Race, Labor, and Violence in the Delta

Race, Labor, and Violence in the Delta

Author: Michael Pierce

Publisher: University of Arkansas Press

Published: 2022-05-30

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 1610757750

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Race, Labor, and Violence in the Delta examines the history of labor relations and racial conflict in the Mississippi Valley from the Civil War into the late twentieth century. This essay collection grew out of a conference marking the hundredth anniversary of one of the nation’s deadliest labor conflicts—the 1919 Elaine Massacre, during which white mobs ruthlessly slaughtered over two hundred African Americans across Phillips County, Arkansas, in response to a meeting of unionized Black sharecroppers. The essays here demonstrate that the brutality that unfolded in Phillips County was characteristic of the culture of race- and labor-based violence that prevailed in the century after the Civil War. They detail how Delta landowners began seeking cheap labor as soon as the slave system ended—securing a workforce by inflicting racial terror, eroding the Reconstruction Amendments in the courts, and obstructing federal financial-relief efforts. The result was a system of peonage that continued to exploit Blacks and poor whites for their labor, sometimes fatally. In response, laborers devised their own methods for sustaining themselves and their communities: forming unions, calling strikes, relocating, and occasionally operating outside the law. By shedding light on the broader context of the Elaine Massacre, Race, Labor, and Violence in the Delta reveals that the fight against white supremacy in the Delta was necessarily a fight for better working conditions, fair labor practices, and economic justice.


Book Synopsis Race, Labor, and Violence in the Delta by : Michael Pierce

Download or read book Race, Labor, and Violence in the Delta written by Michael Pierce and published by University of Arkansas Press. This book was released on 2022-05-30 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Race, Labor, and Violence in the Delta examines the history of labor relations and racial conflict in the Mississippi Valley from the Civil War into the late twentieth century. This essay collection grew out of a conference marking the hundredth anniversary of one of the nation’s deadliest labor conflicts—the 1919 Elaine Massacre, during which white mobs ruthlessly slaughtered over two hundred African Americans across Phillips County, Arkansas, in response to a meeting of unionized Black sharecroppers. The essays here demonstrate that the brutality that unfolded in Phillips County was characteristic of the culture of race- and labor-based violence that prevailed in the century after the Civil War. They detail how Delta landowners began seeking cheap labor as soon as the slave system ended—securing a workforce by inflicting racial terror, eroding the Reconstruction Amendments in the courts, and obstructing federal financial-relief efforts. The result was a system of peonage that continued to exploit Blacks and poor whites for their labor, sometimes fatally. In response, laborers devised their own methods for sustaining themselves and their communities: forming unions, calling strikes, relocating, and occasionally operating outside the law. By shedding light on the broader context of the Elaine Massacre, Race, Labor, and Violence in the Delta reveals that the fight against white supremacy in the Delta was necessarily a fight for better working conditions, fair labor practices, and economic justice.

Race, Labor, and Violence in the Delta

Race, Labor, and Violence in the Delta

Author: Michael Pierce

Publisher: University of Arkansas Press

Published: 2022-05-11

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 1682262065

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"This essay collection grew out of a conference marking the hundredth anniversary of one of the nation's deadliest labor conflicts - the 1919 Elaine Massacre, during which white mobs ruthlessly slaughtered over two hundred African Americans across Phillips County, Arkansas, in response to a meeting of unionized Black sharecroppers. The essays here demonstrate that the brutality that unfolded in Phillips County was characteristic of the culture of race- and labor-based violence that prevailed in the century after the Civil War"--


Book Synopsis Race, Labor, and Violence in the Delta by : Michael Pierce

Download or read book Race, Labor, and Violence in the Delta written by Michael Pierce and published by University of Arkansas Press. This book was released on 2022-05-11 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This essay collection grew out of a conference marking the hundredth anniversary of one of the nation's deadliest labor conflicts - the 1919 Elaine Massacre, during which white mobs ruthlessly slaughtered over two hundred African Americans across Phillips County, Arkansas, in response to a meeting of unionized Black sharecroppers. The essays here demonstrate that the brutality that unfolded in Phillips County was characteristic of the culture of race- and labor-based violence that prevailed in the century after the Civil War"--

The Elaine Riot of 1919

The Elaine Riot of 1919

Author: Steven A. Anthony

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13:

