what happened to helena, arkansas
[86] Prentiss claimed the capture of more than 1,100 Confederate soldiers and stated that over 300 dead Confederates were buried by Union troops. Attorney Jacob Fink, who was appointed to represent Frank Hicks, admitted to the jury that he had not interviewed any witnesses. Even at the age of seventy-nine, Murphy, a former Confederate officer and Arkansas attorney general, was considered one of the best trial attorneys in Arkansas. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. 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. Brough responded by gaining permission from the Department of War to send more than 500 battle-tested troops from Camp Pike, outside of Little Rock (Pulaski County). The trials began the next week, with John Elvis Miller leading the prosecution. He was elderly and handicapped, and ran too slowly. The official narrative presented a picture at odds with reality. From Race Riot to Sit-in: 1919 to the 1960s. [15] Moving through swamps resulted in the loss of many accompanying animals and wagons. The union had contracted with lawyer Ulysses S. Bratton, whose son, Ocier, was at this meeting. In the interim, Jones had secured the release of the other Elaine defendants. There were 2,710 housing units at an average density of 304.6 per square mile (117.6/km2). [30] The Confederates had support from the local white populace. New York: St. Martins, 2011. The Elaine Race Riot. Masters thesis, George Peabody College for Teachers (now Peabody College of Education and Human Development at Vanderbilt University), 1927. Some of the refugees were killed, some were taken prisoner, and the camp was burned by the Confederates at some point during the battle. [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. Price commanded the Confederate forces during the campaign, as Holmes had fallen ill.[100] Events during this campaign worsened the split between Marmaduke and Walker, and the former killed the latter in a duel on September 6. 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 confessions of the black men had been secured through torture. For additional information: Arkansas has a rich history of movie theaters, many that hold a spot on the National Register of Historic Places and are still in operation today. On November 5, 2019, the Elaine Twelve were memorialized on the Arkansas Civil Rights Heritage Trail in Little Rock. [18] The Confederate columns finally united on July 3,[19] and that day began the final movement towards Helena. Eliza Miller Junior High School and Central High School, the designated secondary schools, were in West Helena. Wells-Barnett, Ida B. Grif Stockley [40] At 4:05 am, Fagan's skirmishers sighted the Union position, and with the day dawning, Fagan attacked with three infantry regiments. 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. The heroism of black soldiers in the war enhanced the struggle for black freedom, causing industrialists and plantation owners to brace themselves for the return of black veterans. The. Holmes noted that the defenses of Helena were stronger than he expected, but carried on with the attack anyway. Dunaway, L. S. What A Preacher Saw Through a Keyhole in Arkansas. Late in the evening of Sept. 30, black sharecropper families gathered in the Hoop Spur church near Elaine. To Those Known and Unknown: The Elaine Massacre Memorial. Arkansas Times, August 2019, pp. A jury convicted 12 black men in the murders of three white men, even though two of the deaths had occurred from white people accidentally shooting each other in a frenzy. How could anyone treat people with such horrendous disregard and violence? Ms. Wells Barnett gathered testimonies that described the sheer horror of the massacre from those who endured and lived to tell their stories. Corrections? Leaders of the Hoop Spur union had placed armed guards around the church to prevent disruption of their meeting and intelligence gathering by white opponents. Legal disfranchisement stripped them of the vote and an ability to share in any benefits of citizenship. Trauma and Repair: Confronting Segregation and Violence in America. Anatomy of Four Race Riots: Racial Conflict in Knoxville, Elaine (Arkansas), Tulsa and Chicago, 19191921. The murders, thefts, violence and terror continued long after the troops had gone and the convicted men had been released. 0:36. ; and in the plantation region of the Arkansas Delta. Major support provided through a partnership with the Arkansas Department of Parks & Tourism. (Union leader Robert Lee Hill was hidden by friends during the violence and later escaped to Kansas.) [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. They aimed to hire a lawyer to represent them with the landlords. [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. [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. Rogers, O. Race relations in this area of Arkansas are currently quite strained for a number of reasons, including the events of 1919. Whayne, Jeannie M. Black Farmers in the Red Autumn: A Review Essay. Arkansas Historical Quarterly 68 (Autumn 2009): 327336. [87] Almost all of the Confederate losses were from the brigades of Fagan, Parsons, and McRae, who took 32 percent of their attacking forces as casualties. The Helena-West Helena Police Department says the body of Fredrick Willis, 23, of Helena-West Helena, was found late Tuesday evening. The information you have provided is great for families that lost people and is greatly needed. For the next five years, the cases of the Elaine Twelve were mired in litigation as Murphy and Jones fought to save the men from death. [48] The 43rd Indiana Infantry Regiment had been facing Fagan's Confederates, and was reinforced by parts of the 33rd Iowa Infantry Regiment and the 35th Missouri Infantry Regiment, under orders from Salomon. [48] They were now in front of Battery D.[50], Marmaduke has his own problems in his sector on the line. Because Price had not yet attacked, Fagan's men came under fire from both Battery D and Battery C.