Recognizing the Centennial of the Elaine Race Massacre
Floor Speech
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Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Madam Speaker, one-hundred years ago, soldiers, returned from the European front in WWI were committed to benefitting from the opportunity and liberty they secured at great risk and sacrifice to themselves. Many took that commitment to autonomy and freedom home to the small towns, communities, and homesteads where families and livelihoods remained. One-hundred years ago, few eyes were turned toward a small agrarian community in Northeast Arkansas, where black sharecroppers, spurred in part by the tales of opportunity and liberty spun by these returning patriots, dared to discuss fair pay for their crops. To this day, the accounts of the tragic loss of life that took place during the Elaine Massacre, when white mobs killed more than 100 African Americans, remains widely unknown.
In September, I had the opportunity to attend the dedication of a memorial to the victims of the 1919 Elaine Massacre. I also had the distinct pleasure of meeting the Honorable Brian Miller, U.S. District Judge and nephew of Leroy Johnston, WWI veteran, Purple Heart recipient, and murder victim during the Elaine Massacre. I would like to include in the Record Judge Miller's remarks from the ceremony. The Elaine Massacre Memorial Dedication Ceremony Court Square Park, 350 Perry Street, Helena, Arkansas, September 29, 2019. (By Judge Brian Miller)
One-hundred years ago, on September the 30th of 1919, on this block, Phillips County's civic, political, and economic leaders settled in for a night at the Helena Opera House, which used to stand on this block.
One-hundred years ago, on the same night, three men met at the Phillips County Courthouse and drove down to Hoop Spur Church. They went to Hoop Spur Church to check on a meeting of black sharecroppers who were attempting to unionize. And those people were unionizing so that they could be paid fairly. The three men left from that courthouse across the street from this block.
While the black sharecroppers fought for fair pay, the black business class in Helena built movie theaters and cathedrals. They owned rental property. They ran small businesses. They practiced medicine on Walnut Street, which runs on the west side of this block.
While the black business class ran their businesses on Walnut Street, the white business class owned banks, movie theaters, restaurants, and retail stores on Cherry Street, which is that street that runs on the east side of this block. Two sides of this block.
And although there was a wide divide between the black and white business classes, there was an even greater divide between the black business class and the black sharecroppers meeting at Hoop Spur that night.
The 30 miles that separated this block and Walnut Street from Hoop Spur might as well have been a million miles, because there was nothing holding together the black business class and the sharecroppers meeting at Hoop Spur that night, except for shared history and black skin.
But what neither group could have imagined happened 100 years ago. The three men who left the courthouse across the street from this block fired shots into the Hoop Spur Church. And shots were fired out of the church, and a white man was killed.
A posse formed in that courthouse across the street from this block, and mob violence ensued. When the dust settled, five white men were killed, and more than 100 black people were killed. Estimates have gone as much as 800, but most historians have settled on about 200. And the mob raged on.
More than 100 black people were arrested and brought to the Phillips County Jail across the street from this block. Those men were brutally beaten and tortured in that jail across the street from this block. And the mob gathered.
Right here on this block, right where you sit, the mob gathered and chanted and screamed for death. And 12 men were given sham trials in that courthouse across the street from this block and sentenced to die across the street from this block.
But Judge Jacob Trieber stayed those executions in the old federal courthouse that once stood on that corner across the street from this block.
Now, after 100 years, we return. And where do we return? We return to this block. We return not to relive 1919. We return to this block to remember and honor those who were killed. We return in hope. We return to this block with an earnest yearning for redemption. We return to this block with an earnest yearning for reconciliation.
Those of us who failed to take up the cause of the sharecroppers seek redemption for failing to help those less fortunate than ourselves. And those of us who joined the mob or contributed to the slaughter of the sharecroppers seek redemption for doing the unthinkable.
And all of us, whether we are the descendants of the mob, whether we are the descendants of those who were killed by the mob, or whether we are just people of good will, seek reconciliation with one another.
We return to this block on this day and at this time to face the reality that we stand on the shoulders of our ancestors. We all love our ancestors and we all respect them. But we also accept the reality that they were not perfect. We understand that they were human beings. We understand that they were susceptible to human frailty.
Because of this, we return to this block to announce that we will be vigilant not to repeat their mistakes. We return to this block to forgive one another, and to ask for forgiveness. We return to this block to accept that forgiveness and to allow ourselves to be redeemed.
And this, the Elaine Massacre Memorial, forever stands as a reminder of why we have returned to this block. Every time we feel angry, every time we feel embittered, every time we feel slighted, every time we feel divisive, and every time we feel guilty, we will see that monument and we will remember the nightmare that all of those emotions will bring.
And we will remember this day and how we feel at this moment, and we will recommit ourselves to loving and respecting one another, even when we disagree.
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