The Arkansas Race Riot

by Ida B. Wells-Barnett (Creator)

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Genres: History, Nonfiction

64 pages, Paperback

First published September 20, 2013

About the author

Ida Bell Wells-Barnett (1862–1931) was an African-American journalist, newspaper editor, suffragist, sociologist and, with her husband, newspaper owner Ferdinand L. Barnett, an early leader in the civil rights movement. She documented lynching in the United States, showing how it was often a way to control or punish blacks who competed with whites, often under the guise of rape charges. She was active in women's rights and the women's suffrage movement, establishing several notable women's organizations. Wells was a skilled and persuasive rhetorician, and traveled internationally on lecture tours.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Randall Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the earliest written (1920), and the shortest of the nine books I’ve reviewed on this topic. I always wanted to read Ida Wells, so what did this book teach? Ida was the only writer of the nine to explain that if a sharecropper “leaves in debt, the laws of the state make it a penal offense.” That explains another reason why the company stores prices, etc., kept you in debt - you were never able to legally leave the white employer and gain freedom of action. The only way out was each sharecropper teaming together collectively through a union instead of accepting the standard ½ price for crops – but how do you keep the white oppressors from stopping you from finally levelling the playfield through your union? This book is about the Elaine Massacre of 1919, an explosion of violence inflicted on the black community one hundred years ago that explains the white supremacy of today – first, it’s economic. Bad people don’t take kindly to those they control demanding anything that cuts into profits. What the whites could not do lawfully in Elaine in 1919, they did unlawfully.

The Farmer’s Union that caused the white concern in 1919 had begun in 1865, and Arkansas ratified it in 1918, so judges knew anyone joining a union was breaking no laws. Local whites found the union’s circulars in Elaine and learned about the meetings – it was outside one of these meetings that things turned deadly and touched off the massacre. Whites went into double stupid mode – If agricultural income was your number one love, then killing the region’s farmers was a dumb move come harvest time. And if you thought long term and let local blacks join the union, you’d have a far better chance keeping your workers from joining that Great Migration to Chicago that the Defender kept publishing about. During/after the massacre, there was much theft, white people going onto black property and simply taking shit that didn’t belong to them. “They went to our house and took everything that was there.” “I lost all my household goods and 121 acres of cotton and corn, two mules, one horse, one Jersey cow, and one farm wagon and all farming tools and harness and eight head of hogs, 135 chickens and one Ford car.” Imagine seeing all your furniture in some white woman’s house and there’s nothing you can do - that happened to one black woman.

Funny how the fake white racist trope is that blacks are somehow thieves and yet in this story the only thieves are white – maybe that’s why this year's Centennial of this massacre will never get talked about on social media. Aside from the large black death toll, 75 black farmers ended up being jailed, so think 20 acres of cotton and corn each farmer and you see the financial loss for each of these falsely imprisoned black farmers, diving all further in debt. Those seventy-five imprisoned get whittled down to only 12 black farmers charged with murder but those 12 alone collectively lost $100,000 of property and goods to the mob, which tried to demand their lives. Ida does the math and shows us that “the white lynchers of Phillips County made a cool million dollars last year off the cotton crop of the twelve men who are sentenced to death” and all those who died in the fields of Elaine. These 12 black men, Ida reasoned, had seen how the labor movement had recently protected white men and thus raised hopes about their own future. Someday someone will have to explain to me why theoretically Christian whites have such a long history of shooting and burning black churches; this book shows a photo of the simple one room black-owned Hoop Spur church that was burnt down to remove evidence incriminating to whites after being shot up. To Ida, the Elaine 12 were 12 black men sentenced to death merely for asking for “relief from economic slavery” in a democracy.

[classicmyassics · Rating 4 out of 5]

File it under books to read about Arkansas/United States history ASAP before Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her crew of merry idiots comes clomping in with her cloven hooves and flamethrower

[Chrystal · Rating 3 out of 5]

A clear account of multiple injustices wrought against the Black population of Elaine, Arkansas. The Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America sought only to “advance the interests of the Negro, morally and intellectually, and to make him a better citizen and farmer.” Unfortunately, their attempt to better their condition was met with the undeserved penalties of death, economic suppression and forced emigration at the hands of the white racists in Phillips County and neighboring states. Ida B. Wells-Barnett’s historical record highlights and correctly blames deplorable racists for the loss of life and property in Elaine.

[Janet Morrison-Lane · Rating 5 out of 5]

A short, but extremely important read. So much of our history has been pushed into the shadows, with only the "approved" versions being referenced in our history books. Ida B. Wells writes using the first person accounts of the people imprisoned during the Elaine Massacre as well as accounts from their family. She makes points that are never discussed in history books and deserve to be read. Discovering these books makes me angry that we are not provided with an accurate account of history, but also baffles me that we are still not willing to call these out and start teaching the full picture, which tells me that we have never really moved on from our racist past.

[Fatima · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elaine Massacre

Ida B. Wells has given us the real reason for the Elaine Massacre. Jealous and greed. They killed, jailed and robbed the poor people of Elaine for their cotton and goods.

[Samuel L · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tough to swallow

I never learned this kind of thing in school. It was always a watered down version that gave the impression that Blacks condition was a result of a lack of education and not the deliberate actions by racist Whites to keep Black farmers economically enslaved.

[Renny · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an especially painful book to read for me...

[Ebook Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ebook wasn't available on Amazon but found it on Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-...

[V · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an infuriating read, but necessary for me to understand the intricate ways Black people were oppressed leading up to the beginning of the Great Migration.