Elaine Massacre

People

Frank Moore (Lead defendant in *Moore v. Dempsey*); Frank Hicks; Ed Hicks; Joe Knox; Paul Hall; Ed Coleman; Alfred Banks; Ed Ware (Lead defendant in the "Ware" group); William Wordlaw; Albert Giles; Joe Fox; John Martin

Outcome

unknown

The Elaine Massacre of September 30 - October 3, 1919, was one of the deadliest episodes of racial violence in American history, in which white mobs and federal troops killed an estimated 100 to 800 African Americans in Phillips County, Arkansas. The violence began when approximately 100 Black sharecroppers gathered at a church in Hoop Spur on the night of September 30, 1919, for a meeting of the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America (PFHUA), an organization founded to help Black farmers obtain fair payment for their cotton crops from white landowners who routinely cheated them. Armed guards protected the church. When three white men—including W.A. Adkins, a railroad security officer, and Charles Pratt, a deputy sheriff—approached the church, a shootout erupted. Adkins was killed and Pratt was wounded. By the next morning, word had spread and white posses began forming. Within days, an armed mob of approximately 500 to 1,000 white men from Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee descended on Elaine, indiscriminately killing Black residents and destroying homes and businesses. Governor Charles Hillman Brough requested federal troops from Camp Pike, and more than 500 soldiers arrived on October 2. Rather than protecting Black residents, the troops helped round up and detain hundreds of African Americans in makeshift stockades, where many were tortured. Some soldiers reportedly participated in the killings. Despite the overwhelming violence perpetrated by white mobs, a Phillips County grand jury indicted 122 Black people but no white people. Twelve Black men—known as the "Elaine Twelve"—were sentenced to death after trials lasting as little as 45 minutes, conducted under mob domination. Black attorney Scipio Africanus Jones and the NAACP fought for years to free the condemned men, ultimately winning the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case *Moore v. Dempsey* (1923), which established that mob-dominated trials violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The last of the Elaine Twelve was freed on January 14, 1925. By 1919, Black sharecroppers in the Arkansas Delta were routinely exploited by white landowners who controlled every aspect of their economic lives. Sharecroppers worked the land in exchange for a share of the crop, but white planters manipulated accounts, charged exorbitant prices at plantation stores, and refused to provide itemized statements—leaving Black farmers perpetually in debt regardless of how much cotton they produced. Robert L. Hill, a Black farmer from Winchester, Arkansas, founded the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America to organize sharecroppers to demand fair accounting and timely payment. The union hired white attorney Ulysses S. Bratton of Little Rock to represent their interests. His son, Ocier Bratton, attended the Hoop Spur meeting on September 30. On the night of September 30, 1919, approximately 100 Black farmers gathered at a small church in Hoop Spur, about three miles north of Elaine, for a PFHUA meeting. Because they anticipated interference, armed guards stood watch outside. Around 11 p.m., three white men approached the church: W.A. Adkins (a security officer for the Missouri-Pacific Railroad), Charles Pratt (a deputy sheriff), and a third man. When one of the white men addressed the guards with a racial slur, gunfire erupted. Accounts differ on who fired first. Adkins was killed and Pratt was wounded. Black attendees also suffered casualties. Word of the incident spread rapidly, and by morning on October 1, armed white posses began roaming Phillips County. Because Black residents outnumbered whites ten-to-one in the area, panic spread among the white population, who interpreted the union meeting as evidence of a planned "insurrection." White mobs from Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee—eventually numbering between 500 and 1,000 men—converged on Elaine, hunting Black residents and "shooting them as they came to them," as one white witness testified. The *Arkansas Gazette* reported at least fifteen Black bodies in Helena's streets and outskirts. Homes and businesses were destroyed. The four Johnston brothers, returning from a hunting trip, were killed despite having no connection to the union. Governor Charles Hillman Brough requested federal troops from Camp Pike on October 1. Colonel Isaac Jenks led approximately 550 soldiers who arrived on the morning of October 2. The troops disarmed both Black and white residents and dispersed the white mobs, but their intervention was far from neutral. Soldiers rounded up hundreds of Black residents and confined them in makeshift stockades. Journalist Sharpe Dunaway alleged that soldiers "committed one murder after another with all the calm deliberation in the world," though Colonel Jenks officially recorded only two deaths caused by troops. Prisoners were tortured during interrogation—whipped with straps studded with metal, had "strangling drugs" forced into their nostrils, and were made to sit in an electric chair until they agreed to provide testimony against other Black defendants. The official death toll counted five white people killed. The number of Black deaths was never accurately determined. Colonel Jenks's report claimed only two Black people were killed by troops, while military intelligence estimated around twenty total Black deaths. However, historians and contemporary observers estimated the actual toll at 100 to more than 200, with some estimates as high as 800. The Equal Justice Initiative estimates over 200 African Americans were killed. A "Committee of Seven" composed of local white planters and officials announced that their investigation had uncovered evidence of a planned Black insurrection—a fabrication that justified the massacre and subsequent prosecutions. The Phillips County grand jury indicted 122 Black people on various charges but indicted no white people. Twelve Black men were tried for first-degree murder and sentenced to death; another 65 accepted plea deals for sentences up to 21 years. The trials were a travesty of justice: they lasted as little as 45 minutes, all-white juries deliberated for only minutes, court-appointed defense attorneys mounted no real defense, and armed white mobs milled outside the courthouse, ensuring there was "never a chance of an acquittal." Black attorney Scipio Africanus Jones, Arkansas's leading African American lawyer, took up the defense of the condemned men, working alongside the NAACP. Jones raised funds from Little Rock's Black community and reportedly slept in a different home each night due to threats against his life. NAACP Field Secretary Walter White investigated and reported that "the belief there had been an insurrection was only a figment of the imagination of Arkansas whites and not based on fact." Anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells-Barnett interviewed prisoners and published "The Arkansas Race Riot," documenting the torture and abuse. Jones pursued appeals through the Arkansas courts and ultimately to the U.S. Supreme Court. On February 19, 1923, the Court ruled 6-2 in *Moore v. Dempsey* that the defendants' mob-dominated trials had denied them due process guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that "a trial for murder in a state court in which the accused are hurried to conviction under mob domination without regard for their rights is without due process of law and absolutely void." This landmark decision established that federal courts could use habeas corpus to overturn state criminal convictions that violated constitutional rights—a foundation for modern criminal procedure and a crucial step toward equal justice. Following the Supreme Court victory, Arkansas Governor Thomas McRae commuted the sentences. The six "Ware defendants" were freed after new trials. The six "Moore defendants" pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and were granted indefinite furloughs, effectively releasing them. The last of the Elaine Twelve was freed on January 14, 1925. Robert L. Hill, the union founder, had escaped during the violence with help from friends and fled to Kansas, never returning. Charges against him were eventually dropped. The massacre was largely forgotten for decades. In 2002, a documentary titled "The Elaine Massacre: Tragedy and Triumph" was distributed to Arkansas schools. On September 29, 2019—the 100th anniversary—a memorial was dedicated in Helena-West Helena. On November 5, 2019, the Elaine Twelve were memorialized on the Arkansas Civil Rights Heritage Trail.