Bureau of Investigation Reports and Correspondence on the Phillips County War of 1919

After seeing newspaper reports of the Black insurrection around Elaine, Phillips County, Arkansas on October 2nd, 1919 Frank Burke, Assistant Director and Chief of the Bureau of Investigation in Washington, D. C., telegraphed William McElveen, Special Agent in Charge of the Memphis, Tennessee office of the Bureau, and ordered him to investigate the situation. McElveen telephoned agents Charles Robert Maxey, Conrad M. Walser, both of Little Rock, and Edwin J. Kerwin, of Pine Bluff, and ordered them to meet him in Helena, from where they started their investigation. Here are reproduced the reports, telegrams and memorandum concerning their enquiry. The documents in this volume were obtained from the: Investigative Case Files of the Bureau of Investigation 1908-1922. Records of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Record Group 65, Publication Number M1085; National Archives, Washington, D. C.