Part 2
LEARNING TOGETHER: The Story of America
The year was 1919, Elaine, AK, where over 250 Black Americans were blamed for their own murder. It was called the Massacre of Black Sharecroppers or The Elaine Race Massacre.
Sharecropping in and of itself was just another form of slavery. Regardless of the amount of work that was produced by the Black sharecroppers, they were always in debt to white landowners. Most of the profits made from farming went to the landowners, not the sharecroppers. Even with a profitable harvest, the sharecropper could still find himself in debt to the landowner. This exploitation of Black farmers was designed to keep them in debt for generations.
You might be thinking that these Black sharecroppers could have just left the farms. Not really, because they would be jailed if they tried to leave without paying their debt in full.
With the country already a hot bed of racial tension, many white landowners in Phillip County viewed the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America (PFHUA) as a threat. However, the real reason that Black farmers were interested in joining a union was to gain fair pay for their work. Being union members meant that the farmers could hire lawyers to fight for their cause. They were being cheated by landowners and the Black farmers just wanted fairness from a corrupted system. That’s it.
So, in the summer of 1919, a group of Black sharecroppers met at a tiny church to discuss ways to put an end to this unfair practice.
Eventually, these secret meetings were discovered by landowners who didn’t want Black farmers to change the system because their livelihoods depended on maintaining an unfair structure. One night a group of local white residents fired into the church. The Black sharecroppers return fire. (Honestly, this account of who shot first is still up for debate.) A white officer (or security guard) who had been part of the mob was killed. Rumors of a Black up rise quickly spread around town. Hundreds of white men with guns rushed to Elaine to stop the rebellious Negroes.
The governor, hell bent on bringing an end to the Black farmers up rise, enlisted the service of 500 soldiers. They were told to shoot any Black person who refused to surrender. And they did. Along with the assistance from hastily deputized locals. In the midst of all the chaos, 5 white people were killed and over 250 Black men, women, and children were killed.
Close to 300 Black Americans were rounded up and jailed in stockades until they could prove that they were innocent. There they were tortured and forced to make false statements. Some were charged with racial disturbance to murder. Some Black Americans were sentenced up to twenty-one years in prison.
An all-white male committee was created to investigate the killing of the white citizens. They determined that these Black sharecroppers were plotting to kill white people. And that all the Black people killed during the Elaine Massacre including the kids that were murdered, were all guilty of plotting to kill white people. Therefore, they deserved to be killed. Local newspapers and white business owners helped to promote the big lie that this had nothing to do with race or unfair wages, but the that Blacks were organizing to kill whites.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) attempted the prove that the allegations of a Black insurrection were untrue. Many Black newspapers told the real account of what happened. Despite these efforts, 12 Black men were held accountable for the death of 5 white people. They were quickly arrested, charged, tried, (by an all-white jury) and given the death penalty.
The NAACP’s lawyers fought hard via the court systems to defend these 12 Black men or the Elaine Twelve as they were called. The men were divided into two groups. After several re-trials and setbacks, the case of six of the defendants was taken up by the Supreme Court. In 1923, The Court ruled 6-2 that the men were denied a fair trial by the Arkansas legal systems.
In 1923, the other remaining six defendants were headed for another retrial when the governor of Arkansas intervened. However, it wasn’t until January 1925 that the defendants were released from prison. They had to plead guilty to second-degree murder and with time serviced were let go.
A hundred years (2019) after the Elaine Massacre, a memorial to honor those who died was built.
Many believe that actions taken to defend the Elaine Eleven was the foundation for the Civil Rights Movement.
OUR HISTORY MATTERS
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