share your history with each other, please. It makes me uncomfortable that you guys are educating yourselves publicly. Can you please talk more about big butts and celebrities? Thanks.














:stoneface:
 
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