October 2, 1919

More than 500 men and twelve machine guns arrived in Elaine (Phillips County) from Camp Pike in order to quell what they had been told was a race riot in progress. Governor Charles Brough accompanied the troops in order to assess the situation. Touched off by white reaction to the possible formation of a sharecroppers’ union, the Elaine Massacre claimed the lives of an unknown number of African Americans, with low estimates at twenty-five and high estimates at 800.