Black Sharecroppers in Arkansas Organize Progressive Farmers Union, Massacred at Elaine

The Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America was organized by Black sharecroppers in Phillips County, Arkansas in 1919 to collectively negotiate cotton prices with planters and obtain better contracts. Led by Robert Hill, it had attracted hundreds of members by the fall. Their organizing was the direct provocation for the Elaine Massacre, in which white mobs and federal troops killed 100-237 Black residents. The response to their peaceful economic organizing — massacre and mass imprisonment — illustrated the violent enforcement of racial economic hierarchy.