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"This dissertation examines the racially motivated mob dominated violence that took place during the autumn of 1919 in rural Phillips County, Arkansas nearby Elaine. The efforts of white planters to supplant the loss of enslaved labor due to the abolition of American slavery played a crucial role in re-making the southern agrarian economy in the early twentieth century. My research explores how the conspicuous features of sharecropping, tenant farming, peonage, or other variations of debt servitude became a means for the re-enslavement of African Americans in the Arkansas Delta. However, as black sharecroppers faced economic, social, and political struggles rooted in racism and discrimination; they attempted to change their surroundings through activism and resistance. A point of interest in this work is World War I and how attitudes following the war shaped the ways in which sharecroppers in the Delta region of Arkansas engaged with race and the social order. The emergence of a labor movement became the catalyst for sharecroppers to form a labor union which represented a material threat to white hegemony. In general, this dissertation will explore the causal connections of the Elaine Riot of 1919 and the circumstances that eventually led to the landmark Supreme Court case Moore v. Dempsey (1923)"--Abstract.


Book Synopsis The Elaine Riot of 1919 by : Steven A. Anthony

Download or read book The Elaine Riot of 1919 written by Steven A. Anthony and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This dissertation examines the racially motivated mob dominated violence that took place during the autumn of 1919 in rural Phillips County, Arkansas nearby Elaine. The efforts of white planters to supplant the loss of enslaved labor due to the abolition of American slavery played a crucial role in re-making the southern agrarian economy in the early twentieth century. My research explores how the conspicuous features of sharecropping, tenant farming, peonage, or other variations of debt servitude became a means for the re-enslavement of African Americans in the Arkansas Delta. However, as black sharecroppers faced economic, social, and political struggles rooted in racism and discrimination; they attempted to change their surroundings through activism and resistance. A point of interest in this work is World War I and how attitudes following the war shaped the ways in which sharecroppers in the Delta region of Arkansas engaged with race and the social order. The emergence of a labor movement became the catalyst for sharecroppers to form a labor union which represented a material threat to white hegemony. In general, this dissertation will explore the causal connections of the Elaine Riot of 1919 and the circumstances that eventually led to the landmark Supreme Court case Moore v. Dempsey (1923)"--Abstract.

Life and Death in the Delta

Life and Death in the Delta

Author: K. Rogers

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2006-02-04

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 1403982953

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Terrorism, black poverty, and economic exploitation produced a condition of collective trauma and social suffering for thousands of black Deltans in the Twentieth Century. Based on oral histories with African American activists and community leaders, this work reveals the impact of that oppression.


Book Synopsis Life and Death in the Delta by : K. Rogers

Download or read book Life and Death in the Delta written by K. Rogers and published by Springer. This book was released on 2006-02-04 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Terrorism, black poverty, and economic exploitation produced a condition of collective trauma and social suffering for thousands of black Deltans in the Twentieth Century. Based on oral histories with African American activists and community leaders, this work reveals the impact of that oppression.

Development Arrested

Development Arrested

Author: Clyde Woods

Publisher: Verso Books

Published: 2017-05-02

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 1844675610

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A new edition of a classic history of the Mississippi River Delta Development Arrested is a major reinterpretation of the 200-year-old conflict between African American workers and the planters of the Mississippi Delta. The book measures the impact of the plantation system on those who suffered its depredations firsthand, while tracing the decline and resurrection of plantation ideology in national public policy debate. Despite countless defeats under the planter regime, African Americans in the Delta continued to push forward their agenda for social and economic justice. Throughout this remarkably interdisciplinary book, ranging across fields as diverse as rural studies, musicology, development studies, and anthropology, Woods demonstrates the role of music—including jazz, rock and roll, soul, rap and, above all, the blues—in sustaining a radical vision of social change.


Book Synopsis Development Arrested by : Clyde Woods

Download or read book Development Arrested written by Clyde Woods and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2017-05-02 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new edition of a classic history of the Mississippi River Delta Development Arrested is a major reinterpretation of the 200-year-old conflict between African American workers and the planters of the Mississippi Delta. The book measures the impact of the plantation system on those who suffered its depredations firsthand, while tracing the decline and resurrection of plantation ideology in national public policy debate. Despite countless defeats under the planter regime, African Americans in the Delta continued to push forward their agenda for social and economic justice. Throughout this remarkably interdisciplinary book, ranging across fields as diverse as rural studies, musicology, development studies, and anthropology, Woods demonstrates the role of music—including jazz, rock and roll, soul, rap and, above all, the blues—in sustaining a radical vision of social change.

