OntheLapsofGodsResources

[] Article site has links to numerous primary source documents including newspaper articles. First paragraph of essay: “The Elaine Massacre was by far the deadliest racial confrontation in Arkansas history and possibly the bloodiest racial conflict in the history of the United States. While its deepest roots lay in the state’s commitment to white supremacy, the events in Elaine stemmed from tense race relations and growing concerns about labor unions. A shooting incident that occurred at a meeting of the Progressive Farmers and Household Union escalated into mob violence on the part of the white people in Elaine (Phillips County) and surrounding areas. Although the exact number is unknown, estimates of the number of African Americans killed by whites range into the hundreds; five white people lost their lives.”
 * Elaine Massacre **

[] Link to the full text of Moore v. Dempsey Supreme Court case, 1923.
 * Moore **** v. Dempsey, 1923 **

[] Interactive PBS website with materials on the ‘Rise and Fall of Jim Crow’. There is material here on the Elaine riot and the Moore v. Dempsey Supreme Court case and a link to a 20 minute video on events in Elaine and the Red Summer of 1919. Video introduction: “The Elaine Riot- Tragedy and Triumph: A reign of terror against the black population took place. Machine-gun crews went out looking for people to gun down. Blacks were brought into, in effect, concentration camps and held in all violation of all the laws of the state of Arkansas. In events that were largely overlooked by the history books, whites rioted against the black population. This 20-minute film tells the story of the Elaine Riot.”
 * The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow, PBS **

[|www.wrfoundation.org/pdf/publications/elaine_riot_guide.pdf] This is a link to a teacher’s guide titled “The Elaine Riot: Tragedy and Triumph” compiled by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation. Contains historical narrative on the event and discussion questions, goals for study, and suggested reading.
 * The Elaine Riot: Tragedy and Triumph Teacher’s Guide **

[] For an extraordinary article that appeared in //The Financial Times// on February 19, 2005, written by Andrew Meier discussing the Tulsa, Oklahoma race riot in 1921 go to [|www.ft.com] and at the site type in Meier and Tulsa, Oklahoma.
 * Burnt Offerings (Tulsa, OK Race Riot) **

[|www.jimcrowhistory.org/resources/pdf/hs_es_urban_race_riots.pdf] Very good overview essay by Derrick Ward.
 * Urban Race Riots in the Jim Crow Era **

[] A database of race riots in the U.S.from1898 to 1992.
 * Race Riots: A Comparison **

[] Remarkable website dedicated to the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921.
 * The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 **

[] Link to NY Times book review of //On the Laps of Gods//. Review contains a haunting photograph of 12 of the men placed on trial.
 * “Twelve Innocent Men” **

[] Explore the complex African-American experience of segregation from the 1870s through the 1950s.
 * The History of Jim Crow **

An important book on the topic of lynchings in U.S. history is Philip Dray, //At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America,// Modern Library Paperbacks, 2003. From //Publishers Weekly//: Between 1882 and 1944 at least 3,417 African-Americans were lynched in the United States, an average of slightly more than one a week. It was not until 1952, as Dray notes, that a full year went by without a reported racial lynching. Covering the South's resistance to racial equality from Reconstruction and the 1875 Civil Rights Act (which gave rise to the widespread acceptance of public murders) through the mid-20th century, this prodigiously researched, tightly written and compelling history of the lynching of African-Americans examines the social background behind the horrific acts. Yet Dray also covers the myriad attempts of popular and judicial resistance to lynching, in particular the campaigns led by Ida B. Wells and by the NAACP. He has pulled together a wealth of cultural material, including D.W. Griffith’s 1915 Birth of a Nation, Reginald Marsh’s famous 1934 anti-lynching cartoon in the //New Yorker//, among much else, to supplement his impressive survey of the breadth of lynching in Southern society. While there is much shocking material here the 1918 lynching and disembowelment of eight-month-pregnant Mary Turner; California governor James Rolph Jr.'s 1933 statement that lynching was "a fine lesson for the whole nation" Dray never lets it dictate the complex social and political story he is telling. He faces the underlying sexual impulse of most lynchings head-on and shows how, in the 1913 lynching of Leo Frank, the fear of blacks was transferred to a Jewish victim. Whether he is explicating why the feminist-run Women's Christian Temperance Union refused to speak out against lynching, or why FDR refused to endorse antilynching legislation in the 1930s, Dray balances moral indignation with a sound understanding of history and politics. The result is vital, hard-hitting cultural history.

Another important book on the topic is David Godshalk’s //Veiled Visions: The 1906 Atlanta Race Riot and the Reshaping of American Race Relations//, The University of North Carolina Press, 2009. Book information: In 1906 Atlanta, after a summer of inflammatory headlines and accusations of black-on-white sexual assaults, armed white mobs attacked African Americans, resulting in at least twenty-five black fatalities. Atlanta's black residents fought back and repeatedly defended their neighborhoods from white raids. Placing this four-day riot in a broader narrative of twentieth-century race relations in Atlanta, in the South, and in the United States, David Fort Godshalk examines the riot's origins and how memories of this cataclysmic event shaped black and white social and political life for decades to come.

Nationally, the riot radicalized many civil rights leaders, encouraging W. E. B. Du Bois's confrontationist stance and diminishing the accommodationist voice of Booker T. Washington. In Atlanta, fears of continued disorder prompted white civic leaders to seek dialogue with black elites, establishing a rare biracial tradition that convinced mainstream northern whites that racial reconciliation was possible in the South without national intervention. Paired with black fears of renewed violence, however, this interracial cooperation exacerbated black social divisions and repeatedly undermined black social justice movements, leaving the city among the most segregated and socially stratified in the nation. Analyzing the interwoven struggles of men and women, blacks and whites, social outcasts and national powerbrokers, Godshalk illuminates the possibilities and limits of racial understanding and social change in twentieth-century America.