Scipio Jones' Brief to the Supreme Court Regarding the Elaine Twelve

Scipio Jones, a prominent African-American attorney from Little Rock, represented the twelve men convicted for their supposed involvment in the Elaine Race Massacre in 1919. Jones wrote this brief, entitled "Arkansas Peons" and published in the NAACP's magazine The Crisis in anticipation of the U.S. Supreme Court's review of the case.Your petitioners further say that they, together with a large number of their race, both men and women, were taken to the Phillips County jail, at Helena, incarcerated therein and charged with murder; that a committee of seven, composed of leading Helena business men and officials, to wit: Sebastian Straus, Chairman; H. D. Moore, County Judge; F. F. Kitchens, Sheriff; J.G. Knight, Mayor; E. M. A. Lien, J. E. Horner and T. W. Keese, was selected for the purpose of probing into the situation and picking our those to be condemned to death and those to be condemned and sentenced to the penitentiary; that said Committee assumed charge of the matter and proceeded to have brought before them a large number of those incarcerated in jail and examined them regarding their own connection and the connection of others charged with participation in said trouble; that if evidence unsatisfactory to said Committee was not given they would be sent out and certain of their keepers would take them to a room in the jail which was immediately adjoining, and a part of the Court House building where said Committee was sitting, and torture them by beating and whipping them with leather straps with metal in them, cutting the blood at every lick until the victims would agree to testify to anything their torturers demanded of them; that there was also provided in said jail, to frighten and torture them, and electric chair, in which they would be put naked and the current turned on to shock and frighten them into giving damaging statements against themselves and others, also strangling drugs were put their noses for the same purpose and by these methods and means false evidence was extorted from Negroes to be used and was used against your petitioners. Petitioners further say that on every day from October 1, until after their trail on November 3, 1919, the press of Helena and the State of Arkansas carried inflammatory articles giving accounts of the trouble, which were calculating to arouse and did arouse bitter feeling against your petitioners and the other members of their race; … that shortly after being placed in jail, a mob was formed in the City of Helena, composed of hundreds of men, who marched to the county jail for the purpose and with the intent of lynching your petitioners and others, and would have done so but for the interference of United States soldiers and the promise of some of said Committee and other leading officials that if the mob would stay its hand they would execute those found guilty in the form of law. Petitioners further state that prior to October 1, 1919, they were farmers and share croppers; that nearly all the land in Phillips County is owned by white men; that some is rented out to share croppers to be tilled on shares, one-half to the tenant and the other half to the owner; that some years past there has grown up a system among the land owners of furnishing the Negro tenants supplies on which to make crops and which is calculated to deprive and does deprive the Negro tenants of all their interest in the crops produced by them; that in pursuance of this system, they refused to give the share croppers any itemized statement of account of their indebtedness for supplies so furnished, refused to let them move or sell any part of their crops, but themselves sell and dispose of the same at such prices as they please, and then give to the Negroes no account thereof, pay them only such amount as they wish, and in this way keep them down, poverty stricken and effectually under their control; that for the purpose of protecting themselves, if possible, against the oppressive and ruinous effects of this system, the Negro farmers organized societies, with the view of uniting their financial resources in moral and legal measures to overcome the same, which fact became quickly known to the plantation owners; that such owners were bitterly opposed to such societies, sought to prevent their organization, ordered the members to discontinue their meeting and sought by every means they could employ to disrupt them; that on the 30th say of September, 1919, petitioners and other members of the Ratio Lodge, near Elaine, learned that some of the Negro farmers of a nearby plantation had employed U. S. Bratton, an attorney of Little Rock, Arkansas, to represent them in effecting a settlement for them with their landlords, or, if he could not, to institute legal proceedings to protect their interests, and that either he, or his representative, would be there on the following day to meet with all parties concerned, perfect the arrangements, and learn all the facts as far as possible, and decided to hold a meeting with the view of seeing him while there, and engaging him as an attorney to protect their interest; that accordingly they met that night in the Hoop Spur church, which resulted, as hereinbefore set out, in the killing of said Adkins and the breaking up of said meeting: that on th