43. Nearly 300 African Americans Were Arrested
Of the hundreds who were placed in temporary stockades, the soldiers brought 285 African Americans to the nearby town of Helena, where they were held in the county jail. The jail only had room for 48 people, so the conditions were overcrowded and miserable.
According to the Chicago Daily News on October 19, the idea of a black revolution was “only a figment of the imagination of Arkansas whites and not based on fact.” But that fact would not be enough to save the imprisoned African Americans from what would come next.
