what happened to helena, arkansas

Elaine was probably the largest massacre of black people in post-Civil War history, yet no federal investigation was ever conducted. My sadness comes from the senseless murder of human beingsso many that there isnt an exact number, which is wrong on so many levels. Arkansas has a rich history of movie theaters, many that hold a spot on the National Register of Historic Places and are still in operation today. Price was to attack the Union center, focusing on Battery C on Graveyard Hill. Here are some tips. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Union troops captured the city in July 1862, and had been using it as a base of operations. [2] Fighting occurred to the north in Missouri during 1861,[3] but in early March 1862, Confederate forces were defeated in northern Arkansas at the Battle of Pea Ridge. HELENA-WEST HELENA -- Hard on the banks of the Mississippi River, the World still turns, one page at a time. Gov. Details remain difficult to verify. Smith, a 1980 graduate of Helena-West Helena Central High School, graduated from George Washington University in Washington, D.C., in 1984. [88] The historian Ed Bearss reports Union losses as 57 killed, 146 wounded, and 36 missing for a total of 239,[89] and historian Thomas W. Cutrer provides the same figures as Bearss. The Battle of Helena was fought on July 4, 1863, near Helena, Arkansas, during the American Civil War. Helena Confederate Cemetery 20 Cemeteries By VictoriaElizabethK The cemetery is understandably peaceful but to walk amongst the stones, it is very moving to see how many of the dead. New York: Pegasus Books, 2020. The white power structure in Phillips County formed a Committee of Seven, made of influential planters, businessmen, and elected officials, to investigate the cause of the disturbances. In fact, local police were complicit in the killing of untold numbers of African-Americans. The obligations of the past weigh heavily upon the present. Clancy, Sean. For more information, contact 501-918-3025 orcalsfoundation@cals.org. Donations made to the CALS Foundation are tax-deductible for United States federal income tax purposes. The main attack broke through Battery C, but Union troops fended off the attackers and sealed the breach. They shot him and left him to die. Jackson: University and College Press of Mississippi, 1972. Ms. Wells Barnett provided hard evidence of the massacre, but it took the Supreme Court to expose the truth to national attention. Peacock, Leslie Newell. For additional information: Helena, city, seat (1830) of Phillips county, eastern Arkansas, U.S., port of the Mississippi River, about 50 miles (80 km) southwest of Memphis, Tennessee, and adjacent to the city of West Helena. We Have Just Begun: Black Organizing and White Response in the Arkansas Delta, 1919. Arkansas Historical Quarterly 58 (Autumn 1999): 265284. Throughout the day at least 1,000 white vigilantes came from all over the state and from Mississippi to join plantation owners, their managers, sheriffs, deputies and the veterans to put down what they called an uprising. The violence even claimed those who had nothing to do with the union efforts, such as brothers David Augustine Elihue Johnston, Gibson Allen Johnston, Lewis Harrison (L. H.) Johnston, and Leroy Johnston, who were returning to Helena from a hunting trip when they were attacked and killed on October 2. This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. The fear is instilled by people who continue to voice the hatred of slave owners of 257 years ago and they dont see it as the source of belligerent race rations. A memorial to those killed in the Elaine massacre of 1919 was dedicated on Sunday. 5. Police say that Borum was . Both Holmes and Marmaduke accused Walker of dereliction of duty. Wikipedia On April 10, 1929, an F5 tornado struck northern Jackson County. Estimates have ranged from 25 to 853, the latter from an Arkansas Gazette reporter who named no source. Helena was the county seat of Phillips County[3] until January 1, 2006, when it merged its government and city limits with neighboring West Helena. [1] The American Civil War began on April 12, when Confederate troops bombarded Fort Sumter. Marmaduke followed up the bombardment with an attack against Battery A, but fog that had concealed the advance dissipated and the attack was repulsed by the 29th Iowa, who mounted a counterattack. Price commanded the Confederate forces during the campaign, as Holmes had fallen ill.[100] Events during this campaign worsened the split between Marmaduke and Walker, and the former killed the latter in a duel on September 6. The Elaine massacre occurred on September 30-October 2, 1919 at Hoop Spur in the vicinity of Elaine in rural Phillips County, Arkansas. [24] The Union garrison would face the coming attack with 4,129 men. [45], Price's attack had been delayed. [48] They were now in front of Battery D.[50], Marmaduke has his own problems in his sector on the line. Butts, J. W., and Dorothy James. One hundred years ago this week, one of the worst episodes of racial violence in American history unfolded in Elaine, Ark., a small town on the Mississippi. Carrying an ax with their guns, they then moved to another home, where they murdered yet another union member, Frances Hall. By days end, countless black women, men and children had been slaughtered. 2431. On October 31, 1919, the Phillips County grand jury charged 122 African Americans with crimes stemming from the racial disturbances. 