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 28th 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 16th, 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.
