Judge muses on uncles slain in Elaine, massacre’s legacy
FAYETTEVILLE — Four black men were killed when they returned to Elaine from a pheasant hunting trip on Oct. 1, 1919.
The four brothers — a doctor, a dentist and two World War I veterans — were from a prominent family: the Johnstons.
They were “murdered and thrown on the side of the road,” said U.S. District Judge Brian S. Miller of Helena-West Helena, the great-nephew of those men. “There’s a picture of the four dead bodies on the side of the road.”
Miller talked about his family on Thursday during a daylong symposium on the Elaine massacre at The David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History in Fayetteville.
Miller said experts believe about 200 people were killed in the massacre, which started after a shooting at a black sharecroppers union meeting on the night of Sept. 30, 1919, at a church in Hoop Spur, three miles north of Elaine. Only five white people died in the massacre, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture, which called it the “deadliest racial confrontation” in Arkansas history.
With a car full of pheasants, the Johnston brothers drove toward a scene of slaughter.
“They were told, ‘Look, you’re in danger. You can’t drive up there with everything that’s going on,’” said Miller.
Then the men were taken from their car, put on a train, then transferred back to a car. Then they were killed, said Miller.
Miller said there are several accounts of how those murders took place. He said the author Grif Stockley points out four narratives in his book on the Elaine massacre, Blood in Their Eyes.
“The truth is none of us really know,” said Miller.
The official story was that one of the four men pulled a gun out of a deputy’s holster and shot him, said Miller. “But we really don’t know,” he said.
According to an NAACP magazine called the Crisis, the Johnston brothers were led into an ambush by supposed white friends. They were placed on a train, then into a car, and driven into the mob, wrote Stockley, citing the Crisis.
O.R. Lilly, a city alderman and real estate man, was about to hand the defenseless men over to the mob when David Augustine Elihue Johnston, the dentist, grabbed Lilly’s gun from him and shot him, according to the article.
“The officers and the mob then shot the men literally to pieces,” according to the Crisis.
In another version, Ida B. Wells-Barnett wrote that the Johnston brothers were being driven away in a car when the mob “blazed away at it” killing them, wrote Stockley.
Miller’s other great-uncles who died in the mob violence that day were Dr. Lewis Harrison (L. H.) Johnston, and his two other brothers who had just returned from World War I, Gibson Allen Johnston and Leroy Johnston.
Miller said some people have wondered if his great-uncles were helping the union organizers.
“It would be very easy to sit here and be the descendent of revolutionaries, but it’s just not true,” said Miller. “Everything I’ve heard about my great-uncles is that they were men of business.”
Miller said his grandfather, Robert Miller, was 13 years old at the time of the massacre. He was sent away to live with a family in Boston. Miller said his grandfather was an all-American football player at Howard University and played five musical instruments — even played in Count Basie’s band before Robert Miller went on to become a doctor.
Miller said his grandfather was distant.
“My grandfather could not form personal relationships with people,” he said. “He did, I guess, but not with his family. … That’s who my granddaddy was. He was all everything. But he was not a good father.
“At some point, I started talking to my dad about this. That man was damaged,” Miller said, referring to his grandfather.
Miller said his father never talked about Elaine.
“The first time I ever heard of the Elaine massacre was probably in the ’80s,” he said.
Miller said he remembers his father reading an article about the Elaine massacre in the Arkansas Gazette. His father had a worried look on his face, so Miller asked him what was wrong.
“This article essentially concludes that the Elaine riot is more legend than truth,” his father said.
“That was the first time I ever heard of Elaine,” said Miller. “It was just matter of fact, like that.”
Miller said he began researching the massacre on his own after reading Stockley’s book about it.
“Elaine caused a lot of problems,” said Miller. “But I would venture to say that I would not be standing here today and I would not be sitting in that courtroom in Little Rock without it. I don’t know that my grandfather would have left Helena and gone off to Howard. … I don’t know that he would have become as driven in his business and professional life as he would had he just stayed in Helena and taken over the family business so to speak. And if that did not happen, I don’t know if my father would have ever gone to medical school.
“I think sometimes we look at all the negatives of these things. Sometimes we have to try to find that one or two nuggets of goodness that came out of it.”
In an interview afterward, Miller said doors opened for him after he moved from Memphis back to Helena-West Helena. Gov. Mike Huckabee appointed him to be an associate judge on the Arkansas Court of Appeals. Then President George W. Bush appointed him to the federal judgeship in the Eastern District of Arkansas.
“In 1998, I moved back home, and everything I have in this world is from being back in Helena, Arkansas,” said Miller. “I’ve had a wonderful life. … If I had stayed in Memphis, I’d never be a federal judge.”
As a child and periodically as an adult, he has re-read his great-grandfather Abraham Miller’s 1911 book How I Succeeded in Business.
“It’s hard to sit around and feel sorry for yourself when a former slave has written down a playbook for you and told you how to overcome it,” said Miller. “I’m drawing upon, in many ways, family history. I’m drawing upon 150 years of history. And I have the responsibility to live up to it. I’m carrying on a legacy, and I’m proud of that.”
Concerning the massacre, Miller said, “I think people spend too much time on the embarrassment and shame about what happened.”
“We have to tell the story, but I like to tell the story to show people how far we’ve come,” he said. “In the United States, we beat ourselves over the head constantly. But come on, look at where we were 100 years ago and look at where we are now.”
We could always do better, said Miller, but we’ve come a long way.