Tag: Class War Prisoners of Elaine Massacre of 1919

Hellraisers Journal: From the Chicago Broad Ax: Mary White Ovington Reviews “The Voice of the Negro” by Robert T. Kerlin

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

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

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday November 26, 1921
Mary White Ovington Reviews “The Voice of the Negro” by Robert T. Kerlin

From the Chicago Broad Ax of November 19, 1921:

BOOK CHAT-BY MARY WHITE OVINGTON
-CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE
ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE…..
—————

“THE VOICE OF THE NEGRO”
By Robert T. Kerlin
——-

(Published by E. P.  Dutton & Co., 681 Fifth Ave., New York City, Price $2.50, postage 12 cents.)

Arkansas Elaine Massacre, 12 Union Men Condemned to Die, IB Wells Barnett p2, 1920

Mr. Robert T. Kerlin, professor at Virginia Military Institute, last June wrote a letter to the Governor of Arkansas, in which he declared it would be a crime against the Creator, if the six colored men [The Moore Defendants-six of the Elaine 12] condemned to death, were executed. “Were they to suffer death,” he said, “they would be crucified.” Shortly after this statement, he was asked to resign by the Board of Virginia Military Institute. Refusing to do this, he was dismissed. This courageous letter to the Governor of Arkansas was the culmination of a number of acts sympathetic to the Negro, that had evidently grated against the sensibilities of the Board of Virginia Military Institute. 

Probably “The Voice of the Negro,” the book which Mr. Kerlin’s publishers put out in 1920, was one of his heinous offenses. This book presents to the reader a careful synopsis of Negro opinion, as voiced through its press for four months succeeding the Washington riot. To quote from the preface, “virtually the entire Afro-American press consisting of two dailies, a dozen magazines, and nearly three hundred weeklies, has been drawn upon.” “When I told the publisher,” Mr. Kerlin goes on to say “that I was making this compilation, he remarked that my book would make disagreeable reading. There are worse things than disagreeable reading.”…..

———————-

[Photograph added.]

Note: By last June, when Kerlin wrote to the Arkansas Governor, the Elaine 12 had become the Ware Defendants and the Moore Defendants (6 in each group). The Ware Defendants had won another retrial, scheduled for June 1921, but since postponed. The Moore Defendants were scheduled for execution on June 10th, which execution was delayed by one brave judge. As of this date, the Ware defendants are yet awaiting their 3rd trial. The Moore Defendants have won a hearing before the U. S. Supreme Court.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the Chicago Broad Ax: Mary White Ovington Reviews “The Voice of the Negro” by Robert T. Kerlin” →

Hellraisers Journal: Arkansas Supreme Court Reverses Death Sentences of Six Men Convicted for Elaine “Riots”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

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

———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday January 18, 1921
Arkansas State Supreme Court Reverses Death Sentences for “Massacre Plot” 

From The Crisis of January 1921:

ANOTHER VICTORY IN ARKANSAS

Arkansas Elaine Massacre, 12 Union Men Condemned to Die, IB Wells Barnett p2, 1920

THE Supreme Court of Arkansas has held that discrimination against Negroes in the selection of both grand and petit juries is in contravention of the Fourteenth Amendment and of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, and it has consequently reversed the decision of the lower court in condemning to death for the Elaine riots Ed Ware, Will Wordlow, Albert Giles, John [Joe] Fox, John Martin and Alfred Banks. This is the second time that the court has reversed the sentences of death passed on these Negroes.

Death sentences on six other Negroes which have been affirmed by the State Supreme Court will now probably be held up by the Governor until the present cases are decided.

Governor Brough has made every effort to hang these Negroes, even attempting to influence the court by newspaper articles in which he cited the various Arkansas organizations which were demanding their death.

[Photograph and emphasis added. Italic type removed.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Arkansas Supreme Court Reverses Death Sentences of Six Men Convicted for Elaine “Riots”” →

Hellraisers Journal: New Solidarity: “Twelve Union Negroes Sentenced to Gallows” -Legalized Lynching in Arkansas

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Claude McKay, Fighting Back, Messenger p4, Sept 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 23, 1919
State of Arkansas Sanctions Legalized Lynching of Twelve Union Men

From The New Solidarity of December 20, 1919:

TWELVE UNION NEGROES SENTENCED TO GALLOWS

Arkansas Elaine Massacre, 12 Union Men Condemned to Die, IB Wells Barnett p2, 1920

