Veterans
of the "long hot summers" of the summers of the 1960s, a time of racial
tension, would have thought it "de ja vu all over again" if
they had remembered 1919. It was a summer of racial tension nationally,
but one of its worst episodes occurred in Longview,
Texas, in Gregg County, in July.
Longview was a
city of approximately 5,700 people, over 2,000 of them African American.
Racial friction in the city focused on black leaders Samuel Jones
and Dr. Calvin Davis, who had urged black farmers to bypass local
cotton merchants and deal directly with warehousemen in Galveston,
promising more profit if they would so do.
Then, an incident sparked a major confrontation between the races.
The Chicago Defender, a national publication primarily read
by blacks, published an article attributed to Jones, about Lamuel
Walters, a local teacher, that a black man from Longview
and his paramour, a white woman who lived in Kilgore.
Walters was then murdered by a white mob.
On July 15, Jones was assaulted by whites, supposedly brothers of
the white woman involved. Later, other whites decided to continue
the beating at Jones' home but when they approached it gunfire chased
them away. Some were wounded, though not fatally, and one was caught
by Jones' friends and beaten. A larger mob, this time well armed,
returned, burned Jones' house, Dr. Davis' home, and the homes and
businesses of other African Americans.
County Judge E. M. Bramblette and Sheriff D.S. Meridith asked Governor
William P. Hobby for help. Hobby responded by dispatching eight Texas
Rangers and placing companies of National Guard located in East
Texas on alert. But the violence in Longview
continued because the Rangers did not arrive in time to stop it. When
additional appeals arrived from Longview,
Hobby ordered the Guard, commanded by General R.H. McDill, to establish
martial law. McDill arrested several whites and blacks for assault
and arson, though none were ever tried, and seized all weapons he
could locate. The guns were returned when civilian authorities resumed
control a week later.
Much about the long hot summers of the 1960s seemed more like class
struggle than pure race riot—television coverage showed many poor
or criminal whites helping black rioters loot urban stores. The long,
hot summer of 1919 in Longview
was all about race. |
