Southern Racism Stronger Than War Department And Department of Justice in 1942

 

United States Attorney General Francis Biddle

Beaumont, Texas August 14, 1942 ― On this da/y United States Attorney General Francis Biddle announced that the Department of Justice was for the first time ever initiating legal action against two police officers, Clyde Brown and Billy S. Brown, of the Beaumont, Texas Police Department for Civil Rights violations. The charges were brought for violations of a soldier’s civil rights. 

On July 28^th of 1942 Private Charles J Reco boarded a city bus in Beaumont. The White driver forced him off the bus and into the vindictive and bigoted hands of Beaumont police who beat him badly

Private Reco was on leave and visiting family and friends. While the defense contractors had been desegregated nothing else had, Jim Crow was still in full effect in south Texas. Beaumont was going through a massive boom because the city had become one of the hubs for ship production for World War Two. Both Blacks and Whites had come to the city for work in the defense industry. The competition for jobs and housing exacerbated the existing racial tensions.

So, when Private Reco sat down he did sit in the “Negro Section” but apparently his knees stuck out over this idiotic racial barrier and the driver told Reco to move, since he was seated in the right section Reco told the driver where he could go with several profane adjectives. The driver then called the police.

Once stopped Reco got off the bus, and right into the nightstick of Officer Clyde Brown. Reco stumbled but did not go down and Brown hit him several more times, with enough force to break his hand. There were four officers waiting for Reco and he fought them when they tried to put him in their car. The police officer Billy S. Brown alleged that Reco had attempted to grab his revolver, so he shot Raco in self-defense. A third officer, Ben White also shot Reco. Even with four bullet wounds Private Reco was taken to the police station and charged with disturbing the peace and using abusive language, strangely he was not charged with violating the color line.

From the jail he was transported to the army hospital in Galveston where he healed all his wounds. Reco then requested to speak with superior officers about what happened and requested civil action.

When the charges were filed Beaumont representatives responded as you would expect with total lack of interest. The Chief or Police Ross Dickey stated he would have his officer’s back. “I’m not going to allow my men to get beaten up or cut up as they have in the past” Dickey said. He really wouldn’t have to worry about it.

The case progressed but Biddle wasn’t the man in charge. U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas Steve M. King was the primary prosecutor. King wasn’t a novice he had been in his position since 1936 and had several big cases. He committed investigators to the case but hit a giant White wall. The bus driver J.M. Kirl insisted that not only was Reco profane and rude but threatened him with a knife. The Beaumont police provided minimum cooperation. Even though they spent 4 months trying to collect evidence of the brutality of the two officers, the grand jury refused to indict.

King held a news conference on January 16^th, 1943, to acknowledge that he couldn’t prosecute, “we’re lacking in the elements promising a successful prosecution.” King appeared to be frustrated knowing that bigotry and racism had again emerged victorious in the Jim Crow era.

This was confirmed when the Whites in Beaumont rioted against Blacks in June of 1943 as well as other threats and deaths that were racial motivated over the next 25 years.

Black Protest to Desegregate Mississippi Beaches Ends in Violence by Whites

African Americans flee from violent White mobs on the beach in Biloxi on April 24, 1960, 

Jim Lund Daily Herald File

April 24, 1960, Biloxi, Mississippi. – Dr. Gilbert Mason was a lifetime resident of Mississippi. In the 1950s he developed a respected and growing practice in Biloxi. He was the 2^nd Black doctor in Harrison Couty following Dr. Felix Dunn who was still active, the two became friends and colleagues. In May of 1959, the two doctors took their families to the beach but were threatened with arrest by a White police officer. This event turned Mason’s attention to the Civil Rights Movement.

Biloxi has 26 miles of beachfront and it was “White Only." In his autobiography Mason described himself, as “an idealistic young man who loved to swim, and the idea that these oak-lined beaches couldn’t be accessed by me, well I had no intention of living out my life or having my son live with these racist segregation laws.”

So he and Dunn set out to try and change the situation. First, they wrote to the Harrison County Board of Supervisors and asked what laws prohibited Blacks from using the beaches. The board president wrote back that private property owners restricted access to the beach and to 1,500 feet out in the Gulf of Mexico. Then they petitioned to be allowed to use the beach and were offered a small section that would be segregated. Mason and Dunn rejected this.

