Red Summer in Elaine - An Extreme Response

The end of the Civil War in 1865 began a new era in American history called the Reconstruction Era, where the country went through the process of reinstating seceding states in the Union and establishing a legal status for all Black people.

The Gilded Age began around 1870, and there was a boom in industrialization, causing economic growth in parts of America. Political corruption, vast inequality, and poverty for all races grew, and the country struggled with – among other things – the fair treatment of Black people due to a general disposition of white supremacy. Civil disobedience and race riots in the name of white superiority increased across America in 1919, especially in the South. It was coined the “Red Summer.”

Many white Arkansans interpreted the Black gains and liberties after the Civil War as a form of inferiority to a biased racial hierarchy, triggering regularly displayed, racially motivated acts of violence against Black people to intimidate and preserve a racial disposition of social order. This included Black expulsion and unjustified race riots (often based on fabrications) used as a disciplinary effort in highly concentrated Black populations. In addition, lynchings, beatings, and murders were inclusive patterns – with the remains of the deceased still visible to serve as a warning to other Black people. Arkansas was no exception.

The state experienced a consistent surge in violence, and the authority of Jim Crow grew with every account of terrorism committed. One of those accounts happened in 1919 in rural Arkansas, before the Rosewood Race Riot in Florida or Oklahoma's Black Wall Street Massacre. It is commonly referred to as the Elaine Massacre.

ELAINE, ARKANSAS

Harry Kelley received word that Phillips County’s swamplands would be the richest part of Arkansas because the silt from the Mississippi River flooding would create fertile farmland in that area. He began to purchase land across the county in 1892, eventually owning approximately 35,000 acres.

As the predominant landowner of the county, Kelley began to establish it as a town around 1911, naming it Elaine. He and his business partner developed the lots of the town with the calculated intention of keeping the races in separate neighborhoods, dividing them with Main Street. The Black areas were often referred to as “Quarters” in reference to slave quarters. Some Black areas of Elaine were still referenced this way in the latter part of the 20th Century.

The town grew as wooded areas were cleared for Plantations, concrete sidewalks and paved streets were laid, electricity was brought in, brick stores and a schoolhouse were built, and a 1,600-feet-deep well was dug that provided water to all parts of Elaine. It was incorporated on April 23, 1919, to solidify its presence. 

COTTON

Like many counties and states in the South before the Civil War, a great portion of Phillips County’s land was developed to grow cotton. Thousands of acres of farmland were created and grossly depended on the labor of enslaved Black people to maintain it with little to no rightful compensation. In contrast, their labor created generational wealth for major landowners and planters since cotton was a top commodity well into the 20th century.