Hellraisers Journal: “Voice of the Negro” by Kerlin: How Systematic Robbery of Tenant Farmers Led Up to Arkansas Riot of 1919

Quote Ed Ware, Song fr AR Prison, Fall 1919, Elaine Massacre, Ida B p6 ———————-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday November 28, 1921
Excerpt from The Voice of the Negro by Robert T. Kerlin

from Hathi Cover, NY 1920

Note: On Saturday we featured a review of Kerlin’s “Voice of the Negro,” which includes a section on the so-called “riot” at Elaine, Arkansas. This deadly event, which we refer to as the Elaine Massacre, was a bloody rampage led by the plantation class, initially against the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America (sharecropper’s union) and later against the entire Afro-American community of Phillips County, Arkansas.

Yesterday we published an excerpt from Kerlin’s book which described how the Johnston Brothers were murdered during the Elaine Massacre. Today’s excerpt sets forth how systematic robbery of tenant farmers and sharecroppers led up to the Arkansas Riot.

From The Savannah Tribune of October 23, 1919:

SYSTEMATIC ROBBERY CAUSE OF RIOTS

ARKANSAS NEGROES HAD NOT PLANNED MASSACRE

The cause of the disturbances in Arkansas was systematic robbery of Negro tenant farmers and share croppers. For years Negroes have been working the farms of white owners on shares and when the time came for a settlement, owners have refused to give them itemized statements of their accounts. Negro tenant farmers and share croppers must buy their supplies during the year from the plantation store or some designated store. The system kept the Negro continually in debt and it is an unwritten law in Arkansas as in many parts of the South that the Negro may not leave the plantation until the debt is paid.

“The Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America” was formed by Negro share croppers and the dues paid were to go into a common fund to employ a lawyer. The lawyer was to make a test case in court of one tenant farmer’s inability to obtain an itemized statement of his account.

On October 6 tenant farmers on 21 plantations were to ask the owners for a settlement. It appears that, failing a settlement, the Negroes were going to refuse to pick the cotton then in the field or to sell cotton belonging to them for less than the market price. Trouble, however, was precipitated when W. A. Adkins, a special agent for the Missouri Pacific Railroad, Charles Pratt, a deputy sheriff and a Negro “trusty” were fired upon, so it is claimed, by Negroes in a church at Hoop Spur [where Union members were gathered]. Adkins was killed and Pratt severely wounded. A statement of one of the persons in the church at the time, however, shows that Adkins and Pratt fired into the church without provocation and that their fire was returned with the above-mentioned results. That precipitated the trouble.

One case which will show the economic exploitation is that of a Negro on the plantation of R. B. McCombs, a white man in Ashley County, Arkansas. The Negro’s crop was worth $2,322.76, the Negro’s share being $1,661.38. McCombs paid the Negro $326 and refused to pay him any more, declaring that the Negro had taken up the balance in goods. The Negro brought suit but failed to obtain a judgment, the jury being white, as is always the case in that part of the country.

Another Negro coming from the State Labor Commissioner’s office declared that he had worked 27 acres on shares and that the total value of his crop at present prices was $1,506. The owner of the land had taken all of the crop, had refused a settlement and the Negro had walked 122 miles to Little Rock hoping to get a lawyer, being absolutely penniless. Many similar cases could be cited and it was a determination to protest these conditions that led to the formation of the organization which is claimed by the whites to have “planned a massacre.”

So far as I was able to discover, after a careful investigation on the ground, there is no basis for belief that a massacre was planned by Negroes and, in point of fact, it was the Negroes who were massacred.

Negroes outnumber whites 6 to 1 in Phillips County and if a massacre had been planned the casualty list would not have been 25 Negroes as against 5 whites. [Some estimate number of black citizens massacred to be 100 or higher.]

Many white people expressed doubt of the truth of the “massacre” stories sent out. It appears that the purpose of those stories was to cloak the robbery of Negroes by white landlords and agents. Prices charged by landlords and plantation stores as compared with those in open market: Bacon (cheapest grade, known as sour belly) plantation 50c lb.; open market 20c lb. Mary Jane Molasses, plantation $2.00 gal.; open market $1.10 gal. Compound lard, plantation 56c lb.; open market 28c lb. Sack of flour 24 lb., plantation $2.50; open market $1.25.

In one case a Negro was charged $50 for two second-hand plows which cost, when new, $16 each. In another case, a set of rope plow lines which cost 25c each were sold for $3.50 to the Negro. In another case a Negro was charged $58 for a tow sack and 4 bushels of cotton seed, the value of which was $4.00. In another case a Negro was charged $52.50 express for moving of nine pieces of furniture 100 miles by freight. The actual cost could not have been over $5.00.

There have been numerous lynchings in the past when Negroes have attempted to obtain settlements from landlords and the farmers’ organization [The Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America] was a combine for the purpose of protesting such outrageous conditions as these.

[Photograph added.]