Willie Vinson

Case summary

Incident

In the early hours of Sunday, July 12, 1942, Willie Vinson was working at Harvell’s Cafe when a group of white men entered and confronted him. The cafe, located on Highway 82, was across from the main entrance to the Red River Ordnance Depot, an Army defense project outside Texarkana. The group was pursuing a Black man they suspected of an attempted rape of a white woman.

Bowie County Sheriff Monroe Watts told the FBI he “received information” at 4 a.m. that a white defense worker named C.L. Roberts shot Vinson in the stomach. Vinson had denied involvement in the alleged assault of a “Mrs. Jayson Talley.” Roberts later told Watts that he shot Vinson after Vinson hit Gifford Adams, a white man, with a flashlight and then threatened both of them with a knife.

Lieutenant W.E. Safford, chief of Plant Protection, was the first to respond to the shooting. He told the FBI that he called for an ambulance and, after some “difficulty,” persuaded the crowd to let it through. The ambulance took Vinson to a hospital 19 miles away in Texarkana.

Safford informed Watts, who had arrived around 11 a.m., that “he was taking no further action in the matter.” No arrests were made of Roberts or other bystanders. Newspapers reported the sheriff arrested two other Black suspects for the alleged assault on Talley and jailed them in Boston, Texas.

At the hospital, Dr. Karlton Kemp informed Watts that Vinson was gravely injured and “would not survive the day.” Because Vinson was unconscious, Watts decided not to arrest him. Watts also deemed it unnecessary to station an armed guard outside of Vinson’s room in the segregated basement section of the hospital.

Around 2 p.m., Watts returned to the hospital with Talley and her husband. According to Watts, Talley “at that time did not identify the subject as her assailant.”

Texarkana Gazette reporter Alfred Weeks told the FBI he received an anonymous phone call around 7 p.m. from a man who said, “If you watch the hospital where that negro is tonight, you may see something.” Weeks did not report the call to law enforcement, instead enlisting the help of Harold Smith and W.C. Wilkins to observe the hospital from across the street. Around 12:30 a.m. they saw three unmasked and unarmed white men emerge from a car parked in the alley behind the hospital. According to FBI reports, the men walked past several nurses before abducting Vinson from his room. They exited through the emergency ambulance driveway and shoved Vinson in the waiting car. According to Weeks, Vinson was “groaning and pleading.” The car then drove away and was quickly joined by two other cars, all unlicensed.

Weeks, Smith, and Wilkins tailed the mob in their car and took detailed, timed notes. The mob drove for about a mile before stopping on Phenie Avenue. According to Weeks, they witnessed the mob take Vinson out of the car and tie one end of a heavy rope around his neck and the other to the bumper of the car. The cars then drove off again, dragging Vinson about a hundred yards through the Black neighborhood and stopping at the Texarkana Cotton Oil Corporation Plant on Factory Street.

There, Weeks witnessed a mob of about 20 people exit their vehicles. Men untied Vinson from the car bumper and carried him to a cotton gin, tying the rope to a winch. Vinson’s body was slowly pulled to the top of the winch and left hanging. Afterwards, the mob quickly drove away. According to Weeks, the incident took about eight minutes, from the time of Vinson’s abduction to his hanging.

Watts told FBI agents that upon learning of the killing, he recruited R.L. Burns, justice of the peace, and they went to the scene. Local residents were gathered viewing the body. Watts and Burns cut down Vinson’s body. Burns, according to a newspaper article, conducted an inquest on the spot and determined that “Vinson had probably been dead five hours when he arrived on the scene.” The Jones Undertaking Company removed the body and returned Vinson to his family home in Shreveport, Louisiana.

Aftermath

Weeks published the full account of Vinson’s lynching that same day.  On July 14, an editorial in the Texarkana Gazette called for a grand jury investigation and questioned Watts’ decision not to provide an armed guard at the hospital. Watts later told an FBI investigator that “if this was an act of negligence on his part, then he would accept the responsibility.”

Bowie County Attorney Sid Lee informed FBI agents that he presented the case to a Bowie County grand jury a few days after the incident. Lee stated that “a report was made to the Court that not enough information could be had concerning the matter inquired about which would warrant the finding of a true bill thereon.”

National news coverage of Vinson’s killing garnered the attention of the federal government, prompting President Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue a directive that all lynching cases should be investigated by the Department of Justice (DOJ). On July 20, Attorney General Francis Biddle ordered an FBI investigation into the lynching.

Biddle wrote to Texas Gov. Coke Stevenson on July 17, 1942. Although he noted “Careful consideration of this problem by the Department of Justice indicates existing Federal criminal statutes may have application,” he urged the state to conduct a thorough investigation. Stevenson replied that all efforts were being taken though he found it “more regrettable” that “certain” Black people “furnish the setting for mob violence by the outrageous crimes which they commit.” Biddle notified Stevenson on Aug. 5 that the FBI had begun an investigation into the lynching because of its “disruptive effect… on public morale” and offered to share any findings.

