In 1905, the 115 African American residents of the sleepy Ozark town of Harrison, Arkansas were given a choice: leave or die. Thus reported Jacqueline Froelich last week at the Black Student Association meeting in the Arkansas Union. Froelich, producer of the popular KUAF radio show “Ozarks at Large,” talked to members and guests of the BSA about black history in northwest Arkansas as part of Black History Month.

Froelich gave accounts from her "Ozarks at Large" program, Arkansas Ozark’s African Americans: 1820 to 1950, which aired on KUAF in 1999. She spoke of African American contributions, and racial tensions, in northwest Arkansas.

"This area has a very rich and wonderful and tenacious history and, like any area of the United States, it has a black history. If you look," Froelich said. She went on to add, "African Americans built much of Benton and Washington counties. They built the road systems and many of the buildings. They farmed, worked in town and ran businesses. Black communities in northwest Arkansas thrived in the late 1800s."

According to Froelich, although there was a growing and thriving black community around the turn of the century, bigotry and discrimination still persisted. These tensions came to a climax on the night of Sept. 30 in Harrison.

The Ozarks at Large story indicates on that night a black man, Dan Lay, was arrested for breaking into the residence of Harrison resident, Dr. Jonathan Johnson. Later that evening a white mob broke into the jail where Lay was being held and severely beat him with wooden rods. They ordered Lay to leave town.

According to the report, the mob then went on to attack the little black community. Beating people, shooting out windows, and burning homes. Most residents were forced to flee Harrison that night, leaving all of their possessions and property behind.

"Only a handful of black families were able to weather the violence and remain in town," Froelich said. According to Froelich, the remaining members of the black community were just getting their lives back together when another attack occurred in 1907, driving the last African Americans from Harrison.

"Before the race wars of 1905 and 1907 there was a thriving African American community in Harrison. People building schools, churches, owning their own businesses and homes. After 1907 they were all gone," she said.

With the help of Green Forrest resident David Zimmerman, Froelich compiled the story of the Harrison incidents from reports she obtained from area papers of the time. Together they went through old copies of the Arkansas Democrat and Arkansas Gazette and back issues of the nearby Berryville paper.

According to Froelich, they began their search by looking in old Harrison papers but soon found that all records of that time period had been destroyed. "Editors of the Harrison paper said, ‘you got this all wrong. It never happened’," Froelich reported.

Froelich also looked in the Harrison courthouse for clues as to what happened. "I looked at the deed records. On the records were new names, the true owners names were scrawled out in red," she said. "Descendants of those who were forced to leave have property in Harrison Arkansas but it has been hard to trace them."

Although local authorities refused to stop or latter prosecute the perpetrators of the mob violence that occurred in 1905 and 1907, according to Zimmerman, Federal Judge John Henry Rogers sought a Grand Jury Indictment of those responsible. Despite the Judge’s efforts, the all white jury, made up of local residents, failed to Indict.

With the Grand Jury’s failure to Indict and those involved eager to keep silent the occurrences of that time period, memories of the Harrison attacks were soon forgotten. Descendants of the families driven out of town were lost to time and life in Harrison returned to normal, except for the clear absence of a diverse community.