Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas

In its “Religion” section, Time magazine referred to “the Battle of Jonesboro.” The town had made headlines in the New York Times for what became known as the Jonesboro Church Wars. Following fiery preaching by evangelist Joe Jeffers, two opposing factions, one described as fundamentalist and the other as more moderate, fought each other in the streets, and gunfire was exchanged before order was restored. Local police were of little use as they wanted to join the fight by taking sides. Governor Harvey Parnell called out the National Guard and ten state policemen to keep peace. The guardsmen stood ready with machine guns and fixed bayonets, and an airplane bearing tear-gas bombs circled the town.