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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday November 27, 1921
Excerpt from The Voice of the Negro by Robert T. Kerlin
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.
From Kerlin’s introduction to article:
The outstanding incident of the “Arkansas pogrom” was the slaying of the Johnston brothers. From The National Defender and Sun (Gary, Ind.), October 25, I take an article that appeared in substance throughout the colored press:
From The National Defender and Sun of October 25, 1919:
ALMOST ENTIRE JOHNSTON FAMILY IS MURDERED
BY FIENDISH HELL-HOUNDS OF ARKANSAS(Special to the Defender and Sun.)
Helena, Ark., Oct. 24. [1919]-The report that the four Johnston brothers who were outrageously murdered near Elaine, Ark., met death in a riot at the latter place, is not true. The four brothers, one of whom. Dr. L. H. Johnston of Cowweta, Okla., who was there visiting his other brothers, had been hunting and were peacefully returning home with their game when they were intercepted by a white man, supposed to be a friend of the Johnston boys, and told that a race riot was in progress in Elaine and advised them not to go in that direction, but to return to a point below Elaine, leave their guns to avoid suspicion, and take the train for Helena. After considerable persuasion on the part of their supposed white friend, the Johnstons followed his advice, trying to avoid trouble that they knew nothing of.
When the train on which they were riding en route to Helena reached Elaine, their good white “friend” led a mob aboard the Jim Crow coach and with guns drawn commanded the Johnston boys to throw up their hands, according to eye-witnesses, and in a few seconds had handcuffed three of the boys, evidently not recognizing Dr. L. H. Johnston as one of the brothers, and was marching them out of the train when Doctor Johnston spoke to the men, saying: “Gentlemen, these men are my brothers, and I want to know why you are taking them from this train.” In reply, one of the men said: “If you are their brother you’d better come along with them.” To this Dr. L. H. Johnston retorted: “Well, I will certainly go,” whereupon he was handcuffed, and the four forced at the point of guns to get in a waiting auto and hurriedly driven off. That night about eleven o’clock the bodies of the four brothers, riddled with bullets and mutilated with knives or other sharp instruments, were found by the roadside. They had been murdered in cold blood!
The perpetrators of this gruesome atrocity then issued a statement to the effect that one of the Johnstons took a gun from a deputy sheriff and killed him, causing the posse to fire on the four brothers, killing all of them instantly.
Mrs. Mercy Johnston, mother of the unfortunate quartette, who lived in Chicago in a home purchased for her by her sons, was at the time in Pine Bluff, visiting relatives. She accompanied by relatives and friends, her heart all but breaking over the sad occurrence, went to claim the bodies of her loved ones, that she might at least pay a mother’s last tribute, even though that should be in tears and heartache, but rank insult was added to injury when she was compelled to pay a ransom for the dead bodies. She paid the price, however, and followed the remains to their last resting place in Little Rock. The funeral was the biggest and most impressive ever seen in that city. No man was quite strong enough to look upon this terrible scene. The great wonder is that any black should witness such a scene and be free from that which makes men desperate.
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