As an avid researcher of labor history, Taylor assembled a collection of newspaper clippings, primary documents, notes, secondary sources, and miscellaneous materials on the Elaine, Arkansas's "Race Riot". The Elaine Race Riot, also called the Elaine Massacre, was a race riot that began on September 30, 1919, in the small town of Elaine, located in Phillips County, Arkansas. The event continued through the month of October. The events in Elaine stemmed from African Americans, emboldened by their wartime experience and mobilized by rising cotton profits and opportunities in Northern factories, organizing militant strategies to counter Phillips County's commitment to white supremacy.

Increased militancy and mobility of black labor only escalated white insecurities and reminded them of their economic dependence on the tenant farmers. Phillips County whites were driven to such extreme levels of brutality to stop a meeting of the Progressive Farmers and Householders Union of America at a church in Hoop Spur, three miles north of Elaine. What resulted was a disproportionate violent response of Phillips County whites. The mob violence and high number of fatalities has attracted international attention. Although exact numbers are unknown, estimates of the numbers of African Americans killed ranges into the hundreds while only five white lost their lives. It is for this reason that the Elaine Massacre has been considered the deadliest racial confrontation in Arkansas history and most likely the bloodiest racial conflict in United States history.

In the aftermath of the violence, 67 African Americans were sentenced to prison and 12 condemned to death. All the sentences were overturned after a six year and highly publicized legal battle ended at the U.S. Supreme Court. Additionally, included in the collection is a tape-recording of an interview Taylor conducted with Alvin Solomon of Helena, Arkansas, who witnessed the riot shortly after returning home from World War I.

Materials include newspaper clippings, correspondence, notes, primary and secondary source documents, manuscripts, and an audio cassette.