Ongoing Police Brutality Leads To Riot By Latinos In Albuquerque

June 13, 1971 – Albuquerque, NM Festering resentment over police harassment and brutality toward the Chicano residents led to a riot in Roosevelt Park that escalated downtown with looting and buildings being damaged. Eventually, the New Mexico National Guard was called in to quell the violence.

On this Sunday there was to be a series of concerts in Roosevelt Park and both uniformed and undercover officers mixed with the crowd of nearly 1,000. This happened while the activist group Black Berets met with the police chief and city officials.

Even though top officials spoke to the crowd that morning regarding changes they recognized needed to occur the police presence appeared to make any promises outright lies.

Through the afternoon police made many arrests for underage drinking. “Officers started putting on strong pressure, and some of the guys got fed up,” said Richard Moore, minister of justice for the Black Berets. So when undercover officers attempted to arrest a Latino teen for selling a joint the brewing anger spilled over with bottle and rock throwing and shouts of “Chicano Power!”

The Black Berets then tried to calm the crowd and speak to the police and try and calm the situation, but it hots into the air and called for dispersal, when the crowd then began to edge near the police shots were fired into the crowd. Nine people were wounded, and the police were quickly overwhelmed by the crowd as they flipped over and set fire to a police car. The crowd moved from the park and headed downtown towards the newly constructed Police-Municipal Courts Building.

When the crowd reached the police headquarters Police Chief Dan Byrd agreed to meet with representatives to see if the situation could be cooled off. The crowd was now running on anger and began splintering off with several hundred going down on Central Avenue where they began breaking glass on store fronts and looting the stores. Store owners arrived armed to defend their property. This reaction caused Chief Byrd to call Governor Bruce King and request the aid of the National Guard.

As the night progressed a liquor store was burned to the ground, the Radio Shack and Woolworth’s heavily damaged. The Police and Courts building had all the windows smashed out. Throughout the riot Chief Byrd and City Manager Richard Wilson attempted to negotiate and end to the chaos to no avail.

National Guardsmen arrived to support the police on Monday morning as the violence continued with more businesses looted and burned. The school district offices were also burned.

Slowly the combined efforts of peaceful negotiations and the National Guard support quelled the riot. Nearly 600 people were arrested in the violence with 35 hospitalized, including the 9 shot by police initially at Roosevelt Park. The riot caused an estimated 5 million dollars in damage in the business district and another million at the school district offices. There was no report on the cost of damage to the municipal building.

The riot did lead to some reforms at the Albuquerque Police Department, led by Lt. Gov. Robert Mondragon, “I know we have police brutality in Albuquerque,” he said. “Police brutality is not alleged—it is factual.”

However, whether these reforms worked or not is in serious question as 50 years later the Albuquerque Police Department is still operating under a federal consent decree to reform and independent monitors have questioned the culture of the police department.

Sources: have

https://www.axios.com/2021/06/17/albuquerque-50th-anniversary-of-police-riot

 

https://www.newspapers.com/article/albuquerque-journal-albuquerque-nm-riot/4935102/

 

https://www.newspapers.com/image/156329073/?clipping_id=14469339&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjE1NjMyOTA3MywiaWF0IjoxNzE4MzMyMTI3LCJleHAiOjE3MTg0MTg1Mjd9.NAf4RoCSeDmWJ9oBneLQjOYZPxE0rqUagAi1r1TRIZk

 

Judge Orders Black Mother To Whip Her Son In The Courthouse Square

Lexington, KY Jun 13, 1904, during the Ante-Bellum era slave owners and plantation overseers made the whipping of slaves a common disciplinary practice. Surprisingly this didn’t carry over into reconstruction, of course during reconstruction they decided to not waste time and effort and just murdered Black people.

However, on this Wednesday in June, a judge decided whipping was the best way to let a 15-year-old boy learn his place in the system. The boy, Simon Searce, had been jailed and convicted of assaulting a White boy by hitting him with a rock. Judge John J Riley might not have been racist, at the time of this sentencing he stated he thought this was the best way to handle juvenile crime, still, there is no record of Riley ever similarly sentencing White juveniles.

Adding to the indignity Riley ordered Searce’s mother to carry out the sentence of 20 lashes. “Aunt” Mandy Searce took her son to the public square accompanied by two policemen, she was given a buggy whip to whip her son with. A crowd that appeared to be made up of all Whites converged on the square to witness the whipping. The boy cried out in pain and begged her to stop but she finished the 20 lashes, knowing that with the large crowd, they both might have been lynched.

Although no Blacks had been allowed to attend court, except Ms. Searce, and none were reported to be in the town square at the time of the whipping the Lexington Herald-Leader tried to give the impression that the Blach community was in full support of further whippings to keep other juveniles on the right side of the law.

 

Sources:

 

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

False Reports Lead To Brutal Death Of A Black Man In Tennessee

 

Knoxville, TN Jun 10, 1894, rumors can kill, and in James Perry’s case it was a terrible and terrifying death. It was reported that Mr. Perry, a Negro, was a carrier of smallpox and had introduced it to the city of Knoxville. The strange thing is that there was no smallpox outbreak in the town.

