Day 3 – Winter Production Trip
The location where the Elaine massacre occurred has no signposts. The church where the black sharecroppers had met that night is no longer there. This Space would have disappeared from memory if not for the narratives that have marked its significance. Another pre-dawn morning began with the crew driving westward between Helena and Elaine to film where the massacre had taken place.
Afterwards, we headed back to Helena. There, we went to speak to some of the banks and corporations in order to ask about the government subsidies that they had received which have had little to no impact on the lower class workers of Phillips County. While downtown, we took footage of the many Confederate monuments scattered throughout the area—one which had been erected as recent as 2013.
Towards the end of the evening, half of the crew went to film the tens of thousands of birds that had now made their way to Elaine proper. During sunset, the birds swarmed the water tower, diner, and church surrounding Main St. The other half of the crew went to knock on the door of David Griffin who is the largest landowner in Phillips County. Although residing in Nashville, this mansion was formerly used while in the area. However, the crew found it to be a sprawling but seemingly-abandoned estate—cobwebbed, ill-kempt and riddled with feces.
