Pine Bluff native and World War I veteran Leroy Alfred Johnston was a member of the Harlem Hell Fighters military band that introduced jazz to Europe during the war. He also posthumously received the Purple Heart because his military record was deliberately altered.
Occasionally I am asked by scholars, journalists, teachers, and students of varying grades to comment on the Elaine Massacre of 1919. While many of the questions are repetitive, from time to time a novel idea or question emerges from the inquiries.
"We Have Just Begun" has a place in the ongoing conversation about how we ought to remember and redress some of the terrible crimes of the past, crimes that generations buried and many people believe should be left undisturbed.
"We Have Just Begun" has a place in the ongoing conversation about how we ought to remember and redress some of the terrible crimes of the past, crimes that generations buried and many people believe should be left undisturbed.
The Arkansas Cinema Society and the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts will host the Arkansas premiere of “We Have Just Begun,” the story of the 1919 Elaine Massacre and Dispossession, at 6 p.m. on Jan. 19 in the Performing Arts Theater at AMFA in Little Rock.