According to the FBI report, Texarkana Chief of Police Jack Runnels stated that “he considered the matter purely a county and state affair… none of the city’s concern.” Texarkana Mayor William Brown informed a FBI agent that he did not request police guard Vinson in the hospital “since he considered it none of his legal business, and that he was not interested in the victim anyway.” In response to a resolution from the Truth Seekers Temple Liberal Church, Brown wrote that Vinson was a “criminal” subject to “the law of the mob.”

A. Maceo Smith, secretary of the Texas Conference of Branches, wrote to NAACP President Walter White on Aug. 12, 1942 asking for assistance, stating, “the general opinion in Texarkana and in these sections is that the whole matter will be ‘whitewashed.’” Smith noted that Black residents of Texarkana continued to be in fear due to heightened racial tensions.

The FBI investigation was unsuccessful in identifying members of the mob. No one at the hospital, from the staff to patients, could provide any details of the kidnappers. By October, the DOJ decided in a handwritten note “not to make facts public.”

On Feb. 27, 1943, Assistant Attorney General Wendell Berge wrote to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover  closing the case, stating “no evidence has been developed which would warrant presentation to a grand jury, and after careful consideration it is not believed that further investigation is desirable.”

Media Gallery

Case summaries are compiled using government records and archival primary source material. These include, but are not limited to, investigative records, arrest reports, newspaper articles, court filings, census records, birth and death certificates, transcripts, and press releases. In many cases, the records contain contradictory assertions.

In addition to the incident files associated with this case, this summary relied on the following:

Sources

Archival Sources

• National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Papers: Part II: General Office File, 1940 1956: Lynching: Vinson, Willie, Texarkana, Texas, 1942

Genealogical Records

• Death Certificates for Bowie County, Texas, United States, 1942, Texas Department of Health
• Population Schedule for Ashley County, Arkansas, United States Federal Census, 1930
• Population Schedule for Cadoo County, Louisiana, United States Federal Census, 1940

