Race, Labor, and Violence in the Delta: Essays to Mark the Centennial of the Elaine Massacre has been reviewed by Rebecca Hill in the Journal of American History.
“Rather than focusing on the events of the massacre itself, a retaliation against Black agricultural laborers who had formed the Progressive Farmers and Household Union in 1919, the essays analyze the long-term conditions from which the massacre emerged as well as the continuing history of African American activism in the context of economic coercion and terroristic violence for decades after. The collection opens with a fascinating essay by Matthew Hild on the 1891 cotton pickers strike, followed by several essays on the 1920s, then moves to the 1950s and 1960s with a new generation of activists fighting new modes of repression. An epilogue from Michael Honey fills in gaps, particularly by connecting the history of the Great Depression–era Southern Tenant Farmers Union to Elaine’s Progressive Farmers and Household Union…. [T]his collection provides novel insights into the history of Black working-class activism and racial capitalism in the early twentieth century and the postwar period in the Mississippi Delta.”
—Rebecca Hill, Journal of American History, June 2024
Race, Labor, and Violence in the Delta (winner of the 2024 John William Graves Book Award, Arkansas Historical Association) 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.