Editorial: The lesson of Beaumont, Texas
The attack upon the Beaumont, Texas, colored section by white mobs last week was incited by the rumor that a colored man raped a white woman.
Subsequently, no colored attacker has been found and physicians’ reports show that no woman was raped.
The cause of the attack upon hundreds of innocent colored people is not important. Some Southern communities need no incentive to mob action. All they want is an excuse.
In this case, a funeral parlor, the town’s best building, was cleaned out, a colored liquor store was looted, a colored café and autos of colored people were burned, scores of persons were beaten and sent to the hospitals.
In a situation like this, in the South, it is idle to appeal either to state or federal authorities for assistance. It usually comes too late.
Colored communities must be prepared to protect themselves. Frederick Douglass said that the slave that resisted vigorously was almost never whipped.
If mobsters attacking colored homes get a hot reception once, they will not repeat that visit.
P.S. For three days, Beaumont shipbuilding yards were virtually at a standstill.