ARKANSAS HISTORICAL QUARTERLY, Volume 19(Summer 1960), p. 142

The Elaine Race Riots of 1919

By O. A. Rogers, Jr.*

HUMAN RELATIONS IN AMERICA were at a nadir for six months during "The Red Summer" and fall of 1919. More than twenty race riots took place in as many urban centers from June through December of that year (1). Interracial strife arose also in eastern Arkansas. In early October a race riot of major proportion occurred in the vicinity of Elaine in the southern part of Phillips County (2).

Phillips County is bounded on the east by the Mississippi River, which separates it from the State of Mississippi; on the south by Desha County; on the west by the counties of Arkansas and Monroe; and on the north by Lee County -- all rich delta land. The general section was commonly referred to as the "Black Belt" since there was a high concentration of Negroes, many of whom were sharecroppers and tenants on numerous plantations found in that region. In 1910, the county had a population of 26,354 Negroes and only 7,176 white people (3). Thus about 78.6 per cent of the total population was Negro. The land was devoted to the raising of cotton on the plantation system -- the land was owned by the whites and most of the labor was performed by the Negroes. Out of this community erupted the "celebrated" riot of October 1-4. A reign of terror lasted four days. Five whites and eleven Negroes were reported killed, although many times that number probably were killed (4).

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* The author is President of Arkansas Baptist College, Little Rock, and a graduate student at the University of Arkansas.

(1) John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom (New York, 1947), 472.

(2) For accounts of the riot see Arkansas Gazette, October 2-8, 1919, and occasional later dates; Arkansas Democrat, Helena World, and Memphis Commercial-Appeal, of same dates. For the court cases see Banks v. State, 143 Ark. 154; Hicks v. State, 143 Ark. 158; Ware v. State, 159 Ark. 321; Frank Moore, Ed. Hicks et al v E. H. Dempsey, 261 U. S. 86; Ware v. State, 159 Ark. 540.

(3) United States Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910, Population, Vol. II (Washington, 1913), 129.

(4) Walter White, "Massacring Whites in Arkansas," Nation, CIX (December 13, 1919), 715; L. S. Dunaway, What a Preacher Saw Through a Key-Hole in Arkansas (Little Rock, 1925), 101-117.

 
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