What was built
- Established or development period
- 1870s–1919
- Peak period
- 1918–1919
- Who built the community
- Black sharecroppers, tenant farmers and a smaller group of Black landowners in the Arkansas Delta.
- Black population
- Phillips County was roughly three-quarters Black, with thousands of Black farm families.
- Businesses
- Cotton farming, tenant and sharecropping operations, and small rural stores.
- Financial institutions
- Not yet documented
- Churches
- Rural Black churches, including Hoop Spur church, site of the initial confrontation.
- Schools
- Not yet documented
- Hospitals
- Not yet documented
- Newspapers
- Not yet documented
- Entertainment & cultural institutions
- Not yet documented
- Other community institutions
- The Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America, a Black sharecroppers' union.
- Black land & property ownership
- A minority of Black families owned Delta farmland; most worked under exploitative tenancy arrangements.
- Economic significance
- The Black labor force that produced one of the most valuable cotton regions in the country.
What happened
- What happened?
- Beginning September 30, 1919, after a shooting at a union meeting at Hoop Spur, white posses, local militia and federal troops killed Black residents across Phillips County in what is regarded as one of the deadliest episodes of racial violence in American history. Twelve Black men were sentenced to death in trials later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
- Trigger or precipitating event
- A shooting outside a Progressive Farmers union meeting at a church near Hoop Spur.
- Underlying historical context
- Black sharecroppers organizing for fair settlement on cotton, planter control of credit and land, and postwar white fear of Black organizing.
- Method of destruction / displacement
- Massacre · Mob Violence · Political Violence
- Date or period of destruction
- September 30: October 7, 1919
- Confirmed / documented deaths
- 5 white deaths were recorded; Black deaths were never officially counted.
- Estimated deaths
- Estimates of Black deaths range from roughly 100 to more than 800. SOURCES DIFFER sharply; no reliable count exists.
- People displaced
- Hundreds of Black families fled the county; many never returned.
- Homes destroyed
- Not yet documented
- Businesses destroyed
- Not yet documented
- Acres or property lost
- Not yet documented
Afterward
- What happened to the land?
- Land and crop equity of fleeing and imprisoned farmers was absorbed by planters and creditors.
- Was compensation paid?
- None.
- Was the community rebuilt?
- No: Black landownership and organizing in the county were suppressed for generations.
- What was rebuilt?
- Not yet documented
- Destroyed or displaced again?
- Not yet documented
- Second displacement date
- Not yet documented
- Second displacement cause
- Not yet documented
- What exists there today?
- The Elaine Massacre Memorial in Helena, Arkansas, dedicated in 2019.
- Descendant, reparation & restoration efforts
- Moore v. Dempsey (1923), the Elaine Massacre Memorial Committee and descendant-led commemoration and research.
- Historical significance
- Produced Moore v. Dempsey, the Supreme Court decision establishing federal review of state trials that violate due process.
Sources
- Source lookupFind
Moore v. Dempsey, 261 U.S. 86 (1923)
- Book or scholarly workFind
Grif Stockley, Blood in Their Eyes: The Elaine Race Massacres of 1919 (University of Arkansas Press, 2001)
- Book or scholarly workFind
Encyclopedia of Arkansas, Central Arkansas Library System
- Primary recordFind
Arkansas State Archives, Elaine collections
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Last verified: 2026-09-20. This is a living historical collection. Additional communities and documentation will be added as research and verification continue.