But World War I brought changes to the Delta, as it did in Northern urban centers. [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. As of the census[12] of 2000, there were 6,323 people, 2,312 households, and 1,542 families residing in Helena. If you can, provide 1-2 sources of information backing up this correction. Give a donation in someones name to mark a special occasion, honor a friend or colleague or remember a beloved family member. Downtown Helena - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go - Tripadvisor The wife of Frank Moore had hidden for four weeks. Workers also had to buy food, clothing, household wares, tools, seed and fertilizer at the plantation commissary, which charged exorbitant interest rates. The sharecroppers who gathered at a small church in Elaine, Arkansas, in the late hours of September 30, 1919, knew the risk they were taking. Helena-West Helena Police investigate a deadly Friday night - FOX16 The conflict began on the night of September 30, 1919, when approximately 100 African Americans, mostly sharecroppers on the plantations of white landowners, attended a meeting of the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America at a church in Hoop Spur (Phillips County), three miles north of Elaine. Crime fighting efforts in Helena-West Helena, Arkansas are getting a big boost from the federal government. According to the United States Census Bureau, Helena had a total area of 8.9 square miles (23km2), all land. Founded in 1871, the Helena World is one of Arkansas' oldest newspapers. 2023 Encyclopedia of Arkansas. The commander of Confederate forces in the Trans-Mississippi, Lieutenant General Edmund Kirby Smith, was forwarded in June the dispatch that Johnston had received, and delegated making the decision whether to attack Helena to Lieutenant General Theophilus Holmes, the Confederate commander of the District of Arkansas. Battery K, 1st Missouri Light Artillery Regiment, 2nd Arkansas Infantry Regiment (African Descent), Troop engagements of the American Civil War, 1863, "Batteries A, B, C, and D (Battle of Helena)", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_Helena&oldid=1141530720, Battles of the American Civil War in Arkansas, Battles of the Trans-Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War, Union victories of the American Civil War, Short description is different from Wikidata, Pages using Sister project links with hidden wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 25 February 2023, at 14:50. The Elaine Legacy Center, in conjunction with the Dewitt Proctor Conference, held a Truth Hearing in February where 12 commissioners heard several descendants convey powerful stories of the massacre handed down through their families. The City of Helena is located in Phillips County in the State of Arkansas. Delta Cultural Center, Helena-West Helena, Arkansas. With the fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, the Confederate forces in the Trans-Mississippi were cut off from the rest of the Confederacy. REX NELSON: Helena's new mayor - Arkansas Online Scipio A. Jones. Arkansas Historical Quarterly 31 (Autumn 1972): 201219. Helena was defended by about 4,100 Union troops led by Major General Benjamin Prentiss, manning one fort and four batteries. [51] His dismounted cavalrymen were pushed back by the 29th Iowa and part of the 36th Iowa Infantry Regiment, and his flank was threatened by the 5th Kansas Cavalry Regiment and the 1st Indiana Cavalry Regiment, which were commanded by Powell Clayton. Washington is where we met. My sadness comes from the senseless murder of human beingsso many that there isnt an exact number, which is wrong on so many levels. Once there, Holmes provided further orders for the advance: Walker was to screen Fagan's movement to Helena with part of his command, while Price continued on to Helena from Switzer's. Race relations in this area of Arkansas are currently quite strained for a number of reasons, including the events of 1919. The median income for a household in Helena is $18,662, and the median income for a family was $21,534. [64] The advance up the hill had also thrown the Confederates into disarray. [86] Prentiss claimed the capture of more than 1,100 Confederate soldiers and stated that over 300 dead Confederates were buried by Union troops. All the white people had to do was stay away from the church while the meeting was going on. 10 Abandoned Places in Arkansas Being Reclaimed by Nature - OnlyInYourState Wormser, Richard, director. The Elaine, Arkansas, Race Riots, 1919. Special Issue. Helena has been called the cradle of the Delta Blues, and each October the citys King Biscuit Blues Festival draws fans from around the world. Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America. This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. The town was at the center of a rapidly changing lumber and plantation economy known for harsh working conditions. Hostility toward him was so great from local white residents that, out of fear for his life, he was said to sleep at a different black familys house every night during the trials. Price was to attack the Union center, focusing on Battery C on Graveyard Hill. They produced a predictable narrative that resembled those dating back to slavery. The information you have provided is great for families that lost people and is greatly needed. HELENA-WEST HELENA, Ark. Vigilantes from Mississippi seized another union member, Lula Black, and her four children from her house, knocked her down, pistol whipped and kicked her, then took her to jail. THE 5 BEST Things to Do in Helena - Tripadvisor The charges ranged from murder to nightriding, a charge akin to terroristic threatening (as defined by Act 112 of 1909). The Moore defendants were granted a new hearing after the U.S. Supreme Court, in the case of Moore v. Dempsey, ruled that the original proceedings in Helena had been a mask, and that the state of Arkansas had not provided a corrective process that would have allowed the defendants to vindicate their constitutional right to due process of law on appeal. Rogers, O. Helena is the seat of Phillips Community College of the University of Arkansas (1965). On October 31, 1919, the Phillips County grand jury charged 122 African Americans with crimes stemming from the racial disturbances. That was 97 years ago but little has changed in the hearts of people. Elaine: A Premeditated Massacre. MA thesis, Southern New Hampshire University, 2022. [90] Casualties were heaviest among the 33rd Iowa and the 33rd Missouri, while the 2nd Arkansas Infantry Regiment (African Descent) saw the first combat wounds suffered by African