The Elaine Massacre: When the US Army Joined a Lyncher’s Posse to Slaughter Black Farmers

Crowd on Elaine's main street. Courtesy of Arkansas State Archives


October 1919: After Black sharecroppers in Elaine, Arkansas dared to unionize for fair cotton prices, white mobs—backed by US troops—hunted them for days. Official reports claimed "5 white deaths," but buried 200+ Black bodies in mass graves. Soldiers weren’t peacekeepers; they provided machine guns and ambulances for the killers, while imprisoning survivors in stockades.

The cover-up was instant: National headlines screamed "BLACK CONSPIRACY," and 12 Black men were sentenced to death based on tortured "confessions." It took decades of appeals to expose the truth—that America’s military has always been a tool of white supremacy in overalls.

(Source: UALR Exhibits - Elaine Massacre Military Role)

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