Mason then turned his attention to what he called “Wade-Ins.” He did the first two in June and October 1959 and planned the other for April 1960. This came after months of planning with the Gulfport NAACP. On April 17, Mason and seven other Black men attempted to go to the beach and swim; they were arrested. Word got around the city; Biloxi had 10,000 black residents, and people lined up to help support Mason.

One week later on April 24^th Mason and 125 other Black residents attempted to use the beach. This time they were met not with law enforcement but hundreds of angry White residents. These angry people fit the stereotypical racist Mississippi bigot. They began with name-calling and quickly escalated to objects throwing and firing guns into the air. Soon they attacked with bats and bricks and other weapons.

That morning Mason had driven the oceanfront property and noticed Harrison County Sheriff’s Deputies on the beach and around what the NAACP had set as their three target zones. “I mistakenly thought they were being positioned to protect us,” Mason said in his autobiography. As he headed toward the lighthouse where he had previously been arrested he saw 500 White people surrounding about 45 Blacks. I started praying because I thought we were leading lambs to slaughter,” Mason said.

There were dozens of Sheriff Deputies around but that’s all they were doing, standing around. As the Blacks struggled to break through Mason and other organizers realized they were all in serious danger because the law enforcement was there to protect the Whites if they were there to protect anyone.

Mason saw two boys he knew being beaten by five men, so he just stopped in the middle of the highway and rushed to stop them. When one of the men tried to use a pool cue against him he took it from the man and beat him down. When another man jumped him he bit him. Then the Deputy Sheriff, Merritt Brunies finally intervened by arresting the two boys and then telling Mason he was under arrest. Mason told him he didn’t have time to be, jumped over the sea wall with the pool cue, and headed to help people being beaten.

As Blacks ran from the beach they were pursued by gangs of Whites. Some got away and others were beaten badly while no law enforcement intervened. Some went to the hospital and others went to Dr. Mason’s office. Mason went by the hospital and was checking on various people but because he had no attending rights he had to leave. One doctor filed a complaint after Mason checked on his close friend Wilmer McDaniel. At his office, Mason cared for people by bandaging and stitching up people and giving them tetanus shots.

As the day went on the violence didn’t stop it spread out into the city becoming the worst race riot in Mississippi history. White gangs randomly hunted for Blacks and used pipes, clubs, and guns. Large groups of Blacks surrounded Mason’s office and pledged to protect him. Law enforcement drove around using loudspeakers to warn Blacks that Mason would be held responsible for any trouble.

Dunn joined Mason at his office to help people but to also plan how to get the national NAACP involved as leaders Roy Wilkins and Clarence Mitchell were in Meridan they assigned Medgar Evers to investigate and promised to send aid. Then Mason turned himself in to the Sheriff, where Deputy Brunies made the arrest, and was shocked Mason turned himself in. It became Mason’s 2^nd charge for disturbing the peace in a week.

After the riot ended dozens were injured, eight Black men and two White men were shot and seven airmen from nearby Kessler Air Force base were injured in fighting. Dozens of Black men besides Mason were arrested for disturbing the peace but no Whites were for anything. The mayor ordered a curfew and finally ordered law enforcement to quell the violence.  

In the aftermath, the usual was said by White men. President of the Biloxi Chamber of Commerce Anthony Ragusin claimed that the NAACP caused the riots and violence and were financed by, “Foreign Powers wanting to harm the United States.”

Mason and Dunn founded the Biloxi NAACP chapter in the weeks after and the U.S. Department of Justice sued the city to force the desegregation. The NAACP also sued hoping to force the city to do it more quickly. However, the city was able to delay this until 1963.

Mason served as the state president of the Mississippi & Biloxi NAACP for 33 years, as a scoutmaster, and continued his practice. He was a committed activist until his wife died in 1999. He led voter registration drives and supported legal actions to force the state to eliminate the poll tax.

Mason died in 2006 and as part of his legacy, a section of U.S. Highway 90 by Biloxi has been renamed the Doctor Gilbert Mason Memorial Highway. There is a historical maker at the Biloxi lighthouse marking the wade-ins and Mississippi’s own Bloody Sunday.

