June 8, 1927

A mob murdered Owen Flemming, an African American man, near Mellwood (Phillips County). At the time of the lynching, Arkansas was experiencing unprecedented flooding. The Flood of 1927 remains the most destructive in Arkansas history, covering about 6,600 square miles and inundating thirty-six of the state’s seventy-five counties. Many Black citizens who lived along the Mississippi River and other flooding waterways were forced to work on the levees, often at gunpoint. One of these was Fleming, who reportedly killed a man at the levee camp and then fled before being lynched.