Racial Terror Lynching in America Racial terror lynching claimed the lives of thousands of Black people and created a legacy of injustice that can still be felt today. After the Civil War, many white people remained committed to an ideology of white supremacy and used fatal violence and terror against Black men, women, and children to perpetuate racial hierarchy and the exploitative practices established during enslavement. Racial terror lynching became the most public and notorious form of racial terrorism used to instill fear in Black communities and deny Black people the opportunity to truly realize the promises of civic and economic freedom after emancipation. Black workers seeking economic stability were often denied employment opportunities and relegated to the lowest-paying jobs. Like Mr. Rouse, Black workers employed or hired by factories when white unions went on strike were commonly targeted by white mobs with violent retaliation and lynching. Denied equal protection under the law, lynching victims were regularly kidnapped from hospitals, jails, prisons, courtrooms, or out of police custody by white mobs that faced no legal repercussions, Racial terror lynchings often included hangings, shootings, burnings, and mutilation, sometimes in front of crowds numbering in the thousands. Although many victims of racial terror lynchings will never be known, at least 338 racial terror lynchings have been documented in Texas between 1877 and 1950. Racial Terror Lynching of Mr. Fred Rouse On December 11, 1921, Mr. Fred Rouse, a Black citizen, husband, father, and non-union butcher at Swift & Co. meatpacking, was lynched at this site by a white mob. Five days prior, he was beaten on Exchange Avenue in the Stockyards by a mob of meatpackers from a whites-only union who were picketing Swift & Co. After stabbing, then bludgeoning him with a nearby streetcar guardrail, the mob believed that they had murdered Mr. Rouse. Niles City police officers asked the agitated mob to relinquish Mr. Rouse's body to them. They placed his body in the back of a police car, and after realizing that he was alive, drove him to the City & County Hospital Negro Ward at E. 4th and Jones Streets. At 11 pm on December 11, another white mob abducted Mr. Rouse from the hospital and drove him down Samuels Avenue to this site. Twenty minutes later, he was hanged from a hackberry tree and his body was riddled with bullets. A bloody pistol was found under his feet. During this era, Black workers like Mr. Rouse were regularly excluded from union membership, denied worker protections, and often faced hostile contempt and lethal violence from white workers seeking to maintain economic control. Three white men were charged in the murder of Mr. Rouse, including the acting Niles City police chief and another officer. All were acquitted. No one has ever been held accountable. Memorializing Mr. Fred Rouse reminds us to remain vigilant in pursuit of racial justice.

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