what happened to helena, arkansas
Telephone lines to Elaine were cut. News of the shooting quickly reached the county seat of Helena. Elaine was probably the largest massacre of black people in post-Civil War history, yet no federal investigation was ever conducted. He was elderly and handicapped, and ran too slowly. For the next year, it served as a command post for the Union since it was centrally located on the Mississippi River. Little Rock: Butler Center Books, 2018. Finally, on January 14, 1925, Governor Thomas McRae ordered the release of the Moore defendants by granting them indefinite furloughs after they had pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. Animal rescue groups from across the country are converging on the Humane Society of the Delta in Helena-West Helena, Arkansas, faced with the challenge of evaluating . 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. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997. They produced a predictable narrative that resembled those dating back to slavery. The governor, who was reported as saying he was going to Elaine to obtain correct information, accepted the authority of the committee in return for its commitment that no lynchings would take place in Helena (Phillips County). On the Laps of Gods: The Red Summer of 1919 and the Struggle for Justice that Remade a Nation. The twelve men were: Frank Moore, Frank Hicks, Ed Hicks, Joe Knox, Paul Hall, Ed Coleman, Alfred Banks, Ed Ware, William Wordlaw, Albert Giles, Joe Fox, and John Martin. Local officials and businessmen conducted their own investigation of what had transpired in the Elaine area. [47] Price's advance was led by the 9th Missouri Sharpshooter Battalion, who sighted the Union positions on Graveyard Hill. The. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2022. The trials were a joke. There were 1,636 Confederate casualties and 205 Union casualties.[6]. Helena, city, seat (1830) of Phillips county, eastern Arkansas, U.S., port of the Mississippi River, about 50 miles (80 km) southwest of Memphis, Tennessee, and adjacent to the city of West Helena. HELENA-WEST HELENA, Ark. Dr. Woodruff is a historian and the author of American Congo: The African American Freedom Struggle in the Delta.. Online at https://archive.org/details/TheArkansasRaceRiot (accessed August 16, 2022). 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. [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. Low Villains and Wickedness in High Places: Race and Class in the Elaine Riots. Arkansas Historical Quarterly 58 (Autumn 1999): 285313. A conference on the matter in Helena in 2000 resulted in no closure for the people in Phillips County. The wife of Frank Moore had hidden for four weeks. 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. The charges ranged from murder to nightriding, a charge akin to terroristic threatening (as defined by Act 112 of 1909). Pierce, Michael, and Calvin White, eds. The city was a Union supply depot during the American Civil War, and the Battle of Helena (July 4, 1863) was a futile attempt by the Confederates to capture it. Ms. Wells Barnett gathered testimonies that described the sheer horror of the massacre from those who endured and lived to tell their stories. Update (July 30): HELENA-WEST HELENA, AR - A man found shot to death on a city street earlier this week has now been identified. Marking a Tragedy. Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, September 29, 2019, pp. While its deepest roots lay in the states commitment to white supremacy, the events in and around Elaine (Phillips County)stemmed from tense race relations and growing concerns about labor unions. At 11 p.m., a band of white men shot into the church. Lancaster, Guy, ed. He lost 121 acres of cotton and corn. [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. Helena is the birthplace of many notable people including prominent African Americans and Arkansas' former senior United States senator, Blanche Lincoln. Instead of pursuing a new hearing in federal court, in March 1923, Scipio Jones entered into negotiations to have the Moore defendants released. 2431. [17] Price's advance continued to be slowed by the terrain and weather, to the annoyance of Holmes, who rightly believed that the delay had prevented any remaining chance of the movement being a surprise. 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. [23] Prentiss originally dismissed rumors of a Confederate attack, but by late June gave more credence to the reports. Special thanks to the Department of Arkansas Heritage. Anyone can read what you share. Advancing his men through ravines and over hills, Price decided that his artillery would have to be left behind, although picked men from his batteries were to accompany the infantry to man the Union pieces that the attack expected to capture. The white power structure in Phillips County formed a Committee of Seven, made of influential planters, businessmen, and elected officials, to investigate the cause of the disturbances. This article is about the Civil War battle. [64] The advance up the hill had also thrown the Confederates into disarray. This was a . ; and in the plantation region of the Arkansas Delta. