Owen Flemming or Flemings ^[1] was an African-American man who was lynched by a mob near Mellwood, Arkansas , on June 8, 1927, after an altercation with a white man who attempted to force him to work on a levee during the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 .

Background, description of events [ edit ]

Flemming was one of many Black citizens who were forced to assist, often at gunpoint, with rescue operations and levee strengthening following the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 . White officials rounded up Black citizens of all layers of society (including business men, doctors, and preachers) and put them to work strengthening levees. According to the Pittsburgh Courier , a national African-American weekly newspaper, the Black laborers were coerced to work without food and many were not allowed to change into workwear . ^[2] White citizens were excluded from partaking in this labor. Nonetheless, according to the Courier , some white men "volunteered to go down and help force the Negroes to work with the aid of a shot gun." ^[2] In Helena, Arkansas , white police officers walked into a Black church during the service and made the men of the congregation work on the levees. ^[2]

Flemming, about whom little is known, was among the forced laborers. According to researcher Nancy Snell Griffith in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas , various articles describe Flemming as "a prominent black man." ^[2] The Courier describes Flemming as a "well-to-do race man of this city." ^[2] The Arkansas Gazette reports that, at the Barton refugee camp, the officials described him as “a bad negro, continually shirking work.” ^[2] Flemming was coerced to work near Mellwood, Arkansas , an unincorporated community some 35 miles (56 km) from Helena.

According to the Courier , Flemming was already working, forcibly, on the levee when he was ordered by a plantation overseer, Roy Waters, to retrieve the mules of the plantation owner, in an area that had flooded. Flemming refused, killed Waters, and was then captured but not arrested: the Helena sheriff, J. D. Mays, was called by the plantation owner Woods, but supposedly said, "I'm busy. Just go ahead and lynch him." The Courier responded:

Along with other phrases, this will go down in history as one of the most notable ever delivered, for it conveyed into the hands of a white mob of 500 people, the living form of Owen Flemming, well-to-do race man of this city, and made of him one more sacrifice upon the bloody altar of the reign of this country's uncrowned sovereign?'King Lynch 'Em'. ^[2]

A very different account came from the Gazette , which said that Roy Waters, the overseer, sent someone to fetch Flemming, who was in a boxcar, to come to the work site, but Flemming refused. Waters then went himself to Flemming, who shot him with a shotgun, and then shot him twice more with Waters's own pistol. (Alternately, Flemming wrestled with Waters, took Waters's pistol from him, and shot him, in self-defense. ^[3] ) Flemming then fled and hid in a tent, and was then surrounded by a posse (of some 500 people ^[4] ) and shot. According to the newspaper from Helena, his "wife and baby were summoned to the scene before the posse fired into the Negro's body." ^[2]

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External links [ edit ]

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