A wholesale judicial lynching threatens to be the outcome of the recent situation in Arkansas, where a protest on the part of a group of Negroes known as the Farmers Protective Union [Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America] has resulted in a general charge of conspiracy against all the Negroes of the community. One hundred and twenty-two have been brought to trial. On the flimsiest evidence, sixty have been sentenced to prison terms ranging from one to twenty-one years. After a trial lasting exactly seven minutes, twelve have been condemned to die. This hideous travesty upon justice has been well called “legalized lynching”

———-

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

From The New York Age of December 20, 1919:

NEW BRUNSWICK FOLK GIVE TO DEFENCE FUND

NEW BRUNSWICK, N. J.-Acting on the suggestion of THE AGE that a fund ought to be raised for the defense of the colored men convicted and sentenced to be executed in Elaine (Arkansas) riots, the citizens of this, town, through M. J. Preston, have raised and forwarded $68.25 to Miss Mary White Ovington, chairman of the executive committee. N. A. A. C. P.

[There follows a list of person who made donations (from $.25 to $5.00) to the Defence Fund.]

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: New Solidarity: “Twelve Union Negroes Sentenced to Gallows” -Legalized Lynching in Arkansas” →

Hellraisers Journal: The Crisis: The System of Southern Debt Peonage and the “Riot” at Phillips County, Arkansas, Part II

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Claude McKay, Fighting Back, Messenger p4, Sept 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 9, 1919
Phillips County, Arkansas – White Men Plot Mass Murder in Defense of Peonage

From The Crisis of December 1919:

ARKANSAS
[-The Cause of the “Race Riot,” Part I of II]

While the white men were meeting secretly and discussing means of “nipping the niggers in the bud,” matters came to a head very suddenly in an unexpected way. On Sunday, before the riot, John Clem, a white man, from Helena, came to Elaine loaded up and drunk on “white mule.” He proceeded to bully and terrorize the whole Negro population of over four hundred people by continuous gun play. The Negroes, to avoid trouble, got off the streets, and phoned to the sheriff at Helena. He failed to act. Monday, Clem was still on a rampage. The Negroes avoided trouble, because they feared that his acts were a part of a plan to start a race riot.

WNF Elaine Massacre, Phillips Co AR, Crisis p59, Dec 1919

Tuesday, some Negroes were holding a meeting [of the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America] in a church at Hoop Spur. A deputy sheriff and a “special agent,” white, and a Negro trusty came by in an auto. The white men stopped and proceeded to “investigate” the meeting. They were refused admittance. They attempted to break in and fired into the building. Some Negroes returned the fire, killing the special agent and wounding the deputy sheriff, so it is said. However, when the Negro trusty reported the shooting, he said that they had been fired upon from ambush by two white men and a Negro. The wounded deputy also first reported that the party had been fired upon from ambush by two white men and he was quite sure he saw a Negro running from the scene. Later all mention of the white men was carefully avoided and suppressed, and the entire blame was laid upon the Negroes at the church and it was charged that all of them were armed, that the white men were proceeding peaceably on the road and only got out to fix their car, which just happened to break down right in front of this particular church, and that the Negroes fired on them without any provocation whatever. Later another white man was fired on, and it was claimed that he just happened to be coming along the road an hour later and was shot by Negroes who were at the same church.

It never seemed for a moment unreasonable to the white men to believe that the Negroes would kill and wound white men at the church and then deliberately stay there for an hour or two longer for the purpose of killing another white man. Every sane man knows that those Negroes would have fled from the scene after the first shooting, if they had been guilty.

Anyhow, the hue and cry was raised. “Negro uprising,” “Negro insurrection,” etc., was sent broadcast.The white planters called their gangs together and a big “nigger hunt” began. They rushed their women and children to Helena by auto and train. Train loads and auto loads of white men, armed to the teeth, came from Marianna and Forrest City, Ark., Memphis, Tenn., and Clarksdale, Miss. Rifles and ammunition were rushed in. The woods were scoured, Negro homes shot into, Negroes who did not know any trouble was brewing were shot and killed on the highways.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: The Crisis: The System of Southern Debt Peonage and the “Riot” at Phillips County, Arkansas, Part II” →

Hellraisers Journal: The Crisis: The System of Southern Debt Peonage and the “Riot” at Phillips County, Arkansas, Part I

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Claude McKay, Fighting Back, Messenger p4, Sept 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday December 8, 1919
Phillips County, Arkansas – Southern Debt Peonage and the “Riot”

From The Crisis of December 1919:

ARKANSAS
[-The Cause of the “Race Riot,” Part I of II]

THE Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States has never been enforced thoroughly. This means that involuntary servitude is still wide spread in the southern United States. There are even vestiges of the slave trade in the convict lease system and the arrangements for trading tenants. On the whole, however, the slavery that remains is a wide spread system of debt peonage and a map of the farms operated by colored tenants shows approximately the extent of this peonage.

