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Scipio Africanus Jones
Attorney & Judge, Civil Rights
Activist & Businessman
Named after a Roman general, Scipio
Africanus Jones was born into slavery, probably late 1863. His master Dr.
Sanford Reamey of Tulip in Dallas County (about fifty miles south of
Little Rock) was a prominent white man and also the father of the child slave.
Dr. Reamey, however, seemed to have played an important role in Scipio's
development and education. Scipio
Africanus Jones after a distinguished legal career as
lawyer and judge died in 1943..
As a
child, Jones attended black schools near Tulip. He moved to Little Rock in the
early 1880s to continue his education. After graduating from the
"preparatory course" at Philander Smith College, Jones received a
bachelor's degree from North Little Rock's Shorter College in 1887. He then
taught school while reading law in the office of three white attorneys. When he
passed the Arkansas bar examination in 1889, Jones became one of Little Rock's
first "home grown" black lawyers.
Just after the Civil War, most black
lawyers in Arkansas came from somewhere else--trained in prestigious schools
such as the Boston College School of Law or the University of Chicago. Others
took correspondence courses or like Scipio Africanus Jones apprenticed to
practicing attorneys.
For the most part, black attorneys were
relegated to non-trial work. They prepared contracts, arranged adoptions and
wills, filed lawsuits between black clients and did other office work.
In a kind of intraracial racism blacks with money hired white lawyers.
And black lawyers had usually only white clients when they were appointed by the
court to represent the indigent.
Scipio Jones received his training
through a firm of white lawyers--his white father had a lot to do with
that.
Twenty-seven black lawyers were admitted to the state bar between 1891 and
1923, a period defined by increasingly difficult race relations and
strengthening segregation.
Scipio
Africanus Jones became a prominent
black Republican and held many party leadership positions. Too young to reap the benefits of Reconstruction, he did not
receive the federal appointments that had been available to an earlier
generation of black Republican loyalists.
Much of Jones's period of
involvement in the Republican party was spent battling the "lily
white" faction that steadily gained power during the early 20th century.
Including his involvement in
Republican politics, Jones was locally prominent also for his work as attorney for the Mosaic
Templars.
However, Judge Jones, appointed to the
bench in 1915, was primarily noted for his defense of twelve black men who in
1919 were convicted of murder after race related violence in Philips
County, Arkansas. He successfully appealed on behalf of these twelve black men who had been
convicted of murder following the Elaine Race Riot. This case brought Jones national
recognition.
Black tenant farmers were
holding a union meeting in a church in Elaine, Arkansas, when shots were fired
just before dawn on October 1. After two days of violence, federal troops were
sent in from Little Rock to quell the riots. Five white men were killed and
estimates of the dead among blacks range from 20 to more than 800.
Although no whites were arrested, 143
blacks were taken into custody and 12 were convicted of first-degree
murder in twenty minutes.
Jones worked with a firm of white
lawyers to free the twelve men. The defense took place over a period of six
years, with one case going as far as the Supreme Court of the United States.
Jones, however, did not go to the nation's highest court.
Though he did not put forth most of the
argument, he did much of the research. In many Arkansas counties, as an
understood rule, a black lawyer could only appear before the bench when
accompanied by a white attorney.
Jones was not hired until late November, after all twelve had been convicted.
He was retained by black Little Rock citizens to work with a white attorney
George W. Murphy, employed by the NAACP, and later as co counsel with Edgar L.
McHaney, another white attorney.
Although he was prohibited from arguing the case, it was through Jones'
efforts, that Moore v. Dempsey, for the
first time, permitted collateral attack, through habeus corpus, on a
state appellate court decision. All twelve defendants were finally freed five
years after their conviction, through a maze of motions, appeals, retrials, and
executive clemency that only a skilled lawyer could manage.
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The episode began on Sept. 30, 1919, when white lawmen
broke up a meeting of black sharecroppers who had
convened in a church in Phillips County, near Elaine, to
discuss forming an agricultural union. One lawman was
killed and another wounded, provoking a mob of white
vigilantes to roam the county for several days. When order finally was restored,
five white people had been killed,
and, officially, twenty-five African Americans -- but most likely substantially more --
were murdered randomly. Despite the many black deaths, no whites were charged after the riot.
However, within a month, an all-white jury convicted twelve black men of murder and
sentenced them to death. The NAACP soon
hired a white Little Rock attorney, George W. Murphy, to
appeal the convictions.
