Summary
Rev. William Lawson, whose eyewitness report of the police attack on Texas Southern University, published in Forward Times on May 27, is reprinted in the June-July 1967 SNCC Newsletter on PDF p.2 and continued on PDF p.7-8 (Third World Round Up: The Palestine Problem: Test Your Knowledge — SNCC Newsletter Vol. I, No. 4 (June-July 1967), PDF p.2, p.7-8).
Details
- His account opens by denying the incident the marks of a riot — no looting, no widespread resistance to arrest — and says one man died, at least three were wounded by gunfire, one dormitory was plundered unfit for residence, and 489 college students were arrested, the largest mass arrest in the city; local media, he says, misrepresented the facts, and the university and its students are being made the scapegoat for Patrolman Louis Kuba’s blood (PDF p.2).
- As a Sunnyside protestor he was released at about 12:30 A.M. on May 17 at the mayor’s request and rushed to the campus, negotiated with Rev. F.D. Kirkpatrick and Rev. Earl Allen with Police Chief Herman Short, watched the charge and the volleys, was taken at gun-point to a squad car, and was questioned in Chief Short’s office at 4:00 A.M., where he told the Chief his own command had endangered his men (PDF p.7).
- His conclusion: the strategy was stupid and made the wild shooting a last resort; neither of us could possibly have approved the events of that night, Lawson says, without the account naming the second of the two — on PDF p.7 the mayor and the police chief wanted to question him, and a photographer, a minister and Lawson sat in the outer office awaiting questioning. The Mayor recognized the political consequences of the attack against an entire university, the Chief had to confess there never were the hordes of snipers they had pretended filled the dormitories, and the massive attack was a panic action forced by clumsy leadership, the build-up of force originally designed to teach a lesson to Negroes in Houston; Chief Short will hear for the rest of his life his own words, the orders he did not give (PDF p.8).
Related pages
Third World Round Up: The Palestine Problem: Test Your Knowledge — SNCC Newsletter Vol. I, No. 4 (June-July 1967), Herman Short, Texas Southern University, TSU Five