[2] Noted as "one of the most notorious incidents of racial violence in the state's history", the prelude to the lynching of John Carter happened on April 30, 1927, with the discovery of the body of a young white girl, found in the First Presbyterian Church.
Tensions over the murder remained high over the next few days, and when on May 4 a Black man, John Carter, was accused of assaulting a white woman and her daughter, an armed posse went looking for him.
[4][5] Over the next few hours a crowd (of up to 5,000 whites) rioted and looted flammable materials from businesses[2] and (mainly pews) from the nearby Bethel African Methodist Episcopal church,[4][5] with which they set the mangled body on fire.
[7] The lynching and the riot were condemned by local and state leaders (such as John Netherland Heiskell in a front-page editorial in the Arkansas Gazette[8]), and the case drew national attention since the focus was already on the South, following the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 (which had itself been the cause of unrest leading to racist violence, including the lynching of Jim and Mark Fox), the image of Arkansas was at stake, and the possible effect on national relief for flood damage.
The white community kept the story under wraps, according to Arkansas Times columnist Jay Barth, but it was as important to the people of Little Rock as the murder of Emmett Till was years later in Mississippi, in that it instilled fear in the Black citizens of a white-dominated town.