1E, 6E. [73] Holmes ordered the 8th Missouri Infantry Regiment (Burns') to attack Fort Curtis,[66] but upon seeing the regiment charge, the rest of Parsons' men joined in, believing a general attack was beginning. A Rural Town Confronts Its Buried History of Mass Killings of Black Americans. The Guardian, August 18, 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/18/a-rural-town-confronts-its-buried-history-of-mass-killings-of-black-americans (accessed February 22, 2023). Arkansas governor Charles Hillman Brough told a St. Louis, Missouri, audience during the war that there existed no twilight zone in American patriotism and called Wisconsin senator Robert LaFollete, who opposed the war, a Bolshevik leader. The research below is a comprehensive historical analysis of every major league baseball player born in Arkansas. In June 1863, Confederate Commander Theophilus Holmes sought to take pressure off of Vicksburg, Mississippi, by attacking the Union-held town of Helena, Arkansas. [20] Overall, the Confederates had 7,646 men. The assaults failed, and Vicksburg fell the same day. In 1811 the steamboat New Orleans called there, opening a prosperous era of river traffic. During the 1910 census, my great-great-great-grandfather was listed. Scipio A. Jones. Arkansas Historical Quarterly 31 (Autumn 1972): 201219. Elaine sits in Phillips County, on one of the many bends in the Mississippi, roughly 95 miles southwest of Memphis. Wingo has a significant record of complaints against him, and fatally shot a man while on duty in Garland County last summer. Brough, who had ridden on the train with the troops and accompanied them on a march to the Hoop Spur area. [74] Holmes ordered Parsons to attack Battery D to support Fagan, but as Parsons' men were too badly disorganized at the time, McRae was given the order to attack. [22] Although Prentiss was in command of the general district around Helena, the garrison itself was operationally commanded by Brigadier General Frederick Salomon, the commander of the division. Their initial task was to appeal the sentences given to the Elaine Twelve and ask for a new trial based on errors committed by the trial court. The cases of the Elaine Twelve were litigated on two separate tracks. [46] Meanwhile, Fagan's men attacked the second Union line of works. [30] The Confederates had support from the local white populace. The following morning, Gov. Although the United States was on the winning side of World War I, supporters of American capitalism found in communism a new menace to their security. Voogd, Jan. Race Riots and Resistance: The Red Summer of 1919. Take a look at these 10 abandoned places in Arkansas. [60] The failure of the attacks on Batteries A and D allowed those positions to fire on Price's men, and Tyler and Fort Curtis added artillery fire as well;[61] Tyler had moved to a different location that allowed for better fire on Graveyard Hill after suppressing Brooks' men. At least two historians, including myself, have settled on a reasonable estimate of 200, recognizing that the toll was most likely far greater. [12] On June 22, Holmes revised the plan, ordering Price to concentrate at a location known as Switzer's, instead of Cotton Plant. As of the census[12] of 2000, there were 6,323 people, 2,312 households, and 1,542 families residing in Helena. HELENA-WEST HELENA, Ark. Edgar Hoover and the Red Summer of 1919. Journal of American Studies 28 (April 1994): 3959. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2020. It was effectively an invasion. He praised his troops for their restraint in suppressing the rebellion. The charges ranged from murder to nightriding, a charge akin to terroristic threatening (as defined by Act 112 of 1909). Bearden, Russell E. "Arkansas' Worst Disaster: The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927." Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies 34 (August 2003): 79-97. Delta Cultural Center, Helena-West Helena, Arkansas. Anyone can read what you share. [59] The cannons in Battery C were manned by men from the 33rd Missouri Infantry Regiment, and they, along with a portion of the 33rd Iowa, poured a deadly fire into Parsons' men, while Battery B fired at McRae's brigade. [10], Once formed, the plan called for Price, with his 3,095 infantry, to move from Jacksonport to Cotton Plant on June 22, along with Marmaduke's 1,750 cavalry; that 1,339 infantry commanded by Brigadier General James F. Fagan would move from Little Rock to Clarendon, and that Brigadier General Lucius M. Walker would screen Helena with his 1,462 cavalry. As of the 2000 census, this portion of the city population was 6,323. [81] The Union troops had taken advantage of the severe disorganization and scattering of the Confederate forces to take the prisoners. About 38.4% of families and 41.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 54.9% of those under age 18 and 24.1% of those age 65 or over. One African-American, William Pickens, described the region as the American Congo. Elaine, though an isolated plantation region, was part of the broader social upheaval following World War I that came in the form of massive strikes and racial confrontations, both at home and abroad. [29] Remembering the surprise suffered by men under his command in the earlier Battle of Shiloh, Prentiss ordered reveille blown daily at 2 am. Helena-West Helena School District operates schools in what was Helena. [48] The 43rd Indiana Infantry Regiment had been facing Fagan's Confederates, and was reinforced by parts of the 33rd Iowa Infantry Regiment and the 35th Missouri Infantry Regiment, under orders from Salomon. If Elaine residents need something, they must drive to Helena, 30 minutes away - past silver metal silos with angled tops, modest one-story houses, John Deere tractors and the Lake View community, where a number of trailers and motor homes are parked along Old . Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. While its deepest roots lay in the states commitment to white supremacy, the events in and around Elaine (Phillips County)stemmed from tense race relations and growing concerns about labor unions. As you know, our black history is very limited in some areas. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2022. 100 Rock Street [86] Prentiss claimed the capture of more than 1,100 Confederate soldiers and stated that over 300 dead Confederates were buried by Union troops. American Congo: The African American Freedom Struggle in the Delta. They described the wholesale massacre of hundreds of unarmed and defenseless black people, and the torture used to secure confessions. The descendants of the massacre have begun to organize to make their stories heard.