By: Rene Childress

As we continue on our journey through the historical animus of American racial hatred one recurring theme constantly raises its hideous head. The white racists continually feel the need to hold all black people accountable for perceived wrongs committed by any black individuals against white people, real or imagined. The truly greatest  perceived atrocity is always the sullying of White womanhood. On more than one occasion whole communities have been destroyed and uprooted by unsubstantiated rumors of some white woman being “ravaged” by some “Black Beast”.

This continuing historical caricature brings us to Beaumont , Texas in the Summer of 1943.  Beaumont is located on the shores of the Neches River as it races toward the Gulf of Mexico. The flames of” World War ll”  have engulfed the entire world. 

The whole country has been mobilized. Industry is churning to keep up with the war effort.  President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 outlawing discrimination in employment in the defense industries.   The city of Beaumont benefits from defense contracts as the local Pennsylvania Shipyard swells  into the largest shipyard in the country, eventually consisting of over 8500 souls. 

The city of Beaumont and its adjacent Pennsylvania Shipyard become the nexus for several competing forces. The first of these competing forces is the competition for good paying jobs at the shipyard. These formerly white male only jobs were suddenly jobs for anyone who could do the work. 

The white workers felt put upon because now they are forced to work alongside and compete  with people below their “station”. The second competing force was that the infrastructure of the city couldn't keep up with the swelling numbers of both Black and white workers seeking employment in the shipyard and adjacent industries. 

The local transportation is always overcrowded. Mind you it is still segregated. The colored section always shrinks as more white riders get on the bus forcing blacks to stand crowded together or walk to work. 

One incident that demonstrates the absurdity of this competition occurred when a black military policeman Charles J. Reco was shot multiple times and was clubbed because his knees were in the white section of the bus. 

The third competing force was the need for housing that was exacerbated by whites' continued imposition of segregated facilities. There were altercations without end. The population of Beaumont grew from 59000 in 1940 to more than 85000 in 1943. 

This cauldron of competing  racial strife spills over into sustained deadly violence on June 15,1943.  There is a white woman who claims she has been raped by a black man. Word of this incident spreads quickly around the shipyard’s white workers. The white workers decide it their duty to take up the white woman’s honor and confront all the black workers at the yard. The mob eventually ballooned into 2000 hooligans looking for revenge.

They began attacking any black person they came upon. A rumor spread among the crowd that the authorities had the rapist under arrest. The crowd marched on the jailhouse gathering numbers as they went. 

By the time this amoeba of white racists reach the jail house it has morphed into four thousand blood thirsty miscreants. The white woman could not identify any of the blacks in the lockup as her assailant. The crowd turns their anger towards the black sections of town. 

They destroy over a one hundred homes.  Black shipyard workers are forced to stay away from work until the National Guard is able to quell the fury of the mobs.The official numbers are three dead and fifty injured.  The unofficial numbers are much higher. 

Injuries are said to be in the hundreds. And the death toll is more than twenty five.No one is ever held accountable for the destruction to the homes and businesses destroyed by the mob. No one is ever charged for any deaths that occurred during this conflagration. 

We see this again and again the ugliness of white racialism. IT HAS CONTINUED. IT STILL CASTS ITS SHADOW ACROSS GENERATIONS AND DECADES.

 “Let Us Not Forget”