On the Laps of Gods/Documents
Please note: Many of the PDFs are quite large and may take a while to download.
A. Selected Accounts of Public Lynchings, 1916-1921
These accounts of public lynchings provide a backdrop to the Elaine Massacre, as they powerfully document the mob violence against blacks that went unchecked by law.
Burning of Jesse Washington, May 15, 1916.
Burning of Ell Persons, May 22, 1917
Burning of Lation Scott, December 2, 1917
Burning of Jim McIlherron, February 12, 1918
Burning of Mary Turner, May 19, 1918
Burning of John Hartfield, June 26, 1919
Burning Of Henry Lowry, January 26, 1921
B. Papers of the Progressive Household Farmers Union
General papers of the sharecroppers union
Constitution and by-laws
C. Newspaper and Magazine Accounts of the “Elaine Riots”
The White Press
Unfortunately, the newspaper accounts that can be found on microfiche in library archives do not copy well, and thus those originals can’t be shown here as PDFs. However, there are two sources for typed copies of some of the coverage of the “Elaine Riot” by Arkansas newspapers.
First, there are typed copies of newspaper accounts from the NAACP archives. These were copied by Arthur L. Waskow for his book, From Race Riot to Sit-In, 1919 and the 1960s, which he published in 1966.
Second, there are typed copies of articles that appeared in the Helena World newspaper. This collection of typed copies was prepared by J.W. Butts and Dorothy James in 1960, when they were writing an article for the Arkansas Historical Quarterly. (The handwritten notes next to the margins are there.)
Articles from the NAACP archives
Helena World
The Counter-Story Told by the NAACP
Reports that appeared in the Chicago Defender, Afro-American, and a handful of other black newspapers are available only on microfiche, and thus can’t be reproduced here. The Chicago Daily News article is a typed copy of the article that can be found in the NAACP archives. The articles in the Nation and The Crisis were written By Walter White, who at that time worked for the NAACP as an assistant secretary.
Chicago Defender, October 11, 1919
Chicago Daily News, October 18, 1919
New York Age, October 17, 1919
The Nation, December 6, 1919
The Crisis, December 1919
D. Longer Accounts of the “Elaine Riot,” 1920-1927
Ida B. Wells-Barnett, “The Arkansas Riot,” (1920).
Ida B. Wells-Barnett, who was famous for her anti-lynching campaigns, was the lone writer to interview the Hoop Spur sharecroppers. She self-published this 62-page pamphlet in 1920. The PDF filer here doesn’t include chapters VII-IX from her book, as those chapters simply reprinted the transcripts from the first round of trials in November 1919. (Those trial transcripts can be found in the legal documents below.)
L.S. Dunaway, “The Blackest page in State History.” (1925)
In 1925, L.S. Dunaway, who was known in Arkansas as “Mr. Gazette,” as he had worked at the Arkansas Gazette for decades, published What a Preacher Saw Through a Keyhole in Arkansas, which included a chapter on the Elaine Riot.
Bessie Ferguson, Master’s Thesis on “The Elaine Race Riot,” 1927.
Although Bessie Ferguson wrote from a pro-planter’s perspective, she did interview both white and black residents from Elaine, and those accounts provide insight into the extent of the killing of blacks by white posses.
E. Personal Recollections
Interviews by J.W. Butts and Dorothy James, 1960
In 1960, J.W. Butts and Dorothy James interviewed several white Helena and Elaine residents who had first-hand knowledge of the “riot.” They did so in order to write an article for the Arkansas Historical Quarterly which they hoped would rebut an article published in the same journal earlier that summer by O.A. Rogers, president of Arkansas Baptist College. Rogers’ article told of the economic exploitation of the sharecroppers by the plantation owners.
In 1976, several Arkansas historians interviewed John Miller, who prosecuted the Elaine sharecroppers, about his career. His memories of the Elaine riot are excerpted from that interview.
Helena World Publisher Charles Madison Young, 1977
Posse Member HM “Tip” Sullivan, 1961
F. Legal Proceedings
The Accusation
Governor Charles Brough appointed a seven-person committee, which was composed of Helena’s leading businessmen and government officials, to investigate the “riot.” The committee reported that the sharecroppers had been planning to massacre white plantation owners, which set the stage for their prosecution for first-degree murder.
Trials of the Ware Six
In the first weeks of November, four men were convicted of murder for killing W.A. Adkins. They were: John Martin, Alf Banks, Will Wordlow, and Ed Ware. Two others, Albert Giles and Joe Fox, were convicted of murder for killing James Tappan. The transcripts of those trials, except for Ed Ware’s trial (which is not available, can be accessed here:
Trial of John Martin and Alf Banks
Trial of Will Wordlow
Trial of Albert Giles and Joe Fox
Retrials of the Ware Six
The juries that convicted John Martin, Alf Banks, Will Wordlow, Albert Giles, Joe Fox and Ed Ware failed to designate whether they had found them guilty of first-degree murder or second-degree murder, and thus, after Scipio Jones and George Murphy appealed those verdicts, the Arkansas Supreme Court ordered new trials. The six were retried in May 1920 and convicted a second time.
