[4] The prevailing story was that the Arthurs refused Hodges' demand to work beyond noon Saturdays and full-Sundays—to pay a debt.

[5] This account was chronicled in a letter from a Paris citizen, who requested anonymity, to James Weldon Johnson, Acting Secretary of the NAACP, who, in turn, forwarded it for publishing in newspapers that included the New York Age and Negro World.

The letter explained that, (paraphrasing) against the usual custom in Paris, Hodges compelled the Arthurs to work all day Saturday, which they did for a period; and, on Sundays, they washed and ironed their clothes.

When the Arthurs attempted to move from the farm, permanently, three days later, the Hodges appeared again, this time fired a gun towards the family as they were packing a borrowed truck.

One of the Arthur sons slipped into the house, retrieved a gun, and returned fire, killing John and Will Hodges.

[6] With a tip from "Pitt" McGrew (née James McGrew; 1875–1943), Herman and Ervie Arthur were arrested the morning of July 6, 1920, in Valliant, Oklahoma, by McCurtain County Deputy Sheriff Weaver and the City Marshall of Valliant, who brought them to Hugo, and at about noon, placed them in the Choctaw County Jail.

[7] Notice of Herman and Ervie Arthur's impending lynching was openly advertised, to wit: "Niggers caught.

"[8] Shortly after their arrival, several hundred men approached the jail with a pinch bar and the leaders battered the outer door.

At 7:30 pm, July 6, 1920, twelve men took Herman and Ervie Arthur from the jail and dragged them out to North Main, to the fairgrounds.

While the Arthur brothers' remains were being dragged through Paris, the sisters were severely beaten ... taken to the basement, stripped of all their clothing and there, reportedly, raped by 20 white men.

[11][17][18] As was reported by the McCurtain Gazette, July 10, 1920, Ernest Christian Steen (1892–1960), office deputy for Choctow County Sheriff Ben Fitzgerald (né Robert Benjamin Fitgerald; 1886–1967), was present when the Arthurs were burned to death.

[19] With respect to the assaults on the three sisters, in 2018, historian Hollie A. Teague wrote, "It is difficult to imagine a scenario in which some of those twenty White men were not jailers, police officers, or sheriff deputies.

[20] The next day, July 7, 1920, McCurtain County Sheriff John William DeWitt (1872–1933) of Valliant told the news media that Lamar County Sheriff William Everett "Eb" Clarkson (1875–1945) had confided in him—while in Idabel the night before searching for those who he thought were the actual killers—that he was sure that one, if not both, of the lynched Arthur brothers would have been found innocent.

[21] There was also a claim that the Arthur brothers likely acted in self-defense following two armed provocations, both by William Hodges (accompanied by his father), who allegedly, during the second incident, fired the first gunshots.

"After the bodies had been burned to a crisp" [sic], Wilbur Clough, dressed in khakis, identified himself as being in charge of the U.S. Government Recruiting Office in Paris and climbed halfway up a telephone pole near the one to which the Arthurs had been bound and announced, "We have done what we came here to do.

"[28] The family photo was arranged by the Chicago Defender, who originally published it September 4, 1920, with the following caption: Facing starvation, Scott Arthur and his family, driven from home like dogs, girls assaulted, sons burned at the stake by Paris, TX mob, arrive in Chicago without money and homeless!

They were taken in charge by Dr. W. W. Lucas, secretary of the Co-Operative Society of America, who discovered them in the Polk Street Station Monday.[29]Rev.

[30] The photo has endured for one hundred and four years—having been published in government reports, history books, and online; but the Arthur family has rarely been identified.

The year before the lynching of Irving and Herman Arthur saw several incidents of civil unrest that spiked during the so-called American Red Summer of 1919, with terrorist attacks on black communities and white oppression in over three dozen cities and counties.

[36] On July 15, the 537th Engineers Service Battalion—(i) Field and Staff, (ii) Headquarters Detachment, (iii) Medical Detachment, and (iv) Companies A thru D; 878 total personnel—departed from the Army's Hoboken Port of Embarkation aboard the USS Great Northern to Brest, France, to serve on the Western Front of the European theatre as part of the American Expeditionary Forces.

On June 28, 1919, Company A, with Private Arthur, departed Brest, France, aboard the USS Mount Vernon and arrived in the Hoboken Port of Embarkation, July 5, 1919[38]—a year and one day before being burned alive with his younger brother.