- University News Archive - ĚÇĐÄVlog´ŤĂ˝ Little Rock /news-archive/tag/elaine-race-riot/ ĚÇĐÄVlog´ŤĂ˝ Little Rock Tue, 13 Nov 2018 17:06:38 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 Elaine Massacre victim to posthumously receive Purple Heart Nov. 16  for WWI service /news-archive/2018/11/13/elaine-massacre-victim-to-posthumously-receive-purple-heart-nov-16-for-wwi-service/ Tue, 13 Nov 2018 17:06:38 +0000 /news/?p=72648 ... Elaine Massacre victim to posthumously receive Purple Heart Nov. 16  for WWI service]]> Research by University of Arkansas at Little Rock Professor Dr. Brian Mitchell was instrumental to the awarding of a posthumous Purple Heart to a black veteran from Pine Bluff. The family of the late Pvt. Leroy Johnston, one of four brothers who was tragically killed during the 1919 Elaine Massacre, will accept the Purple Heart during a ceremony on Friday, Nov. 16. Johnston is being honored for severe wounds he sustained while serving in World War I.  Hosted by the Delta Cultural Center in Helena-West Helena, the honors will take place at Beth El Heritage Hall, 406 Perry St., at 1 p.m. A reception will immediately follow the ceremony. Local, state, and federal elected officials are expected to attend. The public is also invited to come and pay tribute to this Delta-born war hero. Family members will accept the Purple Heart on behalf of Pvt. Leroy Johnston, a native of Pine Bluff who enlisted in the military at 23 while living in New York City. In addition to the Purple Heart, Johnston will also receive the WWI Victory Medal with France’s Service Clasp and Champagne-Marne, Aisne-Marne, and Meuse-Argonne Battle Clasps, and the WWI Victory Button. Johnston served in Company M, 3rd Battalion, 369th Infantry, a highly decorated regiment also known as the “Harlem Hellfighters.” The “Harlem Hellfighters’’ military band, in which Johnston was a bugler, became quite famous for introducing jazz to Europe.
Dr. Brian Mitchell

