Customer Reviews

BLOOD IN THEIR EYES: THE ELAINE RACE MASSACRES OF 1919

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4 star:		(1)
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I couldn't believe it was true! I was mesmerized by this bit of dark (no pun intended) history in our state. I must have been aware that such events happened in the South, but I was aghast at the horror of it. Mr. Stockley, thank you for opening my eyes to reality.

What most distinguishes this book is its relentless honesty. The author pulls no punches and makes no excuses for this disgraceful episode in our history, as many are wont to do. Our Attorney General, Eric Holder, said recently that we have been a nation of cowards where race is concerned. He was right. Grif's account is bold, truthful, and shows the integrity of the man. We need more researchers like him, and we as a nation should support his efforts to encourage us to face who we have been, and to become better.

Well written and a tragic telling of another one of America's disturbing chapters in race relations. Highly recommended.

Blood in Their Eyes is, for the most part, thoroughly researched, but I'm not sure that, with respect to the massacre itself (as opposed to its aftermath), the author, Grif Stockley, marshals his evidence as well as he might have. More specifically, though Stockley cites various estimates of the number of African-American fatalities, from about 20 to over 800, and gauges their credibility, he doesn't firmly state what he believes the range to be. This disappointed me, and is the result, at least in part, I believe, of Stockley's failure to follow up on leads as to the locations of mass graves in the Elaine area. He explains away this failure as arising from locals' fear of specifying the sites, but I think an intrepid journalist could have coaxed out the information in question--and I hope someone one day will.

But Stockley is not a reporter; he's a lawyer. And his treatment of the trials and plea bargains and appeals of the black people arrested following the pogrom is exhaustive and authoritative, although I think it would have helped if had he explained what the elements of the relevant crimes (e.g., first-degree murder, conspiracy) were circa 1920.

A couple of other criticisms, bearing in mind that Blood in Their Eyes is, all in all, a highly informative and well-written book that goes a long way toward filling in a huge gap in our knowledge as to what happened in Phillips County, Arkansas in September 1919 and over about the next half-decade: One, Stockley leans heavily--far, far too heavily--on Daniel Goleman's psychological theories to rationalize the attempts of what he succinctly terms "the white power structure" to cover up the bloodbath in and around Elaine. A far more obvious explanation for the concealment and whitewashing--one that Stockley does not even mention--is that white Arkansans no doubt feared that evidence of a pogrom could smooth the passage of the federal anti-lynching bill Missouri Congressman Leonidas Dyer had introduced in 1918 (the bill eventually passed the House in 1922, but Southern Democrats killed it in the Senate; in 2005, the Senate apologized for its failure to ever pass any anti-lynching legislation).

Two, while Stockley includes a number of photographs in his book, he leaves out the photograph of Will Adkins' car and the bullet holes therein, although he alludes to that same photograph.

Again, though, I don't think that too much should be made of the shortcomings of Blood in Their Eyes. It may not be history at its finest, but it is a major accomplishment nonetheless, and well worth reading.

What most distinguishes this book is its relentless honesty. The author pulls no punches and makes no excuses for this disgraceful episode in our history, as many are wont to do. Our Attorney General, Eric Holder, said recently that we have been a nation of cowards where race is concerned. He was right. Grif's account is bold, truthful, and shows the integrity of the man. We need more researchers like him, and we as a nation should support his efforts to encourage us to face who we have been, and to become better.