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Peter Beasley came to Arkansas from Mississippi, where he attended Tougaloo College, and was listed as an attorney in the 1909 Helena (Phillips County, Arkansas) City Directory (indicating a Circuit Court admission). He was admitted to practice in the Pulaski County circuit court on December 23, 1910. Beasley appears in the Little Rock City Directory of 1911-12. He may have met Black attorney Scipio Jones during this period. Beasley returned to Helena and is listed as an attorney in the Helena City Directories of 1917 and 1920. Beasley apparently was one of the attorneys (otherwise all white men) who were appointed to represent Black defendants after the 1919 Elaine race riots. He later helped Scipio Jones to defend Black defendants on appeals from those first trials. Family history says that Scipio Jones used Beasley’s office while in Helena representing the Elaine defendants and that they were fast friends until their deaths, a few months apart, in 1943. Beasley had remained in a general practice in Helena until his death on June 30, 1943.
Sources: Judith Kilpatrick, “(EXTRA)Ordinary Men: African-American Lawyers and Civil Rights in Arkansas Before 1950,” 53 Ark. Law Rev. 299,347 n350, 367, 369, 370, 375, 380 n626 (2000); Interview with daughter, Ora Beasley Quarles (daughter), 2/10/2000; Copy of Attorney’s License, Pulaski County Circuit Court, dtd 9/23/1910 (copy);