Dr. Brian Mitchell

As was often the case for black soldiers during that time, Johnston’s service records were intentionally altered after he sustained combat injuries. This deception was uncovered by Dr. Mitchell, a professor of history at ĚÇĐÄVlog´ŤĂ˝ Little Rock. “Leroy was wounded twice while serving in World War I,” Mitchell explained. “His records were altered from ‘severely’ wounded to ‘slightly’ wounded. This alteration prevented him from receiving any awards for being wounded in action.” Nevertheless, Johnston was honorably discharged from military service on July 5, 1919. Johnston returned to the U.S. making Helena his new home. It was in the fall of that same year, he and his three brothers were killed during the Elaine Massacre, though they had nothing to do with the conflict. That September, the bodies of Johnston and his brothers were found mutilated and dumped on the side of the road. Though Johnston was injured in the war on Sept. 26, 1918, it wasn’t until Mitchell’s in-depth investigation into the Elaine Massacre that he uncovered this tragic aspect of Johnston’s military life. Determined to right this injustice, Mitchell submitted the information to the U.S. Department of the Army requesting that Johnston be awarded the appropriate medals for his WWI service. Mitchell then contacted U.S. Rep. French Hill’s office in Little Rock for assistance. Rep. Hill and his staff members, especially Thomas McNabb, Hill’s director of military affairs, were instrumental in ensuring that Johnston finally receive his long overdue medals. For more information about the ceremony, contact Dr. Kyle Miller, director of the Delta Cultural Center, at 870-338-4350 or kyle.miller@arkansas.gov. The shares the vision of all eight agencies within the Department of Arkansas Heritage—to preserve and promote Arkansas Heritage as a source of pride and satisfaction. The other divisions of the department are the Historic Arkansas Museum, the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, the Old State House Museum, the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, the Arkansas Arts Council, the Natural Heritage Commission and the Arkansas State Archives. In the upper right photos, Leroy Johnston (right) is shown with two of his brothers, Drs. D.A.E. (left) and L.H. (center) Johnston. Submitted photo.]]> ĚÇĐÄVlog´ŤĂ˝ Little Rock class investigates Elaine Massacre /news-archive/2018/02/21/barclay-key-investigates-elaine-massacre/ Wed, 21 Feb 2018 14:56:03 +0000 /news/?p=69495 ... ĚÇĐÄVlog´ŤĂ˝ Little Rock class investigates Elaine Massacre]]> In 1919, one of the deadliest racial conflicts in the country occurred in Elaine, Arkansas. Historians still do not know how many people died during the Elaine Massacre, a conflict with an estimated death toll ranging from 20 to more than 800. Barclay Key, associate professor of history at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and students in his “Age of Reform” class searched through U.S. census records during the fall 2017 semester in an attempt to identify potential victims of the Elaine Massacre and determine how many people were actually killed. Class participants include Rachel Barnes, Jessica Chaney, Caroline Cortinez, Norah Hamdan, Alex Martin, Maegan McClure, Anna Piker, Aaron Roberts, Paula Russell, Emily Simmons, Sydney Stranger, Madison Zaliski, and Kelly Zgleszewski. “Extant sources do not agree on the scope of the massacre, and local officials at the time were indifferent to the black lives lost,” Key said. “Local landowners, whose desire to eliminate union organizing sparked the massacre, immediately needed labor to harvest, so they minimized the violence and purposefully concealed what transpired.” On Sept. 29, 1919, representatives of the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America met with 100 African-American farmers at a church to discuss unionizing. When a group of white men interrupted the meeting, two white men were shot. The sheriff organized a posse. A mob of an estimated 500 to 1,000 white people stormed through Phillips County, killing black men, women, and children on sight. The governor called in 500 federal troops, who arrested nearly 260 black people. The federal troops were also believed to have taken part in the massacre, revealing another reason why the number of people killed in the massacre remains unknown. “It seems likely that soldiers who were initially summoned to quell potential violence actually participated in the massacre,” Key said. “Their commander would not have wanted to report that his soldiers committed such atrocities.” Nearly 100 years after the terrifying events of the Elaine Massacre, Key turned to U.S. census records since research into other historical records has been exhausted and still have not solved the mystery of the Elaine Massacre. “We endeavored to compare and contrast the 1910 and 1920 censuses for one township in Phillips County,” Key said. “We basically wanted to know if the families identified in the 1910 census were still there in 1920. We wanted to make an initial effort to account for people in both censuses, one of the few remaining ways we might develop conclusive evidence regarding the scope of the massacre.” Each student researched approximately 100 people from both censuses to attempt to discover the person’s status before and after the Elaine Massacre occurred.
Professor Barclay Key

Professor Barclay Key

Alex Martin, a junior history and American Sign Language major from Boyce, Louisiana, was horrified to discover that only 14 of the 96 people he researched were still living in Elaine during the 1920 census, while a further nine people may have been living in different parts of the country without their previous families. “Some of those missing people could be justified with saying, ‘He was already in his 80s and could have easily died from natural causes,’ or, ‘She may have married and been listed under her married name in 1920.’ But I’m only telling myself those things because you want to find a little hope in something like that,” Martin said. “It’s definitely difficult to wrap your head around something on that scale happening when no one talks about it. The Elaine Massacre was a tragedy, and there was no reason for it other than racism.” Martin is still haunted by the unknown fates of some of the people he researched, such as Eugenia Jones, who was 10 years old in 1910. “Most of her family, eight out of 10 other people, were not in the 1920 census,” Martin said. “A Eugenia Jones, aged 20, was living in Lake Charles Ward 2, Louisiana, in 1920.  She was listed as the head of house’s niece. It could’ve been the same woman, sent to live with her nearest family, but I can’t prove it was.” Although there are numerous reasons why a person might not appear in the 1920 census – misspelled name, marriage, moving to another town, death – many historical records have already been exhausted without providing an answer to the mystery of how many people died as a result of the Elaine Massacre. “Students discovered that they could not find the vast majority of the people from that one district in that one township,” Key said. “Regardless of the circumstances, the fact that they could account for so few people from the vicinity of Elaine was a haunting discovery.” Another student, Caroline Cortinez, a junior history major from Little Rock, found that out of the nearly 100 people she researched, only eight African Americans listed in the 1920 census were still living in the Elaine area in 1920. “I can honestly say I had a vague memory of hearing about the Elaine Massacre, but I had no idea it was as bad as it was,” Cortinez said. “It’s depressing, but I think it’s imperative that students learn about this, especially since we live in Arkansas. I talked to my mom, and she didn’t even know about it, and a lot of people have that reaction.”]]> ĚÇĐÄVlog´ŤĂ˝ Little Rock class creates digital archive of long-lost Phillips County death certificates /news-archive/2018/02/14/phillips-county-death-certificates/ Wed, 14 Feb 2018 14:51:12 +0000 /news/?p=69390 ... ĚÇĐÄVlog´ŤĂ˝ Little Rock class creates digital archive of long-lost Phillips County death certificates]]> A history class at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock has created a new digital index of Phillips County death certificates from 1917 to 1922.  Dr. Brian Mitchell’s American Urban History Class created the index during the fall 2017 semester and donated the archive to the Arkansas History Commission so it can be made available for public use. “This project is an important addition to the commission’s collections as it is currently the sole record of African American deaths in the county for that time period,” Mitchell said. “The index would be helpful for future research on public health issues in the region, identifying many of the Elaine Massacre’s victims, and of vital importance to African-American genealogy in the state.” Mitchell went on to note that “students don’t always understand the importance of history as an academic pursuit or understand what public historians do, but classes like this allow them to see how history is useful for the general public.” The class has already received a thank-you email from one amateur genealogist who used the archive to track down the never-before-found death certificate of her great-grandfather. He died in Phillips County in 1918 from an “epidemic.” Students who participated in the class include John Anderson, Tarrie Boggs, Grant Burress, Mark Ford, Laura Fuentes, Corrie Green, Kevin Hill, Benny Mutoni, Ellis Thompson, Christian Weaver, Nicholson Weaver, and Domorion Williams.

