Slocum Texas: Another Racial Massacre That Officials Tried To Hide From The Citizens

 

Slocum, Texas, July 29^th, 1910 — Witnesses, both Black and White, stated that it seemed like hunting season for the Negroes who had built successful lives in Slocum. “The White men are shooting people like they were sheep,” Anderson County Sheriff William Black told a reporter for the Houston Chronicles.

Another day another atrocity against Black Americans by White Americans.

Racial tensions in Anderson County were extreme because many Blacks had started to have success, and they found it easier to invest their income and begin to build wealth and independence. In Slocum, an organized but unincorporated town in the Southeastern part of the county. Whites resented the financial success of these Blacks and their ownership of land.

Racial tensions had been building after a Black man was lynched in neighboring Cherokee county. From there events seemed to spiral out of control. Whites began mobilizing for violent action after a White farmer couldn’t collect a debt from a respected Black farmer. The debt was in dispute with Mr. Abe Wilson, the Black farmer saying he had paid in full. Also, Whites also took the placement of a Black man as one of the lead salesmen on a road building project as an event of great disrespect. Whites were angry but also afraid, the world wasn’t right to them, the natural order disrupted and rumors that the Blacks were having secret meetings and collecting guns on how to overthrow the White majority and kill them.

One farmer, Jim Spurger, had been trying to agitate events by telling everyone that Wilson had stolen from the farmer named Redin Alford. Spurger also told some sketchy tales about being threatened by armed Black men, stories he presented without names or places.

The conditions were sadly perfect for angry bigoted White men to do what they do, start a reign of terror. The White men in Slocum sent off telegrams requesting other Whites come to Slocum with guns to help their fellow White men defend their lives, they had also spread this request through word of mouth. Over the next 24 hours men came from Palestine, Elkhart, Neches, Cayuga and other spots. It wasn’t hard in the Jim Crow era to gather Whites willing to kill Blacks just to kill Blacks.

Primed by local papers that reported every minor incident Blacks had been accused of while defending all White landowners. These papers frequently published ghoulish and appalling front page stories of lynchings both in Texas and the rest of the South. Anderson County was a hot spot for this violence with 6 lynchings in 1910 prior to the massacre.

The attack began about noon when at least 200 armed White men started shooting at any Black person. They killed at least four with this first volley and then began sweeping the town killing any Black person they saw. The evening newspaper in Palestine stated it was a “Race War” still attempting to make the Blacks being slaughtered as equals in violence.

Anderson County Sheriff William Black left Palestine at 5 a.m. with a posse to try and make peace. He was not alone as District Court Judge Benjiman Howard Gardner had ordered all the saloons in Palestine closed the day before. Gardner had also ordered a contingent of National Guard Troops led by Capt. Godfrey Reese Fowler to aid in ending the violence and to assist in cleaning up. Texas Governor Thomas Campbell ordered in a contingent of Texas Rangers to help keep the peace and support Sheriff Black.

In the days that followed saw 13 White men arrested by either the Rangers or Black and his deputies. Some faced multiple murders after a grand jury was convened, yet they never went to trial. There is no official number of Black deaths, the papers reported broad numbers from 8 to 22. Men like Sheriff Black estimated at least 40. It was easy to lose bodies, especially after a mass grave was dug. Oral traditions by survivors say 200 were killed.

Texas ignored the truth of the massacre for years. They finally added a brief note in the textbooks on Texas history texts in 2011 and an historical marker was placed on site in 2015.

Sources:

https://www.teachslocummassacre.org/

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/the-slocum-massacre-1910/

https://www.nytimes.com/1910/07/31/archives/score-of-negroes-killed-by-whites-eighteen-bodies-already-found-in.html

Once Welcomed as Heroes Impoverished World War Veterans in Washington D.C. Become the Enemy.

Headline to the Baltimore Evening Sun on July 29, 1931

Washington, D.C. July 28, 1932 — World War One veterans who did not stay in the U. S. Military or had mustered out after service were given parades to honor their sacrifices on the Western Front and the trenches of Europe. In 1924 the leaders of the United States also agreed to provide to for survivors purely cash payment for services.

The World War Adjusted Compensation Act of 1924 was a piece of negotiated legislation as financial reward for those who had served at both the home front and those who served in Europe. These bonuses were set at a maximum of $500, $1.00 per day served in the states and $1.25 for those who served in Europe. The American Legion was a strong promoter of the bill and advocating for immediate distribution of these funds, which did not happen. Congress agreed that veterans who were owed less than $50 would be paid but that the nation couldn’t afford mass pay outs, it was finally agreed to extend the payments to 1945.

This was fine politically at that moment but as 1932 came on the nation was in the most severe part of the Depression, and men who had served in the military found themselves struggling to find consistent employment to take care of their families. A demand began growing for the government to disperse the funds owed to tA man named Walter W. Waters became an unexpected leader of the “Bonus Army.” Waters was a former Sargent who served in France and had seen combat at Saint Mihiel and Chateau-Thierry in the great war. He was a native of Oregon who had returned to Oregon from Europe. The depression had hit the lumber industry of the Northwest extremely hard. Waters was struggling to find ongoing, regular employment and was using a food cart to sell fruit. He was doing these odd jobs when he started recruiting men to march on Washington to demand their money. 

Word spread around the country, mostly through the American Legion, of the march and the charismatic Waters. Soon 20,000 to 40,000 men of the Bonus Army were living in Washington D.C. with the substantial number of men they took over two of the “Hoovervilles”. The “Bonus Army” was becoming the symbol for the forgotten man. Or laborer with Water glorifying in this image.

