Elaine Riot Project
In fall 1999, a graduate class at Arkansas State University, under the direction of Dr. Sarah Wilkerson-Freeman in the History Department, engaged in a collaborative research project that focused on the Elaine Race Riot (Phillips County, Arkansas) of 1919. As part of their research, the students read articles from a variety of newspapers of the day and selected pieces that related to the event. They digitized these and created a database containing documents useful for understanding what happened, or at least what the press reported. The students also chose aspects of the "riot" (which was, in fact, an orchestrated attack on black sharecroppers who tried to organize for fairer treatment), and wrote introductory essays to provide background material for the articles. Some of their essays appear here. The students who participated in the project, Harrison Bennett, Jillian Hartley, James Ludyen, Jack Pace, and Norman Vickers, learned a great deal from the project for, in addition to conducting extensive primary and secondary research, surveying the historiography and writing long research papers, they had to use a variety of new technological tools. Their patience and hard work is greatly appreciated.
This database and accompanying essays represents the beginning of a website that will grow and be revised by subsequent history classes at ASU. Although the site is not "finished," we believe that the materials should be made available and used by students, scholars and the public. The "mysteries" associated with the Elaine Riot, the numerous conflicting versions of the event, the uncertainty concerning the number of victims, and the failure of law officials to investigate the murders of black victims, etc., need to be brought to light and explored. We hope that this site will be a useful tool for such explorations.
Essays
"The Sharecropping System" by Norman Vickers
"Justice on Trial: The Phillips County Riot Cases" by Harrison Bennett
Press Accounts
The Event (as reported in Little Rock and Jonesboro, Arkansas newspapers)
The Event (as reported in a variety of newspapers)
Parallel Worlds: Other Critical Events of October 1919
Please address any questions and comments concerning the site to:
sarahwf@toltec.astate.edu.