The death certificate of Leroy Johnston, who was one of the four Johnston brothers killed during the Elaine Massacre. Leroy had recently returned from fighting in World War I, where he served as part of the 369th Infantry more popularly known as the “Harlem Hellfighters.”

Mitchell’s current research involves creating a digital archive of records related to the 1919 Elaine Massacre. Through his research, he discovered that long-lost death records for Phillips County residents were kept at the Keeshan-Lambert Funeral Home. “The death certificates had been missing from the historic record for a long time,” Mitchell said. “The reason for their absence was the policy in the county at that time was for the coroner to take possession of their own records when they retired. When the coroner retired, the family kept them. Fortunately for the people of Arkansas, the family owned a pretty notable funeral home. Instead of the death certificates being disposed of, they remained in the records of this funeral home. The family donated the records to the Arkansas History Commission.” Since the county’s main newspaper in Helena, The Helena World, did not print many obituaries for African Americans at the time, these records may likely be the only record of death certificates for African Americans in the county during that time period. Mitchell is also hoping the archive will help identify members of the Elaine Massacre that occurred in the first week of October in 1919 in Elaine, Arkansas. Historians have been unable to discover how many people died during the Elaine Massacre. Estimates run from 17 to nearly 800.
The death certificate of Calvin Miller, a possible victim of the Elaine Massacre, states that he died on Oct. 4, 1919, due to a hemorrhage.

The death certificate of Calvin Miller, who Mitchell believes is a previously unidentified victim of the Elaine Massacre, states that Miller died on Oct. 4, 1919, due to a hemorrhage.

“Despite being considered one of the largest race riots in American history, there has never a single identified grave for a black massacre victim.” Dr. Mitchell is hoping that the recovered “death certificates will assist in the identification and the locating of victims’ graves.” “I was fascinated by the fact that you can have that many people missing or disputed and have no records of who died. It’s one of these mysteries that you want to keep pursuing. It’s important to the families of these individuals that there is some accounting of their death. I’ve met a few family members of the individuals who went to prison. For many of those families, they think it is important that some commemoration of all these people be put into place.” The records themselves make it difficult to identify possibly victims of the Elaine Massacre, since many do not list a cause of death or burial site and could have been issued months after the actual death occurred. “The hypothesis we have come to is that many of these death certificates were made up when family members showed up to look for their dead loved one,” Mitchell said. “Many people don’t show up until the following year (1920), and these death certificates tell very little about how their loved ones died or how their bodies were disposed of.” The Phillips County death records span from 1917 to the early 1950s. Mitchell has plans for future classes to continue archiving the records and making them available for public use. In the upper right photo, members of Dr. Brian Mitchell’s class include: Back row (L to R): Ellis E. Thompson; Domorion Williams; Grant Burress; Kevin Hill; Benny Mutoni; and Nicholson Weaver. Front Row: John Anderson; Dr. Brian Mitchell; Corrie Green; and Tarrie Boggs.]]>