The Elaine Race Riot In Arkansas Of 1919

The end of the Civil War in 1865 signified the end of slavery; however, the treatment of blacks by whites continued to be unjust in almost all aspects of life and society. Race relations in America during the beginning of the nineteenth century were tremendously tense, particularly in the South, where slavery was the most prevalent. After having served in the American Army in the Great War, black servicemen came home in 1918 believing that the attitudes and actions of whites towards blacks would be better; however, that was not the case. Even after experiencing better treatment in Europe and aiding the country to victory, the blacks of America were still viewed as inferior to the whites of the country. Immediately after the war, there were

Following the war, the United States faced a period of racial unrest and chaos as race riots erupted across the nation—most occurring during the summer of 1919, which has been penned the Red Summer. The race riots brought a substantial amount of attention to the discrepancies between the whites and the blacks across the country as well as showcasing the unfair legal system of the United States. Several of these riots, like the ones in Chicago and Washington D.C., are remembered and taught in schools, yet the Elaine Race Riot in Arkansas of 1919 has been forgotten. The Elaine Race Riot are an essential part of the Red Summer and the history of the United States as it exemplifies the race relations across the country post the Great War, the effects of the press on the interpretation of the riot, the attitude of the government (local and national) towards blacks, and the corrupt justice system of

Elaine, in Phillips County, is a small town in the Arkansas Delta, which had about 400 residents in the year of 1919. This county had a large concentration of blacks, who “made up almost 75 percent of its 44,530 people. By comparison, blacks made up 27 percent of Arkansas’s total population of 1.75 million.” The blacks in the community mostly worked as sharecroppers, due to cotton being an extremely important element of this community’s economy; so much so that if the blacks were unwilling to work, the cotton industry in this community would have collapsed, affecting many whites in the communities since they relied so heavily on this black labor. On the night of September 30, 1919, several black sharecroppers met at a church in Hoop Spur, a town neighboring Elaine, to discuss the unfair prices of cotton that the white buyers demanded and the option of unionizing. The sharecroppers posted armed guards outside of the church “in response to weeks of threats” while several farmers brought their own guns for protection to the meeting. A car containing Will Adkins, a railroad detective; Charles Pratt ,a deputy; and a black man, stopped outside of the church, where a shootout followed, killing Adkins. Newspapers reporting the incident on October 1 note that the incident began when Adkins was looking for car robbers and then ran into the “negro bootleggers.” This was during prohibition, so law enforcement looking