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. After Marmaduke's withdrawal, Union troops attempted to attack Walker's flank, but the Confederate cavalrymen withdrew from the field before they were caught. Brough issued a stay of the executions to permit an appeal to the Arkansas Supreme Court after the motions were denied. 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 . Butler Center for Arkansas Studies. 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. Helena is home to the longest running daily radio program in the U.S., King Biscuit Time. Online at https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation/2544/ (accessed November 9, 2022). Late in the evening of Sept. 30, black sharecropper families gathered in the Hoop Spur church near Elaine. 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. Descendant of Arkansas Elaine Massacre Victims Push for Restorative Justice. Facing South, October 7, 2020. https://www.facingsouth.org/2020/10/descendants-arkansas-elaine-massacre-victims-push-restorative-justice (accessed August 16, 2022). HWH Mayor Kevin Smith took to Facebook Wednesday morning saying the fatal shooting happened on North 6th Street. 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. [37] The felled trees slowed Fagan's main attack,[38] which was on the Upper Little Rock Road,[39] and forced the Confederates to leave their supply wagons and cannons behind. Little Rock: Parke-Harper Publishing Company, 1925. The population density was 710.7 inhabitants per square mile (274.4/km2). [24] The Union garrison would face the coming attack with 4,129 men. The Arkansas Gazette reported at least fifteen black bodies in Helena's streets and it's outskirts. The Confederates charged Fort Curtis in their last attack, but the heavy artillery inside kept the attack from reaching the fort. [16] Holmes and Fagan reached Clarendon on June 26. Despite dawn beginning to be visible in the sky, Price misunderstood Holmes' order to attack at daylight and held back his troops, until Holmes came over to explain his orders. Families of union members found no welcome when they returned to their homes. The fear is instilled by people who continue to voice the hatred of slave owners of 257 years ago and they dont see it as the source of belligerent race rations. In the interim, Jones had secured the release of the other Elaine defendants. Marmaduke paused his men, who were fighting dismounted, to wait for artillery to be brought up and for Walker's men to arrive in support. Collins, Ann V. All Hell Broke Loose: American Race Riots from the Progressive Era through World War II. Black sharecroppers were often exploited in their efforts to collect payment for their cotton crops. They stole Wares cow, two mules, one horse, a farm wagon, his Ford car and various household goods. 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). By November 5, 1919, the first twelve black men given trials had been convicted of murder and sentenced to die in the electric chair. [18][19], Helena previously had a Catholic grade school for black children, St. Cyprian School; it closed in 1963. (WMC) - Arkansas State Police were on the scene of a homicide investigation Tuesday night in Helena-West Helena. 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. Williams, Lee E., and Lee E. Williams II. The account that best captured the perspective of the sharecroppers came from Ida Wells Barnett, the legendary anti-lynching crusader and journalist. Union troops captured the city in July 1862, and had been using it as a base of operations. When my father arrived at the address that was on the letter, a lady answered the door, but she said his uncle didnt live there. 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. (WMC) - Areas of Eastern Arkansas are sending more violent offenders to federal court. More controversial is the view that the military participated in the murder of blacks. The murders, thefts, violence and terror continued long after the troops had gone and the convicted men had been released. [48] They were now in front of Battery D.[50], Marmaduke has his own problems in his sector on the line. Some of the refugees were killed, some were taken prisoner, and the camp was burned by the Confederates at some point during the battle. New York: Peter Lang, 2008. Livingston, Kelly, and Madison Peek. The Delta city has been awarded a $1 million grant speci As many as several hundred African Americans and five white men were killed.