Third Memorial Tree Planted to Honor Those Killed in the Elaine Massacre

MEMORIAL WILLOW TREE PLANTED: Dedication Date Set for Saturday, April 23 at 12 noon.

The Third MEMORIAL WILLOW TREE was planted by the Department of Parks and Tourism of the Arkansas Department of Heritage on March 3, 2022. It will be officially dedicated on Saturday, April 23, at 12 noon.

The Memorial Tree planted in 2019 was chopped down. The second died. This third tree went in the ground March 3, 2022.

“There will be security and we are asking the Arkansas Plant Board to enforce crop dusting laws to assure this tree has every chance to grow to maturity,” Elaine Legacy Center Program Director James White said.

“It stands to honor all who died, named and unnamed, in the Elaine Massacre of 1919,” added ELC Board Chair William Quiney III.

The living memorial was approved by and planted by the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism. Donated by the Elaine Legacy Center, 313 College Avenue, Elaine, Arkansas. Special thanks to Willie Mae Quiney for sharing the story of her grandfather.

History of the Memorial Willow Tree in Elaine

We don’t know who planted the first memorial weeping willow tree way back after 1919; but we know it was planted as a memorial marker at a mass grave where bodies of people killed in the Elaine Massacre of 1919 were buried. We know because Pink Brandon kept the memory alive through his grand daughter, Willie Mae Quiney.

We don’t know the exact location but we know it was just south of the corner of Highway 44 and Main Street – not far from the train station then and now the Arkansas Parks and Tourism Bicycle Path Elaine Trailhead. We know because Willie Mae Quiney and her friends walked past. Years later the original memorial tree was hit by lightning and burned.

Pink Brandon wanted to be sure his young granddaughter, Willie Mae, remembered the story of “The Tree”. “He would talk with me when he visited me and my new baby, Joel,” Willie Mae said. He wanted her to know, to remember, to pass the truth to her children when it was safe.

Pink Brandon (born in 1883 in Mississippi; died in 1971; body buried in Cemetery of First Baptist Church of Elaine) was a successful farmer until The Massacre. He had attended Alcorn College in Mississippi and came over to Arkansas because the Elaine area had a reputation for good farming and profitable crops. After the Massacre, Willie Mae remembers him always working in the gin. He owned property in Elaine.

Today’s Willow Tree, in memory of all those who died in the Elaine Massacre of 1919, is in the vicinity of The Tree but not an exact spot. Train tracks have changed and disappeared since then. The original tree was hit by lightening and burned. Before it fell, generations of students walked past, reverently in silence. “Back then people said we lived in The Quarters,” Mrs. Quiney added. “Now we say The North End” and students ride to Marvell instead of walking down the sidewalks of Elaine. The newly planted tree to be dedicated Saturday, April 23, at 12 noon, reminds us of our past and our faith in God that enables us yet today to overcome every obstacle the world places before us.

"The tree is young now. But it will grow to stand as a memorial and shade in the hot weather just as the first memorial tree did. The memorial band on the tree reads: This tree stands in memory of Those who lost their lives In the 1919 Elaine Massacre."