On this day in Labor History the year was 1919.
That was the day that began the Elaine Massacre.
The massacre took place in Arkansas, where more than 100 black farmers and sharecroppers were gunned down for daring to organize their labor.
The Year before, a black farmer by the name of Robert L. Hill had founded the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America.
Union members pooled their money to purchase land.
They also hired a lawyer to sue planters who did not give black tenant cotton farmers their fair share of the profits.
The group grew in membership in the Arkansas delta region, including near the town of Elaine in Philips County.
But white landowners would not allow this challenge to their power.
Armed white militias came to a church where the union was holding a meeting.
The black attendees were also armed.
Gunfire broke out.
In response, white posses and federal troops unleashed a wave of terror across Philips County.
Hundreds of black residents were arrested.
At least 100 black Arkansans were killed.
Some estimates of those murdered is considerable higher.
Five white people also died.
122 black men and women were charged with murder.
Twelve were given the death sentence.
No white vigilante was ever charged.
The convicted African Americans appealed their cases.
One appeal for six of the defendants went all the way to the US Supreme Court, where it was overturned in a landmark ruling.
The year of 1919 was one of the deadliest years of violence against African Americans in U.S. history.
Civil Rights activist James Weldon Johnson called those bloody months the “Red Summer.”
Twenty-six race riots left thousands of African Americans homeless and hundreds dead from Chicago to Washington D.C. to Omaha.
May 11 - Organizing in the Fields
May 10 - Bankruptcy Bonanza for Big Bankers
May 9 - The Historic ‘34 West Coast Maritime Strike Begins
May 8 - Mary Marcy is Born
May 7 - Popeye The Union Man
May 6 - FDR Rolls Out the WPA
May 5 - The Bay View Massacre
May 4 - UE Beats Back HUAC in Dayton
May 3 - First Workers Compensation Law is Passed
May 2 - Our Thing is DRUM!
May 1 - Mayday Marchers Attacked in Cleveland
April 30 - Refinery Workers Walk Off the Job
April 29 - Allis-Chalmers and the Road to Taft-Hartley
April 28 - OSHA Goes Into Effect
April 27 - Disaster in West Virginia
April 26 - National Guard Ousts Montgomery Ward CEO
April 25 - UAW Mobilizes Against Taft-Hartley
April 24 - The California Spinach Riot
April 23 - Sitting Down for Dignity at Ford
April 22 - The Red Jacket Mine Explosion
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