The Longview riot was much less bloody than either the Washington or Chicago riots. This low mortality could have been partially due to the rural environment of Longview, which in 1919 had a population of 5,700 of which 1,790, or thirty-one percent, was Black. It was an area of historic cotton cultivation, which had depended on slave labor before the Civil War. Longview is located in Northeast Texas 125 miles due east of Dallas. It is the county seat of Gregg County, which, in 1919, had a population of 16,700 of which 8,160, or forty-eight percent, was Black. Blacks were oppressed under Jim Crow rules and White supremacy. The most influential Black publication to circulate in Gregg County was "The Chicago Defender", a weekly Negro newspaper with nationwide coverage and circulation.
In July 1919, the Chicago Defender published an article about a June lynching in Longview, Texas. The paper reported that White vigilantes murdered Lemuel Walters on June 17 and described the circumstances surrounding the lynching. While coverage in the White press accused Walters of burgling a home and threatening a married White woman, the Defender suggested Walters only crime was that he was loved by a White woman, and it quoted her as saying that she would have married him if they had lived in the North. Even though the article did not name the Kilgore woman, her friends and relatives knew to whom it referred, and they considered the article scurrilous. This report fanned the flames of White rage and provoked a thousand of the town’s White residents to riot.
Racial tension was especially high immediately before the riot because two locally prominent Black leaders, Samuel L. Jones, and Dr. Calvin P. Davis, a Black physician, to other Black residences, had urged Black farmers to avoid local White cotton brokers and sell directly to buyers in Galveston. Because of its critique of racism and celebration of Black independence and self-defense, the Chicago Defender was a perennial target of White supremacists who sought to disrupt its distribution, typically by attacking its reporters and printers. In 1919, the local distributor of the Defender in the Longview community was Samuel L. Jones, a school teacher and labor rights advocate. When the Walters article appeared in the Defender, White citizens of Longview concluded that Jones was its author.
Walters, according to the article, was safely locked in the Gregg County Jail until the sheriff willingly handed him over to a White mob that murdered him on June 17th. A mob formed and found Jones by the town courthouse on July 10. He was beaten, supposedly by two brothers of the Kilgore woman, but escaped to find his friend, Dr. Calvin P. Davis, who immediately began to organize for his defense. That evening, Jones hid at a relative’s house while Davis and 25 other armed Black men set up defensive positions at Jones’ house and waited. A dozen or so armed Whites arrived at Jones’ house and tried to enter by force, but the Black men opened fire on the White attackers. Several of the White men were injured, supposedly by two brothers of the Kilgore woman.
The mob fled and went to alert their friends and relatives, others broke into a hardware store to get guns and ammunition. Black residents called upon the town’s White mayor, sheriff, and governor for aid. During the White rioting, the only law enforcement present were the local police. Grown now to nearly a thousand men, incensed by the specter of Black self-defense, the White mob returned to Jones’ house and burned it to the ground. They also destroyed several other properties owned by Black residents, including the home of Davis, and to a Black dance hall in which they suspected the Blacks had stored ammunition. Jones and Davis both managed to escape from Longview with their lives, but Davis’ father-in-law, Marion Bush, was chased down and killed after he fled from Sheriff Meredith, who was either offering him protective custody or attempting to arrest him.
Meredith felt that Bush might be in danger of an attack by the White radicals because of his family relationship with Davis. The Sheriff explained this danger to Bush and assured him that he was not there to arrest him or harass him. After a few moments of discussion, Bush told the Sheriff that he would go with him but asked him to wait until he could go back inside and get his hat. When he returned he was concealing a .45 caliber revolver and said that he had changed his mind and was not going. Bush, undoubtedly, recalled the fate of Lemuel Walters and, therefore, determined that he was not going to jail, even for this so-called protection. As he spoke he leveled the revolver at Meredith and fired. After firing the shots Bush dashed back inside the house and fired again at Meredith.
In a few moments Bush ran out the back door and headed west carrying a pistol and a high-powered rifle. Meredith emptied his pistol at him, but did not hit him. Bush headed west along the railroad tracks, presumably trying to reach the Negro lodge at Camp Switch, a train stop about ten miles west of Longview. The Negro lodge contained guns, and he probably hoped to find refuge there. When Meredith was unable to apprehend Bush, he telephoned Jim Stephens, a farmer who lived five miles west of town at Willow Springs, and asked him to stop Bush. When Stephens saw Bush he shouted for him to halt, but Bush refused to do so. He fired at Stephens and ran into a cornfield. Stephens pursued him and killed him with shots to the chest and neck.
Early Friday, July 11, County Judge E. M. Bramlette and Sheriff D. S. Meredith telephoned Governor William P. Hobby, who ordered only eight Texas Rangers from Austin and San Antonio and placed three Texas National Guard units in East Texas on alert. However, the Rangers and the National Guard did not arrived until the next week to monitor the situation. Bush's death led Mayor G. A. Bodenheim to request more aid from the governor. Governor Hobby responded by dispatching an additional 150 guardsmen to Longview. A curfew was enacted, as was martial law. Hobby put Brigadier General Robert McDill in command of the guardsmen and rangers and he issued orders initiating the specific details of the martial law. McDill, prohibited groups of three or more people from gathering on streets, and ordered all Longview citizens, including county, precinct, and city peace officers, to turn in all firearms at the county courthouse.
McDill asked city and county officials Sunday night to name a citizens’ committee to work with him and the other military officers. The committee passed resolutions expressing disapproval of the shooting and burning and pledged their support to the military authorities. In the meantime Captain Hanson and his rangers conducted investigations to find the White men involved in the attack upon Jones’ house and those responsible for burning the African American property. By talking to various White men, the rangers identified the ringleader who revealed the names of sixteen other men who had made the initial attack with him upon Jones’ house. The rangers arrested seventeen White men on charges of attempted murder; each was released on $1,000 bond.
Twenty-one Black men were arrested, but were never tried, and none of the twenty-six White men arrested were never tried. As the tension in Longview subsided, General McDill talked with the committee of citizens about the appropriate time for lifting the martial law. The committee cautioned that before ending the martial law that the Black men who had been arrested should be sent out of the county for their own safety since rumors were circulating that White individuals planned to kill some of them as soon as they got their guns back. Consequently, on Wednesday the Black men were taken to Austin under guard of the Troop from Nacogdoches. General Wolters and Captain Hanson also accompanied them. On the same day that the Black prisoners left, General McDill ordered home all of the remaining National Guard units. Throughout the duration of the martial law, no further acts of violence were reported, except for a couple of minor fires.
Tension had subsided by Thursday to such a degree that Hobby ordered an end to martial law at noon Friday, July 18, and the citizens were allowed to pick up their firearms at noon Saturday. Although Judge Bramlette, Mayor Bodenheim, and other community leaders regretted deeply the turn of events which had brought the troops and the adverse nationwide publicity to Longview, they did not regret calling the troops. On the other hand, some white residents criticized the officials for asking for troops, feeling that the local White people should have been allowed to settle the matter themselves. Once martial law was lifted, county and city officials attempted to promote harmonious relations between the races and to avoid activities which would remind people of the riot. Thus, it becomes evident that the Longview and Gregg County officials, especially the Mayor and the Judge behaved in a very responsible manner throughout the riot.