Longview Race Riot
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| Date | July 10–12, 1919 |
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| Location | Longview, Texas, United States |
| Also known as | Longview Race Riot of 1919 |
| Deaths | 1 |
The Longview Race Riot refers to a series of violent incidents in Longview, Texas, between July 10 and July 12, 1919, when whites attacked black areas of town, killed one black man, and burned down several properties, including the houses of a black teacher and a doctor. It was the second of 25 race riots in 1919 in the United States during what became known as Red Summer, a period after World War I known for numerous riots occurring mostly in urban areas.
The riot is notable for local and state officials taking actions to impose military authority and quell further violence. After ignoring early rumors of planned unrest, local officials appealed to the governor for forces to quell the violence. In a short time, the Texas National Guard and Texas Rangers sent forces to the town, where the Guard organized an occupation and curfew. Some men were shot and numerous black homes and businesses were burned prior to arrival of the law enforcement and military units. One black man was shot and killed by armed whites before the National Guard occupied the town. No one was prosecuted for events, although numerous whites and blacks were arrested. The black suspects were taken to Austin for their safety; half were advised against ever returning to Longview.
Longview is located approximately 125 miles east of Dallas in northeast Texas. In 1919 it had a population of 5,700, of which 1,790, or thirty-one percent, was African American. It was an area of historic cotton cultivation, which had depended on slave labor before the American Civil War. Lumbering of pinelands was another major part of the rural economy. Longview is the seat of Gregg County. In 1919 the county had a population of 16,700, of which 8,160, or forty-eight percent, was black. The area was still very rural; according to historian Kenneth E. Durham, Jr., cotton was a major commodity crop.
Thousands of blacks had already left the South in the Great Migration, settling in northern and midwestern cities. They had sometimes been hired as strikebreakers and competed with working-class whites for jobs. That summer riots took place in many cities across the country, where ethnic whites clashed with blacks in postwar social tensions brought on by fierce competition for jobs and housing. In Longview, racial tensions had deep roots. Most blacks in Texas and the South were disenfranchised at the turn of the century, based on new constitutions and laws passed by Democratic-dominated legislatures. Excluded from the political system, they were oppressed under Jim Crow rules and white supremacy. Another reflection of postwar violence was a rise in the number of lynchings: in 1919, 78 blacks had been lynched in Texas, a substantial increase over the numbers during World War I: an increase of 15 lynchings over the total in 1918, and 30 more deaths than the lynchings of 1917.
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