With close to 80,000 additional people in the city, Waters tried to take advantage and take over complete control. He outed the Communists, anarchists, and radicals and arranged for several hundred men to march in military order and in khakis when they did their daily or every other day peaceful march on the Capitol Building or the Whitehouse. He and the Bonus Army had a strong and staunch ally in DC police superintendent, Brigadier General Pelham D. Glassford. Glassford was commander of the 51st Field Artillery Brigade during the war. 

The army awarded Glassford the Distinguished Service Medal and Silver Star for conduct in Europe. He identified with the veterans and lobbied Congress on his own for both the Bonus Payout and for additional food. This action was voted down by the Senate under the threat of veto from Hoover who was opposed to paying anything out to the veterans.

After the bills to release funds to the “Bonus Army” failed to pass in June incursions and fights began to breakout with greater frequency. The men making up the protest was not sure how to move forward but most of them didn’t want to leave without their money.

Things came to head, today, July 28 when Hoover, who found the term “Hoovervilles” insulting and demeaning ordered General Douglas MacArthur to remove the camps on the Anacostia River that he could see. MacArthur was pleased to launch an effort to remove them.

When action to evict the veterans began, they themselves fought back using guns with batons. This is when MacArthur ordered tear gas to be used. He had also ordered 5 tanks into firing positions on Pennsylvania Avenue. This was what Glassford had feared, and the situation became a bloody riot. One of the veterans was killed, 14 others badly injured and a toddler belonging to a veteran family was killed by the tear gas. As he would in the future, MacArthur felt he knew better than anyone else from Glassford who had been out daily to speak with protesters to Hoover who realized that the violence would come back to haunt him.

MacArthur denied he had received orders not to advance to the opposite side of the Anacostia River. MacArthur not only ignored the President’s but insisted that his job was to rid D.C. of the Bonus Army; and had ordered the tanks to crush the camps beneath their treads. Against any evidence MacArthur stated that he knew that only 10% of these protesters were even veterans. He argued, “The shantytown was animated by the essence of revolution.”

Hoover released a statement saying that investigation had proven that a large minority of the “So called Bonus Marchers,” were Communists or persons with criminal records. Hoover insisted that the good men had gone home and probably did not know the type of person with whom they were involved.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was running for president for the first time in 1932. Allegedly while reading the reports on the eviction, he told an aide there was no longer any need for him to campaign against Herbert Hoover. Which did prove to be true as the Depression hung on through the election with no signs of economic recovery.

However, FDR was no friend to the Bonus Army, vetoing a bill to pay them in 1936. His Veto was overridden through and stated that an. “able bodied soldier should be accorded privileges just because of he is wearing a uniform.” FDR also reappointed MacArthur as Army Chief of Staff which created a loss of respect for the President from veterans,

 

Sources

https://www.nytimes.com/1935/05/23/archives/highlights-of-bonus-veto.html

https://www.opb.org/article/2023/11/11/bonus-army-veterans-washington-dc-walter-waters/

https://www.nps.gov/articles/the-1932-bonus-army.htm

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/macarthur-bonus-march-may-july-1932/

Walter W. Water

Blacks Not Considered Part Of Everyday Life By Experts During Cold War Diplomacy

 

Headline from The Ashville Times, July 14, 1959

July 14, 1959, New York, New York – The United States State Department was paying for a big propaganda blitz against Communism right in the heart of Communism, the USSR. They had worked out an event in Moscow to be called the American National Exhibition. The idea was to show the average Russian how much better life was every day in the U.S. compared to their dull lives.

The American National Exhibition was planned to run from July 25^th to September 4^th of 1959. It would give a glimpse into fashion, food, men, women, and teenagers, but it was decided on this day that it wouldn’t really include Black Americans.

At a preview of the fashion show, the State Department and the artists designing the show displayed what they thought would be a vision of America that showed just a tiny bit of equality. The thinking behind this was that since the models were also going to be guides for the Russian people who came to the Exhibition. This included four young African Americans who had been vetted by President Eisenhower and promised not to go off script and talk about civil rights and inequality. The U.S. heard. “And You Are Lynching Negros,” frequently from the Soviets whenever human rights were discussed. The American National Exhibition was supposed to be a bit of cinema showing that equality was as American as apple pie.

Except that it was about to be revealed again, America was unequal. After the live dioramas were done, more than 40 fashion editors immediately took pen to paper in a petition demanding that the scenes with Negro models be cut. These scenes included a mixed wedding party and an integrated backyard barbeque.

“We, the American Fashion Press, protest the presentation of the American Fashions to Moscow as not being representative of typical American life.” Read the petition.

To avoid controversy with the fashion show, Leonard J. Hankin, vice president of high fashion department store Bergdorf-Goodman, was the executive director of the fashion show the exhibition promised immediate changes. The changes ended up being the removal of Black Americans from the integrated scenes.

  The four Black models were allowed to go to Moscow and act as guides since they had been studying Russian, but they did not model. The prejudice of high fashion was not even remarked upon by the New York Times or other major outlets; only smaller papers or the Black press called it out honestly.

Sources:

.newyorkalmanack.com/2024/07/american-national-exhibition/#:~:text=“Immediately%20after%20the%20previews%2C%20over,History%2C%20United%20States%20Information%20Agency

https://www.ajc.com/entertainment/calendar/black-model-remembers-time-russia-during-cold-war/Bn7LICWvhdl5jjBOWwHjXI/

Press and Sun-Bulletin, Binghamton, New York, Tue, Jul 14, 1959 · Page 18

The Asheville Times, Asheville, North Carolina,Tue, Jul 14, 1959 · Page 17