Newspaper Articles

• “15 Men Lynch Hospital Patient,” The Indianapolis Recorder, July 18, 1942
• “15 Men Lynch Negro in South,” Jackson Citizen Patriot (Jackson, MI), July 13, 1942
• “A Disgraceful Incident,” The Daily Worker (Chicago, IL), July 18, 1942
• “AFL and CIO Leaders Urge Anti-Lynch Law,” New Journal and Guide (Norfolk, VA), August 1, 1942
• “Angry Harlem Rally Condemns Lynching,” The Daily Worker (Chicago, IL), July 17, 1942
• “Arkansas Duplicates ‘Sikeston’,” The Call (Kansas City, MO), July 17, 1942
• “Ask Immediate Passage of Poll Tax, Lynch Bills,” Atlanta Daily World, July 21, 1942
• “Asks Prosecution of Texas Lynch Mob to Thwart Federal Law,” The Pittsburgh Courier, August 29, 1942
• “A Wave of Jim Crow Terror Has Begun in the South,” The Militant (New York City, NY), August 22, 1942
• “Background of Texas Lynching Revealed in Exclusive Story,” The People’s Voice (New York City, NY), August 8, 1942
• “Church Council Asks U.S. Action Against Texas Lynchers,” New Journal and Guide (Norfolk, VA), July 25, 1942
• “City CIO Demands Lynchers Punished,” The Daily Worker (Chicago, IL), July 18, 1942
• “Colored Dishwasher Hanged for Alleged Assault on Woman,” The Port Huron Times Herald (Port Huron, MI), July 13, 1942
• “Delegation Sees Biddle on Lynching,” New Journal and Guide (Norfolk, VA), August 1, 1942
• “Delegation to D.C. Confers with Biddle,” Philadelphia Tribune, July 25, 1942
• “Demands Executive Order Against Mob Murder,” The Black Dispatch (Oklahoma City, OK), August 1, 1942
• “Dragged From Bed, Lynched,” Chillicothe Gazette (Chillicothe, OH), July 13, 1942
• “Exclusive AFRO Pictures of Scenes Where Texas Mob Took Law into Its Own Hands,” The Afro-American (Baltimore, MD), July 25, 1942
• “Execute Lynchers, Harlem Meeting Asks,” The Daily Worker (Chicago, IL), July 16, 1942
• “FBI To Prove Tex. Lynching, Says Biddle,” Sunday Chicago Bee, August 2, 1942
• “Gets Reply to Protest of Lynching,” The Chicago Defender, August 1, 1942
• “Labor, Negro Leaders Assail Texas Lynching,” The Daily Worker (Chicago, IL), July 15, 1942
• “Lynch Negro in Texas,” Cleveland Call and Post, July 18, 1942
• “Lynch Negro Taken from Hospital Cot,” The Chicago Defender, July 18, 1942
• “‘Lynchers Unknown,’ Says Texas Sheriff,” The Pittsburgh Courier, July 25, 1942
• “Lynching Probed by Texas Sheriff,” The Butte Daily Post (Butte, MT), July 14, 1942
• “Lynching Record Better,” The New York Times, July 13, 1942
• “Marcantonio Asks FDR for Action to Wipe out Jim Crow,” The Daily Worker (Chicago, IL), July 31, 1942
• “Mass Parade to Protest Lynching and Beating,” New Journal and Guide (Norfolk, VA), August 1, 1942
• “Mob Lynches Negro Accused of Assault,” The Vancouver Sun, July 13, 1942
• “Muffled Drums to Herald N.Y. Waller Protest,” Philadelphia Tribune, July 25, 1942
• “Negro Dragged from Hospital Room, Lynched,” Mansfield News-Journal (Mansfield, OH), July 13, 1942
• “Negro Hanged in Texas Town After Assault,” The Truth (Elkhard, IN), July 13, 1942
• “Negro Lynched by Texas Mob,” The Green Bay Press-Gazette (Green Bay, WI), July 13, 1942
• “Negro Rapist Suspect Dies at Mob’s Hands,” Cumberland Evening Times (Cumberland, MD), July 13, 1942
• “Negro Suspect in Assault is Hanged by Mob,” Lafayette Journal and Courier (Lafayette, IN), July 13, 1942
• “NFCL Flays Lynching in Texas,” California Eagle (Lost Angeles, CA), July 23, 1942
• “No Arrests Made in Lynching,” Daytona Beach Morning Journal (Daytona Beach, FL), July 14, 1942
• “No Lynching Clews Found,” The Birmingham Age-Herald, July 14, 1942
• “N.Y. ‘March on Washington’ Group Plans Parade Protest of Lynchings,” The Chicago Defender, July 25, 1942
• “Paper Wants Lynch Probe,” Beaumont Journal (Beaumont, TX), July 14, 1942
• “Plan Huge Protest Parade in New York Saturday,” The Call (Kansas City, MO), July 24, 1942
• “Prosecution, Not Whitewashing,” The Daily Worker (Chicago, IL), August 3, 1942
• “Randolph Tells F.D. He Let Us Down,” The Afro-American (Baltimore, MD), July 25, 1942
• “Second Front Now Vitally Affects Liberty of Negroes,” Philadelphia Tribune, August 15, 1942
• “Sheriff Finds No Clues in Negro’s Lynching,” The Houston Post, July 14, 1942
• “Southern Mob Hangs Suspect,” Muncie Evening Press (Muncie, IN), July 13, 1942
• “State Should Prosecute to Stop Anti-Lynching,” New Journal and Guide (Norfolk, VA), September 12, 1942
• “Texans Hang Rape-Case Suspect,” The Detroit Free Press, July 14, 1942
• “Texarkana Mayor Writes in Defense of Lynching,” The Chicago Defender, August 29, 1942
• “Texarkana Mob Lynches Negro,” The Shreveport Journal (Shreveport, LA), July 13, 1942
• “Texarkana Sheriff Says He Can’t Identify Lynchers,” The Call (Kansas City, MO), July 24, 1942
• “Texas Lynch Rope and Gown are Mysteriously Missing,” The Afro-American (Baltimore, MD), July 25, 1942
• “Texas Mob Murderers Still Go ‘Unidentified’,” The Black Dispatch (Oklahoma City, OK), July 25, 1942
• “Texas Moves to Prevent Lynch Rule,” The Chicago Defender, July 25, 1942
• “Texas Newspaper Raps Mob Action,” Atlanta Daily World, July 19, 1942
• “The Texas Lynching,” Atlanta Daily World, July 19, 1942
• “Three Defense Pleas for Negro Accused of Assault Refused,” The News (San Antonio, TX), July 31, 1942
• “Urges National Mourning Day for Lynching Victim,” New Journal and Guide (Norfolk, VA), July 25, 1942
• “Urges Texas to Prosecute Mob as Defense Move,” Atlanta Daily World, August 23, 1942
• “Vinson Lyncher Known-But Free,” The People’s Voice (New York City, New York), July 25, 1942
• “Youth Council in Drive Issues 25,000 Pamphlets," New Journal and Guide (Norfolk ,VA), September 19, 1942
• A. C. MacNeal, “Criticism of Men and Conditions Which Make or Mar the Future of a Race,” The Chicago Defender, July 25, 1942
• Albert White, “Texas Mayor Favors Lynching,” The Black Dispatch (Oklahoma City, OK), Septemebr 5, 1942
• A. W. Berry, “Link Vinson Lynching with Waller Execution,” New York Amsterdam Star-News, August 1, 1942
• Ben Davis, Jr., “An Open Letter to Att’y-General Biddle,” The Daily World (New York City, NY), August 30, 1942
• Corp. John Atwood Adams, “Texarkana,” The Chicago Defender, August 29, 1942
• Hamilton Richards, “F.D.R. Should Declare Domestic Freedoms,” New York Amsterdam Star-News, July 25, 1942
• Marjorie McKensie, “Pursuit of Democracy,” New Pittsburgh Courier, June 26, 1943