James Perry was killed by fear and hate. Fear of the dreaded disease and of it spreading, hate of Black people. Perry was a known regional gambler and occasional railroad worker. He had been in jail in Knoxville from November 1893 until the first week in February. He apparently fell sick when he returned to a cabin on Cherry Creek northeast of the city. This cabin is part of Mr. Perry’s problem because it was close to where the creek entered the Tennessee River, where the town got its water.

Reports quickly spread and soon officials had a doctor go and examine Perry. On February 7^th a doctor and the head of public works visited Perry and while he was sick the doctor believed it was the result of chickenpox combined with syphilis which Perry was known to have.

After the visit, it was reported that the doctor didn’t diagnose Perry with smallpox and was certain that there was no disease to worry about because Perry had been in jail for four months. No one else, prisoner or sheriff’s deputies had gotten sick.

Still, rumors continued to spread even as the public works department started vaccines for anyone who couldn’t afford it and there were no other reported cases of smallpox.

By March 20^th the rumors of an outbreak of Smallpox dissipated since there were no cases in and around Knoxville. However, Perry still seemed to be sick.,

Months passed and June arrived, and Perry had gotten better but it was noticed he seemed to be scarred with areas of his skin looking like he had been burned. For a doctor, this might have been proof of the syphilis diagnosis but to the people of Knoxville, it was proof that the scare they received in winter was real, although there were never any other cases.

On the night of June 10, Perry’s cabin was surrounded and set on fire by a white mob. They also shot the cabin up to make sure Perry could not escape. The cabin burned to the ground and a body was found by the sheriff a few days later when the fire had cooled.

No one came forward to put out the fire and no one was ever charged with killing Perry he was killed by unknown hands. A small press release was sent out to papers all around the county and was published as far north as Buffalo, NY, and as far west as Tulsa, OK and it simply said that "a Negro, James Perry, was killed near police headquarters for introducing Smallpox into Tennessee."

Two Black Men Shot To Death For Walking Home

Orange, TX Jun 5, 1910, it appears that two Black men were shot to death overnight while they were walking home from a festival in the Negro Section last night. Douglas Lemon and Rankin Moore were reported have had a confrontation with three white men after midnight.

Tensions have been high in Orange County since the killing of Deputy Constable Sam Combs by a Black man named Jack White on April 18. Law officers promised the community that if they remained calm there would be swift justice for White, but that had not happened as there were multiple delays in White’s trial.

It seems the resentments of White residents of Orange overflowed last night as shots rang out into the Negro district apparently killing Rankin and then Lemon. Rankin took the bulk of the anger as his body was riddled with bullets. A few hours later Lemon’s body was found.

The investigation has not turned up any clues about who might have shot and killed the two men and fired other warning shots into the Negro section. Although they are continuing to interview people, the sheriff’s office feels there isn’t much hope they will find the shooters.

As always during the Jim Crow era the county coroner listed the deaths as killing by the hands of persons unknown.

 

Racial Memory: The Tulsa Race Massacre - Why Critical Race Theory is important

 

Tulsa, Oklahoma Jun 1, 1921

This is the date and place that are now infamous for Whites destroying the Greenwood neighborhoods. 

Racial tensions were a constant in Tulsa in the early 20th Century. There was a great deal of resentment by the White businessmen of Tulsa who often had to conduct business with the Black businessmen in Greenwood, colloquially known as the “Black Wall Street” because of the prosperity of Black businessmen and merchants.

The simmering resentment was sparked into a riot when a 19-year-old Black man was in an elevator in downtown Tulsa with White 17-year-old Sarah Page who was working as an elevator operator. The Black man, Dick Rowland, was accused of rape after Miss Page had screamed. She tried to convince the police that nothing happened she was just startled when he had touched her shoulder.

As so often happens in these cases after Mr. Rowland was arrested a White mob gathered at the courthouse to take Rowland and lynch him. However, this mob was shocked when they met with resistance. 30 Black men armed with guns appeared at the courthouse stopping the lynching. In response, the White mob doubled in size and came back heavily armed.

Violence on a terrible scale consumed the Greenwood District for the next 24 hours businesses were burned and looted, and the district was even bombed by a crop-dusting plane. In the end, 35 square blocks of the Greenwood District lay in ruin. It isn’t known exactly but most historical researchers believe 300 Blacks were killed while another 800 were injured and it is credibly estimated that 1,256 homes were destroyed along with almost every other structure in the Greenwood District.

I first learned of the Tulsa Riot in James W. Loewen’s book “Lies Across America” where the historian wrote about how during Jim Crow atrocities such as this one were swept under the rug, which is very true for Tulsa. No White man was ever charged with any crime. In fact, many of the rioters were under the banner of law as sworn deputies in an emergency.

It wasn’t until 2001 that Oklahoma finally began to look at its own terrible history when the Race Riot Commission was formed to examine the evidence.

The investigation continues even now as alleged mass graves are being searched for and any other documentation gathered.

To see an online collection of everything the commission gathered got to https://tinyurl.com/ymuje54y