he Longview Race Riot occurred on July 10-12 in this northeast Texas city, where 1,790 blacks comprised 31% of the town’s 5,700 people in 1919. Racial tensions were high across the United States due to race riots in March 1919. Just before the Longview Riot, local teacher and newspaper correspondent Samuel L. Jones and Dr. Calvin P. Davis, prominent leaders of the black community, had begun encouraging local black farmers to avoid selling to local white cotton brokers and to instead sell directly to buyers in Galveston. Also, local blacks set up a cooperative store where they competed with and angered local white merchants. These incidents raised tensions in Longview long before the riot occurred. Continue reading Revisit: LONGVIEW, TEXAS RACE RIOT, 1919