[49] Fagan's Confederates broke through the second Union line, then a third and fourth, but then halted at about 7:00 am, their attack spent. Their initial task was to appeal the sentences given to the Elaine Twelve and ask for a new trial based on errors committed by the trial court. [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. At 11 p.m., a band of white men shot into the church. https://www.britannica.com/place/Helena-Arkansas, The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture - Helena-West Helena. [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". Details remain difficult to verify. Jackson: University and College Press of Mississippi, 1972. For additional information: Anthony, Steven. On October 31, 1919, the Phillips County grand jury charged 122 African Americans with crimes stemming from the racial disturbances. This article is about the Civil War battle. Pierce, Michael, and Calvin White, eds. As you know, our black history is very limited in some areas. Evidence shows that the mobs of whites slaughtered African Americans in and around Elaine. [52] The two Union cavalry regiments were holding a position behind a levee. Telephone lines to Elaine were cut. The Delta city has been awarded a $1 million grant speci There she interviewed the 12 prisoners accused of murder, their wives, and many others, publishing her findings in a 1920 pamphlet. New York: Anchor Books, 1967. Stockley, Grif, Brian K. Mitchell, and Guy Lancaster. Here are some tips. The charges ranged from murder to nightriding, a charge akin to terroristic threatening (as defined by Act 112 of 1909). On September 29, 2019, a memorial to those who died during the massacre was dedicated in downtown Helena-West Helena. [53] Bledsoe's two guns were driven off, but neither side could defeat the other. So sad. The average household size was 2.62 and the average family size was 3.28. [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. By contrast, 16 white males were lynched during the same time. 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. The community, originally settled in 1797 and first called Monticello and then St. Francis, grew around a warehouse built for barge shipping. Local officials and businessmen conducted their own investigation of what had transpired in the Elaine area. These records cover murders, rapes, burglaries, arson, motor vehicle theft, assaults, and crimes of a sexual nature. A willow tree memorializing the African American lives lost in a 1919 massacre in Elaine, Arkansas, in one of the deadliest racial conflicts in U.S. history, was chopped down this week . [68], Fagan's men resumed the attack upon hearing the fighting on Graveyard Hill, and drove the 43rd Indiana and part of the 33rd Iowa from the final Union line in front of Battery D, but were unable to take the Battery itself,[69] having been hit by crossfire while maneuvering through a ravine. McWhirter, Cameron. Carrying an ax with their guns, they then moved to another home, where they murdered yet another union member, Frances Hall. [47] Price's advance was led by the 9th Missouri Sharpshooter Battalion, who sighted the Union positions on Graveyard Hill. Brough, who had ridden on the train with the troops and accompanied them on a march to the Hoop Spur area. 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. A shooting incident that occurred at a meeting of the Progressive Farmers and Household Union escalated into mob violence on the part of the white people in Elaineand surrounding areas. VHS Documentary. Peacock, Leslie Newell. 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. [21], The Union troops in Helena were commanded by Major General Benjamin Prentiss and consisted of the Thirteenth Division of the XIII Corps. Helena, AR 72342 Phone: (870) 338-5555 Phillips County Criminal Records Phillips County records their criminal activity in the form of criminal records. 2431. A Rural Town Confronts Its Buried History of Mass Killings of Black Americans. The Guardian, August 18, 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/18/a-rural-town-confronts-its-buried-history-of-mass-killings-of-black-americans (accessed February 22, 2023). Stopford, Annie. Brough, requesting that U.S. troops be sent to Elaine. Lancaster, Guy, ed. 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. [41] Fagan's charge took the first line of Union defenses, but his men started taking fire from Batteries C and D. Minutes after Fagan's men became engaged, Marmaduke's men on the north end of the Confederate line entered the action, driving Union skirmishers back towards Battery A. Additional support provided by the Arkansas Community Foundation. The decision by the justices was aided by two white men involved in the massacre who reversed their previous testimonies. At least two historians, including myself, have settled on a reasonable estimate of 200, recognizing that the toll was most likely far greater. [36] Brooks' Confederates also encountered a camp of African-American refugees. [46] Obstructions on the line of approach also disorganized Price's ranks. Further Deep South states seceded early in the next year, forming the Confederate States of America. During the 1910 census, my great-great-great-grandfather was listed. 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). Additional support provided by the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation Inc. In Phillips County, this struggle directly challenged planter dominance. More atrocities were later reported, including cutting souvenirs from black bodies and . Stockley, Grif, and Jeannie M. Whayne. Johnson, J. Chester. The Underlying Causes of the Elaine Riot of 1919. Arkansas Historical Quarterly 20 (Spring 1961): 95104. During the American Civil War, the Battle of Helena was a deadly encounter. Americans have yet to reckon with this horrible past. Salomon would make many of the decisions in the upcoming battle. The fire from the artillery battery did little damage, but the gunboat's shots were more effective. They came to discuss membership in an organization called the Progressive Farmers and Household Union, which would help them secure a fair price for the cotton they picked and to buy land. HELENA-WEST HELENA -- Hard on the banks of the Mississippi River, the World still turns, one page at a time. For every 100 females, there were 83.3 males. A., Jr.The Elaine Race Riots of 1919. Arkansas Historical Quarterly 19 (Summer 1960): 142150. Cortner, Richard C. A Mob Intent on Death: The NAACP and the Arkansas Riot Cases. [18][19], Helena previously had a Catholic grade school for black children, St. Cyprian School; it closed in 1963. The Elaine massacre occurred on September 30-October 2, 1919 at Hoop Spur in the vicinity of Elaine in rural Phillips County, Arkansas. There is no danger of any lynching. [20]. Elaine Race Massacre: Red Summer in Arkansas. Wormser, Richard, director. The racial makeup of Helena is 67.93% Black or African American, 30.59% White, 0.13% Native American, 0.60% Asian, 0.17% from other races, and 0.59% from two or more races. Courageously, she dressed up as a sharecropper and went to Arkansas. [8] He thought the attack would be too costly, and instead suggested placing an artillery battery along the Mississippi river to intercept Union shipping. http://visualizingtheredsummer.com/ (accessed August 16, 2022). 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. 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. But officials have not released exactly what happened. [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.
