The riot ended after local and state officials took actions to impose military authority and quell further violence.

After ignoring early rumors of planned unrest,[2] local officials appealed to the governor for forces to quell the violence.

[1][3] Some men were shot and numerous black homes and businesses were burned prior to the arrival of the law enforcement and military units.

That summer riots took place in many cities across the country, where ethnic whites clashed with blacks in postwar social tensions brought on by fierce competition for jobs and housing.

Most blacks in Texas and the South were disenfranchised at the turn of the century, based on new constitutions and laws passed by state legislatures.

[2] Following service by many blacks in the military in the Great War, African Americans aspired to better treatment in the United States.

At the time, Jones and Dr. Calvin P. Davis, a 34-year-old black physician, were prominent leaders in Longview's African-American community.

Not long before the riot, the two were known to be encouraging local black farmers to avoid white cotton brokers and sell directly to buyers in Galveston in order to keep more of their profits.

At the same time, members of the Negro Business League had set up a cooperative store that competed with white merchants.

[2] In June, local man Lemuel Walters of Longview had been whipped by two white men from Kilgore, allegedly for making "indecent advances" toward their sister.

On June 17, he was abducted by a lynch mob consisting of ten men and subsequently shot to death later that night.

[1][3] Dr. Davis, Jones, and some other respected black men went to Judge Bramlette in town, asking him to investigate the lynching.

The young woman's brothers attacked Jones on Thursday, July 10, 1919, giving him a severe beating across from the courthouse.

[1] At about midnight on July 10, a group of between twelve and fifteen white men gathered at Bodie Park, located at the corner of Tyler and Fredonia streets.

They went to Jones' house by car, reaching his place at Harrison and College streets south of the railroad tracks about 1:00 AM, July 11, 1919.

Hobby responded by placing the National Guard units in Dallas, Terrell, and Nacogdoches, on high alert, but he sent only eight Texas Rangers to Longview.

[6] Marion Bush was a 60-year-old black man who had worked with the local Kelly Plow Company for thirty years.

On the night of July 12, Sheriff Meredith and Ike Killingsworth went to Bush's house, located on the west side of Court Street, one block south of the Texas and Pacific Railroad tracks.

The sheriff is thought to have been either offering Bush protective custody (as his son, then 13, said in an interview decades later in 1978) or intending to arrest him.

From interviews in 1978 and a contemporary Dallas newspaper, Durham says the sheriff called farmer Jim Stephens and asked him to stop Bush.

[1] According to the same Dallas Morning News of July 13 and 14, "armed white citizens" hunted down Bush, killing the 60-year-old man in a cornfield south of town.

On Sunday, July 13, Hobby declared martial law in all of Gregg County, placing Brigadier General Robert H. McDill in command of the soldiers and the rangers.

On July 13, General McDill issued orders, dividing the town into two districts, giving command of one section to Colonel T.E.

He ordered the local telephone operators not to place any long-distance calls, to prevent recruiting of weapons or men from neighboring towns.

"[1] General McDill asked the town officials to organize a committee consisting of local citizens, to work with him and the military during the emergency.

The Rangers learned the identity of the "ringleader" of the riot, who gave them names of sixteen other men involved in the first attack on Jones' house.

[2] General McDill organized an assembly at the courthouse and informed the public of the arrests, the presence of National Guard troops and Texas Rangers, and expectations.

On August 18, 1919, they had a meeting and extended interview with John R. Shillady, the white executive secretary of the national office of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and Charles E. Bentley, a black dentist who served as secretary of the Chicago chapter, to report on the events in Longview.

[7] [full citation needed] By that date, racial conflicts had erupted in numerous large and small cities across the country, including Chicago, which had a week of violence ending in early August that resulted in a total of 38 deaths and more than 500 people injured, as well as extensive property damage.