Racial Cleansing in Arkansas, 1883–1924

Racial Cleansing in Arkansas, 1883–1924

Author: Guy Lancaster

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2014-07-30

Total Pages: 167

ISBN-13: 0739195484

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Even before the end of Reconstruction in Arkansas, the state already possessed a long-standing reputation for violence, including lynchings, duels, and feuds. However, the years following Reconstruction witnessed the creation of new forms of mob violence. All across the state, gangs of whites sought to drive African Americans from their homes, their jobs, and their positions of authority, creating communities shamelessly advertised as “100% white.” This happened not only in the highland regions, the Ozarks and the Ouachitas, where the expulsion of African Americans created so-called “sundown towns,” but it also occurred in the low-lying Delta lands of eastern Arkansas, where cotton was king and where masked mobs of landless “whitecappers” and “nightriders” regularly dealt terror and murder to black sharecroppers. Racial Cleansing in Arkansas, 1883–1924: Politics, Land, Labor, and Criminality by Guy Lancaster is the first book to examine the phenomenon of racial cleansing within the context of one particular state, illustrating how violence relates to geography and economic development. Lancaster analyzes the wholesale expulsion of African Americans and the emergence of “sundown towns” together with a survey of more limited deportations, including those with blatant political goals as well as vigilante violence. The book has broader implications not only for the study of Southern and American history but also for a deeper understanding of ethnic and racial conflict, local politics, and labor history


Book Synopsis Racial Cleansing in Arkansas, 1883–1924 by : Guy Lancaster

Download or read book Racial Cleansing in Arkansas, 1883–1924 written by Guy Lancaster and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2014-07-30 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Even before the end of Reconstruction in Arkansas, the state already possessed a long-standing reputation for violence, including lynchings, duels, and feuds. However, the years following Reconstruction witnessed the creation of new forms of mob violence. All across the state, gangs of whites sought to drive African Americans from their homes, their jobs, and their positions of authority, creating communities shamelessly advertised as “100% white.” This happened not only in the highland regions, the Ozarks and the Ouachitas, where the expulsion of African Americans created so-called “sundown towns,” but it also occurred in the low-lying Delta lands of eastern Arkansas, where cotton was king and where masked mobs of landless “whitecappers” and “nightriders” regularly dealt terror and murder to black sharecroppers. Racial Cleansing in Arkansas, 1883–1924: Politics, Land, Labor, and Criminality by Guy Lancaster is the first book to examine the phenomenon of racial cleansing within the context of one particular state, illustrating how violence relates to geography and economic development. Lancaster analyzes the wholesale expulsion of African Americans and the emergence of “sundown towns” together with a survey of more limited deportations, including those with blatant political goals as well as vigilante violence. The book has broader implications not only for the study of Southern and American history but also for a deeper understanding of ethnic and racial conflict, local politics, and labor history

American Congo

American Congo

Author: Nan Elizabeth Woodruff

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2009-07-01

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0674045335

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This is the story of how rural Black people struggled against the oppressive sharecropping system of the Arkansas and Mississippi Delta during the first half of the twentieth century. Here, white planters forged a world of terror and poverty for Black workers, one that resembled the horrific deprivations of the African Congo under Belgium’s King Leopold II. Delta planters did not cut off the heads and hands of their African American workers but, aided by local law enforcement, they engaged in peonage, murder, theft, and disfranchisement. As individuals and through collective struggle, in conjunction with national organizations like the NAACP and local groups like the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union, Black men and women fought back, demanding a just return for their crops and laying claim to a democratic vision of citizenship. Their efforts were amplified by the two world wars and the depression, which expanded the mobility and economic opportunities of Black people and provoked federal involvement in the region. Nan Woodruff shows how the freedom fighters of the 1960s would draw on this half-century tradition of protest, thus expanding our standard notions of the civil rights movement and illuminating a neglected but significant slice of the American Black experience.


Book Synopsis American Congo by : Nan Elizabeth Woodruff

Download or read book American Congo written by Nan Elizabeth Woodruff and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the story of how rural Black people struggled against the oppressive sharecropping system of the Arkansas and Mississippi Delta during the first half of the twentieth century. Here, white planters forged a world of terror and poverty for Black workers, one that resembled the horrific deprivations of the African Congo under Belgium’s King Leopold II. Delta planters did not cut off the heads and hands of their African American workers but, aided by local law enforcement, they engaged in peonage, murder, theft, and disfranchisement. As individuals and through collective struggle, in conjunction with national organizations like the NAACP and local groups like the Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union, Black men and women fought back, demanding a just return for their crops and laying claim to a democratic vision of citizenship. Their efforts were amplified by the two world wars and the depression, which expanded the mobility and economic opportunities of Black people and provoked federal involvement in the region. Nan Woodruff shows how the freedom fighters of the 1960s would draw on this half-century tradition of protest, thus expanding our standard notions of the civil rights movement and illuminating a neglected but significant slice of the American Black experience.

