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.
January 10 - The Rise of Settlement Houses
January 9 - Courts Stand Against Workers
January 8 - Oil Workers Walk Out Across the Country
January 7 - Tragic Youngstown Massacre
January 6 - Remembering Ida Tarbell
January 5 - Ohio First to Enact Black Laws
January 4 - Standing Up by Sitting Down
January 3 - The Power of Folded Arms and Marching Feet
January 2 - A Nation Fed Up, Strikes Back
January 1 - Transit Workers Push Back
December 31 - The Fight for Safer Working Conditions
December 30 - The Day Mines Were Made Safer
December 29 - The Day Work Was Made Safer
December 28 - Heroes in Space
December 27 - Musicians Fight Back
December 26 - Garment Workers Rise Up
December 25 - Debs Released; Real Gift is His Message
December 24 - A Christmas Eve Beating for Striking Workers
December 23 - The High Cost of Low Wages
December 21 - Red Scare Deportations Begin
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