Above right:
Arkansas Gov. Charles Brough, right, accompanied federal
troops to Elaine in 1919 |
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Murphy, in turn, asked Scipio Jones to assist him. When
Murphy died unexpectedly less than a year later, Jones took the lead in the
appeal, and charges against six of the men were dismissed in 1923.
Jones
subsequently made an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court for the remaining six
defendants, whose cases were returned to federal district court for trial. These
six men were sentenced to 12 years in prison, but in 1925 the governor pardoned
them, bringing to a close the most important legal battle in Scipio Jones's long
career as a lawyer.
During the time he worked on the appeal, Jones lived in a modest Colonial
Revival cottage that still stands at 1911 Pulaski St. This was his third home in
the Dunbar neighborhood, following residences at 1808 and 1822 Ringo, where he
had lived with his first wife, Carrie, and their daughter, Hazel.
When Jones
remarried after Carrie's death, he and his second wife, Lillie, lived on Pulaski
for about ten years before building a more substantial and stylish house at 1872
Cross in 1928. The house on Cross, a richly-detailed Craftsman-style residence,
was Jones's home until his death in 1943. The Scipio A. Jones House on Cross Street is one of the eight
historically-black properties in the neighborhood surrounding Dunbar Junior High
being nominated to the National Register of Historic Places.
There are two versions of the
"Elaine race riot of 1919" that left as many as 200 blacks dead: the white version
and the black version. Out of
fear of revenge and retaliation, the stark differences rarely have been
aired in public in this Mississippi Delta community.
In Elaine, on September 30, 1919,
when a white sheriff's deputy was killed and white mobs from
Arkansas and Mississippi took revenge on blacks. No one in
Elaine at this point is leading an effort for reparations.
According to the white version, a black man, Robert L. Hill, organized
a union among black sharecroppers, incited them, planned an insurrection in
which the blacks would kill the whites and take their land. Unprovoked, a white deputy was shot by blacks meeting at a church
near Elaine, and chaos ensued.
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More than 500 federal troops were sent
into Philips County, accompanied by the
governor, to restore order. When it was over, five whites and an undetermined
number of blacks were dead and hundreds of blacks were arrested.
The black version
portrays the whites as the aggressors: The blacks tried to get their fair share of the money from cotton sales by
forming a sharecroppers union to assure an accurate account of how much they were owed by
landowners. Even the number of dead remains up for debate: anywhere from
20 to 200 blacks died in the clash. Though no one
knows for sure who fired the first shot, there is much evidence
that whites attacked and killed blacks indiscriminately. Rather
than the term "riot," the words
"massacre" and "lynchings" are most
appropriate to describe what happened in Philips County. |
Four blacks were killed in the custody of
white law officers. Historical research supports racial abuse,
though the U.S. Supreme Court secured the freedom of the twelve
blacks condemned to be electrocuted
Robert Miller, who last year became the first black mayor of
Helena, grew up hearing the stories because he is related to one of the four
black men who were killed in custody.
"My father talked to me all of my growing up life,"
said the 68-year-old Miller, who also has a medical practice in town. "He
made it plain -- this is one of the things you don't talk about."
Because of the riots, his grandmother sent his father to
Boston to attend school, he said.
Right now, race relations in the county are particularly
strained. The West Helena mayor's office and City Council are divided along
racial lines, and so is the county Quorum Court.
Last week, an Oklahoma state commission recommended
reparations for black survivors of a 1921 rampage by white mobs in Tulsa.
Historians say as many as 300 blacks were killed.
In 1994, Florida approved $2 million in compensation for nine
survivors and dozens of descendants of a 1923 attack on blacks in Rosewood, Fla.
Source:
http://www.nlrsd.k12.ar.us/history/nlrsd_black_history.htm
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Blood
in Their Eyes
By
Grif Stockley
Blood in Their Eyes is required reading for every
Arkansas lawyer, because this time Grif Stockley reviews the work of a
real Gideon Page, a black lawyer named Scipio Jones who read law to
become licensed and became one of Arkansas' outstanding lawyers. Jones
is credited with one of the most important cases in American history, Moore
v. Dempsey 261 U.S. 86(1923), and standing alone many times, saved
the lives of 12 innocent, albeit convicted, black sharecroppers from
Elaine, Arkansas.
