Elaine Race Massacre Education Resources

Teaching the Elaine Massacre involves contextualizing the event within the so-called “Red Summer” of 1919. This ArcGIS project, Race Riots of 1919, provides a geospatial representation of these anti-black riots.

Primary source accounts of the massacre and subsequent trials are numerous.

Chapter 6 of Grif Stockley’s book, Race Relations in the Natural State, provides an accessible overview of the Elaine Massacre, which can be used as a secondary source background reading. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas entry on Elaine is also a good starting place, as are the essays on this website and the Smithsonian Magazine Article “The Elaine 12.” High school teachers might compare these more recent accounts with earlier secondary sources, such as Ida B. Wells-Barnett’s The Arkansas Race Riot(1920), and O.A. Rogers, Jr.’s article “The Elaine Race Riots of 1919”(1960). How do the secondary sources tell the story? What sources do they use? What do they say caused the massacre? Who was involved and why? What were the effects?

Students might also compare these sources with the Wikipedia entry, and evaluate its accuracy. Discuss language, and have students determine whether this event should be termed a “race riot,” “massacre” or something different. Why might the language matter, and to whom?

Several secondary media sources also address the Elaine Massacre, and are easily accessible for teachers and students. The Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation produced educational materials and a video for classroom use, narrated by Ossie Davis. The video is available on YouTube in two parts.

The Elaine Race Riot: Tragedy & Triumph, part 1

The Elaine Race Riot: Tragedy & Triumph, part 2

A brief video produced by Little Rock television station KATV provides an overview and interview with author Grif Stockley. Similarly, a 2017 news report from Northwest Arkansas station KNWA introduces the topic.

More recently, the New York Post produced a shorter video, part of their Dark History series, entitled Elaine Massacre: The Bloodiest Racial Conflict in U.S. History.