“We Have Just Begun,” a documentary about the Elaine Massacre of 1919, will screen at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts on Friday, Jan. 19. The Arkansas Cinema Society is co-sponsoring the event.
With a death toll sprawling into the hundreds, the Elaine Massacre is one of the deadliest — if not the deadliest — race-related conflicts in U.S. history, but many Arkansans and Americans alike haven’t ever heard about it. The film, directed by Arkansas native Michael Warren Wilson, attempts to remedy that while also reckoning with the incident’s ever-looming legacy.
Wilson said in a press release:
“After interviewing dozens of descendents, historians, and current residents of the Delta, it’s clear to me that the Elaine Massacre was the deadliest race or labor battle in American history. Yet, despite growing up in Arkansas, I knew nothing about it prior to my research. The centennial in 2019 brought the event more publicity, but the full truth of it was obscured even then. The Elaine Massacre and subsequent dispossession of Black people has reverberated into the present. Today, the people of the Arkansas Delta have even fewer options, yet remain dominated by many of the same historical forces they fought in 1919. Elaine is Arkansas. Understanding Elaine is to understand the ways in which capitalist domination and exploitation of the Delta has defined Arkansas economic and social life — activating and intensifying the racial legacies of enslavement and maintaining inequality in the region.”
“We Have Just Begun” was made with the help of several Arkansans including Joshua Asante, who provided original music. For a full list of credits, head here.
Following the film’s screening at 6 p.m. in AMFA’s Performing Arts Theater, Wilson will participate in a Q&A. Tickets are available here.