The Elaine race riot, as history until now
has called it, is an awful blemish on Arkansas history. It is such a
blemish that most historians have treated it lightly or shied away from
it. But Grif Stockley, an outstanding Arkansas lawyer in his own right,
is not known for shying away from much of anything, and he tackles the
issue head on in his first writing on Arkansas history. In typical
lawyer fashion Stockley analyzes the facts and writes his brief in
Blood in Their Eyes. |
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American Creation
Triumphs and Tragedies in the Founding
of the Republic
By Joseph J. Ellis
This subtle,
brilliant examination of the period
between the War of Independence and the
Louisiana Purchase puts Pulitzer-winner
Ellis (Founding
Brothers) among the finest of
America's narrative historians. Six
stories, each centering on a significant
creative achievement or failure, combine
to portray often flawed men and their
efforts to lay the republic's
foundation. Set against the
extraordinary establishment of the most
liberal nation-state in the history of
Western Civilization... in the most
extensive and richly endowed plot of
ground on the planet are the terrible
costs of victory, including the
perpetuation of slavery and the cruel
oppression of Native Americans. Ellis
blames the founders' failures on their
decision to opt for an evolutionary
revolution, not a risky severance with
tradition (as would happen, murderously,
in France, which necessitated
compromises, like retaining slavery).
Despite the injustices and brutalities
that resulted, Ellis argues, this
deferral strategy was a profound insight
rooted in a realistic appraisal of how
enduring social change best happens.
Ellis's lucid, illuminating and ironic
prose will make this a holiday season
hit.—
Publishers Weekly /
American Creation (Joseph Ellis
interview) |
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The Revolution: A Manifesto
By Ron Paul
Congressman,
Republican Presidential candidate and author Paul (A
Foreign Policy of Freedom) says "Let the revolution
begin" with this libertarian plea for a return to "the
principles of our Founding Fathers: liberty,
self-government, the Constitution, and a
noninterventionist foreign policy." Specific examples
demonstrate how far U.S. law has strayed from this path,
particularly over the past century, as well as Paul's
firm grasp of history and dedication to meaningful
debate: "it is revolutionary to ask whether we need
troops in 130 countries . . . whether the accumulation
of more and more power in Washington has been good for
us . . . to ask fundamental questions about privacy,
police-state measures, taxation, social policy." Though
he can rant, Paul is informative and impassioned, giving
readers of any political bent food for thought. With
harsh words for both Democrats and Republicans, and
especially George W. Bush, Paul's no-nonsense text
questions the "imperialist" foreign policy that's led to
the war in Iraq ("one of the most ill considered, poorly
planned, and . . . unnecessary military conflicts in
American history"), the economic situation and rampant
federalism treading on states' rights and identities
("The Founding Fathers did not intend for every American
neighborhood to be exactly the same"). Though his policy
suggestions can seem extreme, Paul's book gives new life
to old debates.—Publishers Weekly |
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King of the Mountain
The Nature of Political Leadership
By Arnold M. Ludwig
“People may choose to ignore their animal heritage by interpreting their behavior as divinely inspired, socially purposeful, or even self-serving, all of which they attribute to being human, but they masticate, fornicate, and procreate, much as chimps and apes do, so they should have little cause to get upset if they learn that they act like other primates when they politically agitate, debate, abdicate, placate, and administrate, too."—from the book King of the Mountain presents the startling findings of Arnold M. Ludwig's eighteen-year investigation into why people want to rule. The answer may seem obvious—power, privilege, and perks—but any adequate answer also needs to explain why so many rulers cling to power even when they are miserable, trust nobody, feel besieged, and face almost certain death. Ludwig's results suggest that leaders of nations tend to act remarkably like monkeys and apes in the way they come to power, govern, and rule. Profiling every ruler of a recognized country in the twentieth century—over 1,900 people in all, Ludwig establishes how rulers came to power, how they lost power, the dangers they faced, and the odds of their being assassinated, committing suicide, or dying a natural death. Then, concentrating on a smaller sub-set of 377 rulers for whom more extensive personal information was available, he compares six different kinds of leaders, examining their characteristics, their childhoods, and their mental stability or instability to identify the main predictors of later political success. Ludwig's penetrating observations, though presented in a lighthearted and entertaining way, offer important insight into why humans have engaged in war throughout recorded history as well as suggesting how they might live together in peace. |
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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