American soldiers in Arkansas during the war. The committee met with Gov. [37] The felled trees slowed Fagan's main attack,[38] which was on the Upper Little Rock Road,[39] and forced the Confederates to leave their supply wagons and cannons behind. Families of union members found no welcome when they returned to their homes. After hiding for two days in the woods, the Colemans returned home to find dead bodies of women and children scattered about their community. [41] Fagan's charge took the first line of Union defenses, but his men started taking fire from Batteries C and D. Minutes after Fagan's men became engaged, Marmaduke's men on the north end of the Confederate line entered the action, driving Union skirmishers back towards Battery A. This picture of the Magnolia Inn on Roosevelt Road in Little Rock was taken in 1969. The next morning, the Phillips County sheriff sent out a posse to arrest those suspected of being involved in the shooting. (WMC) - Arkansas State Police were on the scene of a homicide investigation Tuesday night in Helena-West Helena. 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. Marmaduke paused his men, who were fighting dismounted, to wait for artillery to be brought up and for Walker's men to arrive in support. They scorched and burned homes with families inside, slaughtered and tortured others. Encyclopedia of Arkansas My anger comes from this being hidden/erased from history like the lives that were taken that day. 14 Best Things to Do in Helena-West Helena (Arkansas): Arkansas Welcome Center Phillips County Museum Fort Curtis Delta Cultural Center Robert Nighthawk Gravesite Quapaw Canoe Company King Biscuit Time Marker Sonny Boy Williamson's Boarding House Helena Confederate Cemetery Pillow Thompson House Freedom Park Frank Frost Gravesite 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. Arkansas - USA - Historical Events & People - On This Day Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. White wrote in the Chicago Daily News on October 19, 1919, that the belief there had been an insurrection was only a figment of the imagination of Arkansas whites and not based on fact. He said, White men in Helena told me that more than one hundred Negroes were killed. Famed journalist and anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells-Barnett secretly interviewed some of the prisoners in Helena, from which she produced the pamphlet The Arkansas Race Riot. This work also challenged allegations of an insurrection and documented the torture and other depredations the prisoners had suffered. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Fort Curtis was built in August 1862 by Union soldiers and freed slaves in Helena. [99], Helena was reinforced and in mid-August, Union forces began a campaign against Little Rock, with Helena as the staging ground. By early morning Oct. 1, the sheriff sent white veterans from the American Legion post to suppress what he deemed an insurrection. Jones began to raise money in the black community in Little Rock for the defense of the Elaine Twelve, as the convicted men came to be known. There were 2,710 housing units at an average density of 304.6 per square mile (117.6/km2). [55] Walker's men spent the rest of the morning primarily skirmishing with Clayton's cavalry and firing at long range. The history of lynching in Arkansas (and its troubling modern-day [24] Each of the four batteries was located on a high point of Crowley's Ridge. Colonel Jenckss report of his mission supported this view, claiming only two black people and one of his corporals had died. [56], Around the time Fagan's men approached Battery D at 7:00 am, Price's attack began. Additional support provided by the Arkansas Humanities Council. 100 Rock Street On the other hand, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in New York, which had sent Field Secretary Walter White to investigate the events in Elaine, contested such allegations from the outset. So sad. Gov. 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. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. A local schoolteacher saw 28 black people killed, their bodies thrown into a pit and burned, and 16 African Americans killed, their bodies hanging from a bridge outside of Helena., A Memphis reporter described events on Oct. 2 after the troops had arrived. What a travesty of justice. Robert Palmer noted that in the mid-1930s Helena was "the blues capital of the Delta". [30] The Confederates had support from the local white populace. I know for a fact my fathers people were involved in the Elaine Riot. On September 29, 2019, a memorial to those who died during the massacre was dedicated in downtown Helena-West Helena. At 11 p.m., a band of white men shot into the church. E. M. Allen, a planter and real estate developer who became the spokesman for Phillips Countys white power structure, told the Helena World on October 7, The present trouble with the Negroes in Phillips County is not a race riot. Corrections? [32] Walker's specific orders were to "act against the enemy as circumstances may justify", a vague order that left him under his own initiative and resulted in him accomplishing little in the coming battle. With the success of the Russian Revolution, stopping the spread of international communism was seen as the duty of all loyal Americans. [58] Each wasted time waiting for the other to advance. Wikipedia On April 10, 1929, an F5 tornado struck northern Jackson County. The union had contracted with lawyer Ulysses S. Bratton, whose son, Ocier, was at this meeting. [70] Fagan's lines had been badly thinned by not only Union fire but also heat and exhaustion. In June 1863, Confederate Commander Theophilus Holmes sought to take pressure off of Vicksburg, Mississippi, by attacking the Union-held town of Helena, Arkansas. For more information, contact 501-918-3025 orcalsfoundation@cals.org. Advancing his men through ravines and over hills, Price decided that his artillery would have to be left behind, although picked men from his batteries were to accompany the infantry to man the Union pieces that the attack expected to capture. [6] In late May, with Union troops heavily pressuring Vicksburg, Confederate authorities sent a message to General Joseph E. Johnston suggesting that forces from the Trans-Mississippi Department be used to relieve the pressure on Vicksburg. America cannot address the inequality, poverty, inadequate education, the racially biased criminal justice system, and the limited life chances of black people that define contemporary society until the nation confronts and acknowledges this history.
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