The Pittsburgh Press (June 16, 1943)
Allied fliers hammer at airfields on stepping stone island
By Reynolds Packard, United Press staff writer
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Italians realising that they might have to fight Nigerians and Ethopians on their home turf.
Bulletin
Beaumont, Texas –
One white man was killed today when rioting broke out anew between mobs of white men and Negroes. The riots started last night.
Beaumont, Texas (UP) –
Texas State Guardsmen stood watch with fixed bayonets and submachine guns today over approximately 75 white men who had been arrested following hours of rioting that had brought war industries to a standstill and had driven all Negroes from the streets in terror.
The outburst followed the assault of a young white mother by a Negro yard worker. Throughout the night, small gangs of white war workers, many of whom had dropped their tools to join the manhunt, had raced through the Negro section in search for the assailant.
The hunt came to a climax at noon when approximately 100 men, most of them shipyard workers, gathered on the first floor of the 14-story courthouse building, demanding of the sheriff that he either turn over to them the alleged Negro assailant or take them along on the search for him.
Big-hatted Sheriff Bill Richardson brought a semblance of order out of the courthouse mob by offering to fight the men one at a time and telling them to go home or back “to building ships.”
Most of the men were from the Beaumont shipyards and had walked away from their job when the search for the Negro began last night, a search which ran into street fighting and rioting and burning in the Negro section of the city.
The sheriff added:
Let me tell you, I’m going to keep order and law in this country.
Someone shouted that Richardson’s statement was “just politics.”
Sheriff Richardson replied that the mob had already hindered the capture of the Negro by last night’s fighting which he said gave the Negro a 15-hour start.
Tenseness relaxes
He said:
You fellows took up all the time of the peace officers needed to keep order.
Tenseness seemed to relax after the sheriff had spoken to the crowd. The mob dispersed, although Guardsmen remained at police headquarters. Meanwhile, police and sheriff’s deputies were searching the surrounding country and watching highways and roads leading out of Beaumont for the Negro.
As the situation grew more tense, following night-long rioting, police had sent to nearby Port Arthur and Orange for ammunition replenishments as they called on the Texas Rangers, Texas Highway Police, Office of Civilian Defense Auxiliary Police and Texas State Guardsmen for help.
Cafés are closed
Chief of Police Ross Dickey described the situation as tense.
There were no Negros at all in the downtown section and few white persons were venturing into the stories. All cafés downtown were closed.
Fire Chief Steve O’Connor announced that the fire department had answered 16 alarms in the Negro section since midnight.
Mr. O’Connor said there was extensive property damage along Gladys St., main Negro thoroughfare, and reported that a large, two-story funeral home had been badly damaged and looted. A Negro liquor store had also been cleaned out, he said.
Hospitals filled
No deaths were reported from hospitals where the injured, both white and Negro, had been taken. One hospital was filled with injured Negroes, one of whom was in critical condition.
Meanwhile, Negroes either stayed off the streets or traveled with police protection. Laundries and restaurants, dependent on Negro help, remained closed. Highway patrolmen escorted several hundred Negro workers from the Pennsylvania Shipyards and took them to the Negro districts.
Mother makes complaint
Feeling had spread 26 miles to the south, at Orange, where one of the shipyards there excluded Negroes from work today. Orange State Guardsmen were sent earlier to Beaumont to help restore order.
Rioting started after a young white mother, the wife of a shipyard worker whose name was withheld, reported she had been attacked by a Negro youth to whom she had given work and food. She said the Negro came to her house asking for food, saying he had been rejected by the Army and that he had no money.
She told police that later in the day, after she had put her three small children to bed for their naps, the Negro came in the house and attacked her.
The second attack
It was the second attack by a Negro on a white woman in Beaumont in 10 days.
A Negro was shot to death by police after he had allegedly attacked a young telephone operator who was going from her work to her home late at night.
Police Chief Dickey said no trace of the accused Negro attacker of yesterday had been found.
The white men did not form one large mob, but broke up into smaller groups, the police chief said.
The small mobs of men were joined by scores of workers from the shipyards here as many of them put down their tools, left their jobs and started looking for Negroes.
Houston, Texas (UP) –
Governor Coke Stevenson, in Houston today en route to Newport News, Virginia, for the launching of the cruiser USS Houston, instructed Homer Garrison, chief of the department of public safety, to get every man into Beaumont needed to control the situation there.
Governor Stevenson was informed of the trouble when he arrived here from Austin and instructed Mr. Garrison to call him en route to St. Louis and from St. Louis to Washington if the situation grows worse.
Dallas, Texas (UP) –
Maj. Gen. Richard S. Donovan, commanding general of the 8th Service Command, today declared Beaumont, scene of rioting between Negroes and whites, out of bounds for all military personnel.
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Mayor not mentioned personally; charges of theft and misappropriation of funds are made
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Use day coaches and carry box lunches; begin and end journey between Tuesday and Thursday
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House and Senate agree on program based on ability to pay
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Clean bill of health is given agencies in bill for $3 billion
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People told signs point to all-out Allied offensive
By the United Press
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Marianna, Florida (UP) –
A mob of white men broke into the Marianna jail about midnight, seized a Negro prisoner and shortly afterwards lynched him not far from here.
Police Sergeant Y. Roberts said the Negro, Cellos Harrison, about 40, of Marianna, was being held for the murder three years ago of John Mayo, a white man. He said Harrison had been convicted of the killing and had twice been sentenced to die in the Florida electric chair. On each occasion, Mr. Roberts said, the Negro was granted a stay of execution.