The legal document that is accessible here is a copy of the brief Scipio Jones wrote to appeal those verdicts, along with an abstract of the testimony from the retrials. At the retrials, Scipio Jones had numerous sharecroppers take the stand, and thus the abstract provides a number of eyewitness accounts about the “Elaine Riot.”
Trials of the Moore Six and Their Appeals
In November 1919, Frank Hicks and five other sharecroppers–Frank Moore, Ed Hicks, J.C. Knox, Ed Coleman, and Paul Hall–were convicted of first-degree murder for having killed Clinton Lee. After they were sentenced to death, Scipio Jones mounted an appeal on their behalf. After the Arkansas Supreme Court turned down their request for a new trial, Jones asked the U.S. Supreme Court–via a writ of certiorari petition–to review the case.
This document, Frank Hicks v. State of Arkansas, is the petition that Jones made to the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of Frank Hicks, asking that it review his case. Hicks was tried separately from the other five men; Jones prepared a similar document for Frank Moore and the other four men who were tried jointly. The document includes the following papers:
- Documents from the pretrial proceedings
- A transcript of the November 1919 trial of Frank Hicks
- Scipio Jones’ appeal to the Arkansas Supreme Court for a new trial
- The decision by the Arkansas Supreme Court to deny the appeal by Hicks and the five others convicted of killing Clinton Lee
- A petition by Scipio Jones to the Arkansas Supreme Court, asking that it reconsider its decision.
The Sharecroppers’ Affidavits
In support of the appeals by the Moore six, Scipio Jones gathered affidavits from a number of sharecroppers. On October 11, 1920, the U.S. Supreme Court refused their petition for certiorari, and thus it seemed certain that the Moore six would be electrocuted.
Habeas Corpus Petition by the Moore Six in Federal Court
Arkansas Governor Thomas McRae set June 10, 1921 as the day that Frank Hicks, Frank Moore, and the four other sharecroppers convicted of killing Clinton Lee would be electrocuted. Scipio Jones managed to temporarily stay the executions by filing a petition for a writ of habeaus corpus in Pulaski Chancery Court, which chancery judge John Martineau granted. After that stay of the execution was set aside by the Arkansas Supreme Court, Scipio Jones filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the District Court of the United States, Eastern District of Arkansas. He argued that the trials of the six men had been “mob-dominated” and thus the six should be set free because they hadn’t had fair trials. Although the federal court denied the petition, it did authorize an appeal to the United States Supreme Court.
The petition filed by Scipio Africanus Jones in federal district court included a number of exhibits and legal documents that provided a record of the criminal proceedings since their inception. The file that is accessible here doesn’t contain all of the exhibits in the petition, but it does provide the papers that are most relevant. Specifically:
- The argument by Frank Moore and the five others for habeas relief. (Scipio Jones actually filed one petition for Frank Moore and the four others convicted together at one trial, and a separate petition for Frank Hicks. But the two petitions were basically the same, and thus only the Moore petition is accessible here.)
- The March 29, 1920 decision by the Arkansas Supreme Court, Hicks v. State, denying their initial appeal for a new trial.
- Letters and resolutions from various Helena civic groups to the governor of Arkansas demanding that the sharecroppers be executed.
- The proclamation by Thomas McRae setting June 10, 1921 as the execution date.
- The decision by the Arkansas Supreme Court setting aside the initial stay of the execution by the chancery judge, John Martineau.
- A second proclamation by Thomas McRae setting September 23, 1921 as the execution date.
- The “demurrer” filed by the state of Arkansas in response to Scipio Jones’ petition for a writ of habeas corpus in federal court.
- The response filed by state penitentiary warden E.H. Dempsey.
- The order by federal judge John Cotteral denying the sharecroppers habeas relief, but authorizing an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The habeas petition also contained all of the affidavits from the sharecroppers.
Habeas Corpus Petition in Federal District Court
The Posse Members’ Affidavits
As Scipio Jones prepared to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, he obtained affidavits from two of the posse members, which supported the narrative told by the sharecroppers of a massacre.
Habeas Appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court
The record on appeal filed by Scipio Jones for his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was basically the same set of papers that supported the sharecroppers’ habeas corpus petition in federal court, and thus isn’t reproduced in full here. This file simply provides two brief excerpts from the record on appeal: the index, and a brief summary of the prior habeas proceedings in federal court.
Both Scipio Jones and the NAACP asked Moorfield Storey, an attorney who was president of the NAACP and a known scholar in Constitutional law, to take the lead in arguing the case before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Decision of the U.S. Supreme Court