WNF Elaine Massacre, Black Belt Map, The Crisis p57, Dec 1919

The Arkansas riot originated in the attempt of the black peons of the so-called Delta region, (that is the lowlands between Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana) to raise their income. The center, Phillips County, Ark., has 692,000 square miles of land and its chief city is Helena. In 1910 there were 33,535 inhabitants in the country, of whom 26,354 or 78.6% were Negroes. The county is predominately a farming community with $9,000,000 worth of farm property, and two-thirds of the value of all the crops is represented by the cotton crop. Of the 9,835 males of voting age, 7,479 are Negroes, and of these 5,510 could read and write; nevertheless, all the political power is in the hands of the 4,000 white voters, Negroes having no representation even on juries.

The Negroes are the cotton raisers. Of the 30,000 bales of cotton raised in 1909, they raised 25,000. Most of the Negro farmers are tenants. In the whole county there were, in 1910, 587 colored owners and 1,598 colored tenants. These tenants farmed 81,000 acres of land and raised 21,000 bales of cotton. For the most part the method of dealing with these tenants is described by a local reporter, as follows:

All the white plantation owners had a system whereby the Negro tenants and sharecroppers are “furnished” their supplies. They get all their food, clothing, and supplies from the “commissary” or store operated by the planter, or else they get them from some store designated by him. The commissary or store charges from twenty-five to fifty per cent. interest on the value of the money and supplies advanced or furnished. If any one doubts this statement, let him ask any planter or storekeeper. As a whole, they admit it. They boast that the commissary is the safest and best paying department of the plantation.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: The Crisis: The System of Southern Debt Peonage and the “Riot” at Phillips County, Arkansas, Part I” →

Hellraisers Journal: From New York Age: Mass Meeting Will Raise Funds to Fight for Lives of Martyrs of Elaine, Arkansas

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
Share

Quote Claude McKay, JAccuse, Messenger p33, Oct 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday December 7, 1919
New York, New York – Equity Congress to Fight for Condemned Union Men

From The New York Age of December 6, 1919:

TO AID FIGHT FOR NEGRO RIOT MARTYRS.

WNF Elaine Massacre, HdLn AR Gz p1, Oct 3, 1919, wiki
Defamatory Headline
from Arkansas Gazette
of October 3, 1919

To raise funds to assist in the fight for the lives of the twelve men sentenced to death on account of the Elaine, Ark., riots, the Equity Congress of New York City is arranging to hold a mass meeting on Sunday, December 7, at the 15th Regiment Armory, 132nd street and Seventh avenue, at 5 o’clock.

A number of prominent citizens will speak and good music will be given. The people are urged to be present and give tangible aid in this important matter.

Of the twelve men convicted and sentenced to death, six were to be executed on December 26 and six on January 2, but Governor Brough of Arkansas has announced that he would postpone the executions to make it possible for appeals to be filed in behalf of the condemned men.

Counsel must be secured to take the appeals lo the Arkansas Supreme Court and funds must be provided with which to pay the counsel fees. The Equity Congress hopes to make a substantial start in this direction on Sunday afternoon.

[Newsclip and emphasis added.]

From the Kansas Trades Unionist of November 21, 1919:

ARKANSAS RACE RIOTS COME WHEN NEGROS ASK
JUSTICE IN LAND LEASES FROM COURT

Not Insurrection But Attempt to
Bring Test Case Into Court.

(By A. B. Gilbert)

St. Paul, Minn.-Investigation of the Elaine (Ark.) race riots by a correspondent of the Chicago Daily News brings out facts more noteworthy than the severity of punishment meted out to the alleged negro revolutionists.

Back of the outbreak is the report that two white men opened fire on a peaceable negro meeting. Back of the meeting is an attempt of some negroes to organize and collect funds to bring a lease-testing case into the courts. Back of this desire to bring a court case is the plantation store system [debt peonage system] found in many parts of the South.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From New York Age: Mass Meeting Will Raise Funds to Fight for Lives of Martyrs of Elaine, Arkansas” →