 

Sources:

Beaches, Blood, and Ballots. N.p.: University Press of Mississippi, 2009.

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/biloxi-wade-ins-1959-1963/

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1960/04/26/105428379.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0

https://www.usm.edu/association-office-professionals/uploads/forgettingthewadeinsarticle.pdf

 

The Petway Family: Freedom Flyers Against Segregation

The Petway Family and Cecil Thomas mug shots from July 24, 1961

July 24, 1961 – Jackson, Mississippi, The summer of 1961 is the summer of the “Freedom Riders” when hundreds of protesters, both Black and White, descended on the Southern states to try and break the hold of Jim Cros and segregation on the states most determined to keep segregation as the way of life. The Supreme Court had ruled in the case of Boynton V. Virginia that laws dictating segregation on interstate travel were unconstitutional and the Freedom Riders were determined to ensure that the law was enforced. Everyone who took part had an individual story of those protests, from the tragic events like the mob beatings of Freedom Riders in the cities of Anniston and Montgomery Alabama to the mundane of arrests and hearings.

On this day one family attempted to desegregate the municipal airport in Jackson, Mississippi. The Reverend Matthew Petway and his two children, daughter Kredelle, 20, and son Alphonso, 16. They had flown in from the segregated airport in Montgomery, but the intention was to test the law in Mississippi. Once at the airport they got off the plane and headed for the White-only restaurant, only to find it closed. Then they noticed the heavy law enforcement presence. So, the city knew they were coming and decided to try to preempt the protest. The family of three headed for the Whites only water fountain which was when police stepped in and arrested them for breaking the peace. Cecil Thomas, a YMCA secretary in Berkeley, California was also arrested. Thomas’ son Steven and friend Tom Schooley were also on the flight but did not enter the airport and were not arrested.

Reverend Petway had been an activist since he was discharged from the army after World War Two. He then settled in Pensacola Florida and married. In 1958 He took on the role of pastor at the AME Zion Church in Montgomery. In the spring of 1961, he was approached by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Reverend Ralph Abernathy about doing a “Freedom Flight” with his two children.

Reverend Petway’s daughter Kredelle was 20 and a student at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, Florida. Kredelle had been very active with the student union there and was involved in protests for equal rights. She had been exposed to many of the tactics of law enforcement used in Alabama, fire hoses, and attack dogs. She had also been arrested. In Montgomery, she worked with her father and brother as part of the Montgomery Improvement Association’s voter registration campaign. 

Alphonso Petway was 16 at the time and had not been to a protest actively yet but attended meetings with his father and had experienced racism as a student in Florida where he had to walk past a White school to get to his and had often been verbally attacked and had objects thrown at him. He also was protecting his family, while his father was out of town, from the Klan.

After being arrested Reverend Petway, Alphonso, and Thomas Cecil were taken to the Hinds County Jail and Kredelle to the women’s jail. The family was separated for two days before a bond hearing and then another day before being released. The Pettways felt fortunate they said because they did not experience the violence so many others did. The experience did reinforce their will to see things change, particularly for Alphonso. He has said in interviews that the “stupid illogic of segregation,” bothers him still.

A year after the arrests all charges were dropped. The Petway family didn’t end what they were determined to do though. Reverend Petway worked on different civil rights campaigns until his death in 1972. Kredelle went back to college to finish the semester and at that time got tear-gassed. She married and had three children. In 1967 she went to work at the IRS and started the subtle work of recruiting more African Americans to work in the service and push them upward in the administration. Alphonso followed his father’s footsteps and became a pastor. He also continued to work with the NAACP and the Poor People’s Campaign. He’s still actively involved in voting rights. 

While men like Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett tried to keep segregation alive  the  Commerce Department and the Justice Department used the Interstate Commerce Act and associated court rulings to end segregated bus services and segregated airports in 1962 and in 1962 after two civil suits.

Sources:

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/freedom-rides

https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/desegregation-airports-american-south

https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/2020/03/16/kredelle-petway-womans-view-freedom-rider-flight-and-life-service-followed/5021930002/

https://breachofpeace.com/blog/?p=9

https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/2019/06/04/freedom-flyer-alphonso-petway-reflects-1961-bus-attacks-jackson-mississippi-airport-arrest/1202293001/

 

Southern Governors Meet And Resolve To Ignore The Supreme Court Degegregation Order

Richmond, VA Jun 10, 1954, in the weeks after the Supreme Court had handed down the Brown vs Board of Education decision ordering an end to racial segregation in all public schools in the United States there was turmoil and anger, especially of course in the Southern states.