The Elaine Massacre and Arkansas

The Elaine Massacre and Arkansas

Author: Guy Lancaster

Publisher: University of Arkansas Press

Published: 2018-06-01

Total Pages: 247

ISBN-13: 1945624302

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Although it occurred nearly a century ago, the Elaine Massacre of 1919 remains the subject of intense inquiry as historians try to answer a multitude of questions, such as why authorities in the Arkansas Delta used such overwhelming violence to put down a farmers’ union, exactly how many people were killed in the massacre, and how the event shaped the following century. We cannot fully understand what happened at Elaine without examining the one hundred years leading up to the massacre. An analysis of the years from 1819, when Arkansas officially became an American territory, to 1919 provides the historical foundation for understanding one of the bloodiest manifestations of racial violence in U.S. history. During the antebellum years, slaveholders grew paranoid about possible “insurrections,” and after the Civil War and Emancipation, these fears lingered and led to numerous atrocities long before Elaine. At the same time, African Americans—particularly fieldworkers—worked to organize themselves to resist oppression, setting the stage for the farmers’ union that was the target for mob and military wrath during the Elaine Massacre. These essays provide the larger history necessary for understanding what happened at Elaine in 1919—and thus provide a window into the current state of Arkansas and the nation at large. Contributors include Richard Buckelew, Nancy Snell Griffith, Matthew Hild, Adrienne Jones, Kelly Houston Jones, Cherisse Jones-Branch, Brian K. Mitchell, William H. Pruden III, and Steven Teske.


Book Synopsis The Elaine Massacre and Arkansas by : Guy Lancaster

Download or read book The Elaine Massacre and Arkansas written by Guy Lancaster and published by University of Arkansas Press. This book was released on 2018-06-01 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although it occurred nearly a century ago, the Elaine Massacre of 1919 remains the subject of intense inquiry as historians try to answer a multitude of questions, such as why authorities in the Arkansas Delta used such overwhelming violence to put down a farmers’ union, exactly how many people were killed in the massacre, and how the event shaped the following century. We cannot fully understand what happened at Elaine without examining the one hundred years leading up to the massacre. An analysis of the years from 1819, when Arkansas officially became an American territory, to 1919 provides the historical foundation for understanding one of the bloodiest manifestations of racial violence in U.S. history. During the antebellum years, slaveholders grew paranoid about possible “insurrections,” and after the Civil War and Emancipation, these fears lingered and led to numerous atrocities long before Elaine. At the same time, African Americans—particularly fieldworkers—worked to organize themselves to resist oppression, setting the stage for the farmers’ union that was the target for mob and military wrath during the Elaine Massacre. These essays provide the larger history necessary for understanding what happened at Elaine in 1919—and thus provide a window into the current state of Arkansas and the nation at large. Contributors include Richard Buckelew, Nancy Snell Griffith, Matthew Hild, Adrienne Jones, Kelly Houston Jones, Cherisse Jones-Branch, Brian K. Mitchell, William H. Pruden III, and Steven Teske.

The Black Worker

The Black Worker

Author: Eric Arnesen

Publisher:

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13:

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Contains eleven essays that address issues faced by African-American workers since the late-nineteenth century, such as economic insecurity, the rise and fall of NAACP, and the civil rights movement.


Book Synopsis The Black Worker by : Eric Arnesen

Download or read book The Black Worker written by Eric Arnesen and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contains eleven essays that address issues faced by African-American workers since the late-nineteenth century, such as economic insecurity, the rise and fall of NAACP, and the civil rights movement.

Development Arrested

Development Arrested

Author: Clyde Adrian Woods

Publisher: Verso

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13: 9781859848111

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Development Arrested is a major reinterpretation of the two-centuries-old conflict between African American workers and the planters of the Mississippi Delta. Ranging across disciplines as diverse as rural studies, musicology, development studies and anthropology, it provides a unique assessment of the impact of the plantation system on those who suffered its depredations at first hand.


Book Synopsis Development Arrested by : Clyde Adrian Woods

Download or read book Development Arrested written by Clyde Adrian Woods and published by Verso. This book was released on 1998 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Development Arrested is a major reinterpretation of the two-centuries-old conflict between African American workers and the planters of the Mississippi Delta. Ranging across disciplines as diverse as rural studies, musicology, development studies and anthropology, it provides a unique assessment of the impact of the plantation system on those who suffered its depredations at first hand.