Beaumont Race Riot of 1943

The 1943 race riot in Beaumont, Texas, erupted on June 15 and ended two days later; attacks against blacks and their property were initiated by white workers from the Pennsylvania Shipyard in Beaumont following rumors that a white woman had been raped by a black man. This was the last of the wartime riots in which blacks and their property were exclusively the victims.

The city had become the destination for thousands of workers in the defense industry; from 1940 to 1943 the city had grown from 59,000 to 80,000 persons, with African Americans maintaining a proportion of roughly one third of the total. Workers were attracted to the buildup of high-paying jobs in the defense industry, concentrated at the shipyard, as Beaumont was located on the Neches River northeast of Houston on the Gulf Coast. A presidential Executive Order 8802 had prohibited racial and religious discrimination among defense contractors, and African Americans sought a share of opportunities in the high-paying jobs. New residents in Beaumont competed for jobs and housing in the crowded town, where whites had imposed segregated facilities, as was common across the South. There were also riots that summer in Detroit, Michigan; Mobile, Alabama; and Los Angeles, California; they were related to competition and tensions arising from the wartime build-up and migrations of workers to defense installations.

In 1942, a worsening of socioeconomic conditions nationally aggravated interracial tensions in Beaumont. Economic restrictions limited available consumer goods, although defense workers had extra money to spend. President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced a policy to end discrimination in employment in the defense industries through his Executive Order 8802 of 1941; he wanted to encourage all American citizens to support the war effort. From 1940 to 1943 the city had grown more than 33% from 59,000 to 80,000 persons; both African American and whites flocked to the city for the industrial jobs. African Americans maintained their proportion of roughly one third of the total population through the increases.

Although social life was still segregated under state law and African Americans had been disenfranchised since the turn of the century, they were seeking the high-paying defense jobs at the port, as had thousands of white workers. The jobs were concentrated at the shipyards, which employed thousands of workers; Pennsylvania Shipyard was one of the largest, with 8500 workers.

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