University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 12-1977 Racia Violence in the South During World War II James Albert Burran University of Tennessee Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Recommended Citation Burran, James Albert, "Racia Violence in the South During World War II. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 1977. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/6106 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by James Albert Burran entitled "Racia Violence in the South During World War II." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in History. Pete Daniel, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by James Albert Burran, III entitled "Racial Violence in the South During World War II." I recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the require­ ments for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in History. Pete Daniel, Major Professor dissertation acceptance: Accepted for the Council: Vice Chancellor Graduate Studies and Research '1 ~~~,~ -·11 :-~'ll·~ ~op-a-~ RACIAL VJ:OHti\CE IN THE SOUTH DURING WO:llJ> WAR II A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville James Albert Bu.rra.n, III December 1977 Copyright by James Albert Bu:rran, III, 1977 All Rights Reserved ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author would like to express his appreciation to Professors R. W. Haskins, Charles W. Johnson, Charles O. Jackson, a...'Yld J. Michael Brooks for their service on his dissertation committee. Special thanks are due Professor Pete Daniel, whose constant encouragement and assistance enabled this project to reach fruition. iii ABSTRACT This study examines the scope, intensity, and complexity of the interracial violence in the ex-Confederate states from 1940 through 19460 Employing a survey and analysis approach, with the major peaks of vio­ lence during May 1943-August 1944 and August 1945-September 1946 as the most significant periods, this work will demonstrate that blacks in the South underwent a generally oppressive, not uplifting, experience during the war. While northern blacks and northern-based civil rights groups seemed to utilize the war era as a springboard for the "Second Recon­ struction," most of the positive changes in fact emanated from political, economic, and military necessity rather than any great humanitarian im­ pulse. Three forms of violence--lynchings, civilian riots, and military- \ related conflicts--confirm and illustrate the overall thesis. From 1940 through the spring of 1943 both lynching and military violence escalated in direct response to the exigencies of war, black attempts to break down the color line, and white attempts to preserve it. Duxing mid-1943 major civilian riots erupted in Hobile and :Beaumont, together with an alarming rise in mutinies by black soldiers in southern camps and bases. From then to the end of the war mutinies and lynchings continued, but with the end of the conflict came a resurgence of violence as the nation reconverted to a peacetime footing. Riots in Columbia, Tennessee, and Athens, Ala­ bama., along with a serious increase in lynching, showed white reaction to wartime gains for blacks and a general fear of the changes returning black veterans might bring. In the end, blacks remained in as separate iv V and unequal a society in 1946 as they had in 1940 below the_Ma.son-Dixon Line. Thus, the wartime experience for southern blacks proved to be different from that of their counterparts elsewhere. TA:BLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. "THE PROBLEM OF THE COLOR-LINE"• • • ••• . 1 II. CLOUDS OF WAR. • • . -18 III. "NEARER AND NEARER THE PRECIPICE". • • • • • 58 IV. "SIDREGATION ALWAYS MEANS DISCRIMINATION" •• . 104 v. II THERE EXISTS A DANGER" • • • • • • • • . 129 VI. "AN EPIDEMIC OF INTERRACIAL VIOLENCE". 161 VII. FROM WAR TO PEACE? •••••••••• . 200 VIII. "TERROR IN TENNESSEE" •• . 229 IX. THE COLOR LINE TRIUMPHANT. • • • • • • • • . 257 BIBLIOGRAPHY. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • . 291 VITA •••••• . 305 vi CHAPTER I "THE PROBLEM OF THE COLOR-LINE" "The problem of the twentieth century," W. E. B. DuJ3ois observed at the fin de si~cle, "is the problem of the color-line." Having lived through the trials, accomplishments, and shattered dreams of black people in the United States since the Civil War, DuBois' perception of what the future held was based both on keen observation and his training as a historian 1 and sociologist. His words proved prophetic. Throughout American history the problem of race relations and the role of ethnic and racial minorities has been a major historical theme. Conflict between minority groups and the majority has often produced racial violence, and in the twentieth cen~LL-r:f racial discord was especially visible during the two world wars and the 1960s. In each of these pericxls, as in others, violence often reflected an attempt by blacks to bre~ out of the racial caste system and, during the wars, a corresponding white desire to maintain the racial status quo. Indeed, American race relations in general have bad as a major characteristic black desire to end discrimination and segregation and a white desire to preserve them. Conflict over whether World War II could change the status of blacks produced racial violence from 1940 through 1946. Black aspirations to destroy the color line during a period of widespread change and gradual improvement, and white fears that blacks were threatening a major upheaval 1w. E. B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk, in Three Negro Classics (New York, 1965), 221. 1 2 in a time of national crisis, resulted in one of the worst concentrations of violence in this century. Southern racial disorder was a major theme during the war, for the six civilian riots, over twenty military riots and mutinies, and forty to seventy-five lynchings not only hampered seri­ ously the region's contribution to the war effort but also showed the ex­ tent to which southern whites would go to preserve the color line. The southern black experience was different from the northern one during the war because of the white South's rigid adherence to racial separation. The history of racial violence in the South dated back to the ori­ gins of slavery in the seventeenth century. Since the region maintained a system of African slavery for 250 years, ths.t i~~titution fomed a major part of southern society and its vestiges lingered into twentieth century life. In a sense, the earliest form of racial violence, slave revolts, had much in common with the urban protest riots of the 1960s. Both showed black desires to escape either literal or figurative bondage, and the often swift white reaction. While North American slave uprisings did not occur as frequently as Caribbean or Latin American outbreaks, the Stone Rebel­ lion of 1739, the Gabriel Prosser insurrection of 1800, and the Nat Turner revolt of 1831 resulted in consternation among whites that often bordered on paranoia. These three rebellions, along with at least a dozen others, illustrated some slaves' willingness to rebel openly against their oppres­ sors even in the face of almost insurmountable odds. As Eugene Genovese has observed, "the significance of the slave revolts in the United States lies neither in their frequency nor in their extent, but in their very 3 existence as the ultimate manifestation of class war under the most un­ favo:rable conditions. 112 Following the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, collective racial violence transformed from the slave revolt to the race riot. Since freedmen now posed a distinct threat to white hegemony, the postwar riots saw whites attack blacks and their property, especially during periods of change or transition. Actually, the first lmown race riot occurred in 1831 in Providence, Rhode Island, when white sailors assaulted black resi­ dents. The largest riot in American history in terms of the number of lives lost erupted in New York City in 1863. Between 105 and 120 blacks lost their lives in this .11 draft riot" which exhibited racial connotationso Because of new and unwelcome adjustments and the attendant friction that the free blacks created in the South, a :rash of riots by southern whites against blacks occurred during Reconstruction. Riots in Memphis and New Orleans in 1866, Vicksburg in 1874, and Bamburg, South Carolina, in 1876, among others, showed whites forcing blacks into a new southern system of :race relations. At the turn of the century the Wilmington, North Carolina, riot of 1898 and the September 1906 Atlanta riot resulted from turmoil that accompanied the Populist and Progressive movements, the white reaction to Reconstruction's elevation of blacks to citizenship, and the rise of legalized segregation. In both cases whites forced blacks out of political 2Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York, 1974), 588. For a recent discussion of American slave revolts and slave resistance, see ibid., 587-660; Peter H. Wood, Black Majority: Ne roes in Colonial South Carolina from 16 0 thro h the Stono Rebellion New York, 1974, 308-26.