In response on June 10, the governors of 15 southern states met collectively in Richmond to attempt to develop a united front to respond to the court’s order. There was virtually no consideration in voluntarily complying and desegregating their schools.

Along with the 15 governors, were the state's Attorney Generals and other legal counsel and staff. The conference was opened by the host Virginia Governor Thomas B. Stanley stated that his commitment to Virginia was to find a legal way to keep segregation and the “Separate but Equal” status in place since reconstruction.

Early in the conference the three border states of West Virginia, Maryland, and Kentucky bowed out of any resolution or activity that would defy the court. “Our problem is a little different from these fellows,” said West Virginia Governor William C. Marland. “Our issue is administrative while theirs is philosophical.”

This conference in many ways is one of the seeds of the modern issue of school choice and Nixon’s 1968 Southern Strategy. In fact, Georgia’s infamous governor Herman Talmadge spoke publicly and all but guaranteed that this would cost Eisenhower several states in 1956. “The decision will guarantee that every Southern state will go Democratic,” Talmadge said. “While there are 7 Democrats and only two Republicans on the court it is Earl Warren from California that Mr. Eisenhower appointed Chief Justice and he somehow wrote a decision that he pressured them to all go along with.” This reasoning is part of the reason Talmadge was so strongly connected with segregation and racism in his career. He had already gone so far as to say that it was possible Georgia would close schools rather than comply, the governors of South Carolina and Mississippi agreed with him on this.

This meeting was just the first in an ongoing series where the traditional Southern states confirmed their absolute commitment to segregation. Virginia’s Attorney General, Lindsay Almond Jr. had argued for Separate but Equal but even a loss did not deter him. “I believe much was accomplished,” said Almond “There were no differences between the states as to the difficulties we face, Virginia was a litigate before the court and we will continue to be until this is settled.” Eventually one of Virginia's ways of handling it was to shut down public and private schools from 1959 to 1964.

These high-profile leaders coming together to commit to racist policies in their states and using both their legal power and the political pulpit to create a climate of fear and intimidation both in real physical terms and in economic ways that would harm Black Americans and their children well into the 1970s far beyond the south. 

 Sources: 

The Roanoke Times ● Roanoke, Virginia ● Fri, Jun 11, 1954

The Daily Review ● Clinton Forge, Virginia ● Thur. Jun 10, 1954

Racism & Segregation Defined: Prince Edward County's Lost Classes of 1959 to 1964

May 1, 1959, is when the seeds were planted for a movement that today threatens America’s public schools. On this day the Prince Edward County School District closed their public schools. This was done with the help of the state legislature that had lifted a law mandating all children had to attend schools. 

The closing of the schools lasted for 5 years until the Supreme Court stepped in ruling that what Virginia was trying to do was illegal, especially in light of the Brown v. Board of Education Decision of 1954.

The Brown decision was a cultural earthquake that shattered “Whites Only” education across the South. For more than a decade after full integration had not come to all states, primarily because the states were trl district began sending White students to private schools. Also, the state and county offered tax credits and other indirect ways to make sure these private schools were fully funded and could operate. 

The private school provisions were only made for White students though as these private schools could still practice segregation in opened in demographic areas that were over 97% White.

These actions drew the attention of national politicians, media, and civil rights leaders. The spotlight began getting bright with protests and legal challenges initiated by the NAACP. Then came the documentary/news program “The Lost Class of 1959”. President Kennedy called Congress’ attention to the outlaw school district in his speech to them on Civil Rights in 1963. Robert Kennedy was also bothered by the actions of Prince Edward County saying in a 1963 speech:

“We may observe with much sadness and irony that, outside of Africa, south of the Sahara, where education is still a difficult challenge, the only places on earth known not to provide free public education are Communist China, North Vietnam, Sarawak, Singapore, British Honduras—and Prince Edward County, Virginia.”

