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Arkansas
Political repression plays out state by state — shaped by local institutions, prosecutors, and movements for defense. These are the documented political prisoners and cases the census holds for Arkansas.
75Documented
0In custody
74Released
Eras of repression in Arkansas
Where Arkansas’s entries fall across the census’s historical eras.
1910s 53
1930s 12
2020s 6
1950s 2
1980s 1
1970s 1
Documented cases
75 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.
Daisy Bates
Released
Daisy Bates was the president of the Arkansas NAACP and the mentor of the Little Rock Nine, arrested in Novemb...
J. M. Danley
Released
J. M. Danley, a farmer, a self-described "good Christian, " a member of the Working Class Union and a fifteen-...
Paul Jacob
Released
Libertarian activist who at a Jan. 5, 1981 Little Rock post-office demonstration publicly told reporters he ha...
Dawn Jeffrey
Released
Dawn Jeffrey is a community activist from Central Arkansas. She is the founder of the Little Rock Freedom Fund...
Josephine Johnson
Released
Josephine Johnson was a novelist arrested at Earle, in Crittenden County, Arkansas in June 1936 for gathering...
Mujera Benjamin Lunga’ho
Released
Mujera Benjamin Lunga’ho is a Little Rock, Arkansas defendant in the federal prosecution of the 2020 Little Ro...
John Martin
Released
One of the "Elaine Twelve," and one of the six "Ware" defendants — Black sharecroppers sentenced to death by a...
H
Henry Avant
Released
One of the Black sharecroppers imprisoned after the Elaine massacre of September–October 1919 in Phillips Coun...
J
John Austin Babbs
Released
John Austin Babbs was a Jehovah's Witnesses conscientious objector from Arkansas imprisoned during World War I...
E
Ed Baker
Released
One of the Black sharecroppers imprisoned after the Elaine massacre of September–October 1919 in Phillips Coun...
A
Alfred Banks Jr.
Released
One of the "Elaine Twelve," and one of the six "Ware" defendants — Black sharecroppers sentenced to death by a...
S
Sam Barber
Released
One of the Black sharecroppers imprisoned after the Elaine massacre of September–October 1919 in Phillips Coun...
D
Dave Benson
Released
Dave Benson was an organizer for the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union arrested during the June 1936 cotton-chopp...
C
Christopher Blake
Released
Christopher Blake was a Jehovah's Witnesses conscientious objector from Arkansas imprisoned during World War I...
C
Christopher Columbus Blakey
Released
Christopher Columbus Blakey was a conscientious objector from Arkansas imprisoned during World War I. Court-ma...
J
Jesse F. Blakey
Released
Jesse F. Blakey was a conscientious objector from Arkansas imprisoned during World War I. Court-martialed for...
A
A. R. Brookins
Released
The Rev. A. R. Brookins was a Black preacher and Southern Tenant Farmers' Union member jailed at Marked Tree,...
A
Abe Brown
Released
One of the Black sharecroppers imprisoned after the Elaine massacre of September–October 1919 in Phillips Coun...
H
Horace Bryan
Released
Horace Bryan was a relief-workers' strike leader convicted of "anarchy" at Fort Smith, Arkansas in 1935 and se...
R
R. L. Butler
Released
R. L. Butler was a Black schoolteacher jailed at Marked Tree, Arkansas in the 1935 raids on the Southern Tenan...
E
Ed Coleman
Released
One of the "Elaine Twelve," and one of the six "Moore" defendants — Black sharecroppers sentenced to death by...
J
J. C. Crenshaw
Released
The Rev. J. C. Crenshaw was the president of the Little Rock NAACP branch, arrested with Daisy Bates in Novemb...
W
Will Curry
Released
One of the Black sharecroppers imprisoned after the Elaine massacre of September–October 1919 in Phillips Coun...
T
T. Dixon
Released
One of the Black sharecroppers imprisoned after the Elaine massacre of September–October 1919 in Phillips Coun...
Institutions in Arkansas
Prisons, jails, and detention centers in Arkansas that appear in the census’s case files.
Arkansas State Penitentiary
47 cases
Cross County JailWynne, Arkansas
1 case
Sebastian County JailFort Smith, Arkansas
1 case
Cummins Unit
1 case