The closing of the schools didn’t just damage education for Black children in the county but this last stand for segregation forced some families to make long-term decisions that often led to the separation from the support of extended family. In other cases it meant children leaving home and going to live with foster families. The Quaker American Friends placed 70 children in these foster homes in North Carolina and other states.

Some families just changed counties and several Prince Edward black women, including former public-school teachers, began grassroots schools in their homes and churches. All of this was a great balancing act because of the lawsuits working through the legal system. 

In 1961 a federal court launched the first salvo to wreck this ambition plan when they ruled that no public funds could be used for the White private academies. Still, the county refused to unlock the schools and so the academies continued. This did effect some of the rural White families as well because many could not afford the now-necessary tuition. Racism remained the driving force. This was shown even more in May of 1964 when the Supreme Court ruled in Griffin v. County Board of Prince Edward County that the schools had to reopen. In September, after a five-year hiatus, Prince Edward students returned to public schools.

The county and state refused to fund the schools as they had before This underfunding took years to repair but student strikes and the Civil Rights Act continued to pressure the county and they slowly changed, with the rest of the country. In the mid-1990s the Martha E. Forrester Council of Women, a group that included former Moton teachers and students. Bought the former Moton School and created a museum with a permanent exhibit: “The Moton School Story: Children of Courage,” which was designed to help provide closure and understanding for the students who lived through the school closings. 

Unfortunately, the ideas of using public funds and tax credits and other tricks to pay for private schools mostly used by White students were explored and altered and today there is a national movement that emulates the Prince Edward County model but in a way that passes laws and many states and school districts have altered their laws to permit these private schools recreating some level of segregation and class separation. trying tricks like the Prince Edward County School District.

Sources:

https://www.searchablemuseum.com/students-on-strike

https://legaltimelines.org/accessible-timeline/students-rights/

https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2013/septemberoctober/feature/massive-resistance-in-small-town

Chicago Real Estate Board Creates Racially Restricted Covenants

 

May 4, 1921 In an example of harsh segregation and strong redlining the Chicago Real Estate Board adopted a policy of expelling any member who sold property in an existing white majority area to a Black family.

This began a larger segregation of the city where Home Owner Associations were created to enforce covenants blocking Black ownership in the majority of north Chicago neighborhoods like Hyde Park. Racial restrictive covenants, explicitly forbid the sale, transfer, or use of property to any Negros and many other ethnic groups. 

The president of the Real Estate Board, M.L. Smith stated that there were many neighborhoods beginning to develop on the South and West sides of Chicago and in Cook County for Blacks. “There are financial interests who see this immigration from the Southern states and are making plans to provide,” Smith told reporters. Smith was known though to strongly favor segregation of the races. “If you provide the places,” Smith said. “The Negroes will naturally segregate themselves and this isn’t a concern.” 

This also happened at a time when rents in the city were increasing and the great migration was putting intense pressure on the limited housing of Chicago. Many rental properties also blocked Black tenants while nearly 50,000 blacks moved into the city.

The previous year had also seen one of the most violent incidents of the “Red Summer of 1919”. The Chicago Riot lasted from July 27 to August 3rd and destroyed the homes of 2,000 Black residents. This new policy and the enforcement of it and the restrictive covenants placed a huge burden on the Blacks of Chicago, at one point 80% of Chicago had racially restricted covenants. 

Illinois State Senator Harold Kessinger had drafted two bills that would have introduced rent control and the Chicago Tenants Association greatly favored the bills and campaigned for them but could not get them passed. 

Residents of the “Black Belt” on the south side of Chicago were expected to deal with problems no White resident had, such as an average of seven people in their homes compared to an average of 4 in White homes. Many of the apartments for Black residents usually had limited plumbing with one bathroom per floor. it wasn’t until the 1948 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Shelly V. Kraemer that the restrictive covenants were outlawed.

Sources:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/shelley_v_kraemer_(1948)#:~:text=Primary%20tabs-,Shelley%20v.,provision%20of%20the%20Fourteenth%20Amendment.

https://digitalchicagohistory.org/exhibits/show/restricted-chicago/restrictive_covenants

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/27.html

Rosa Parks Day, 67th anniversary of Beginning of Montgomery Bus Boycott

December 1, 1955 Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama for disobeying the bus segregation laws of the city