Lynching of Fred Rouse
33-year-old meatpacker Fred Rouse was lynched for a second time on December 11, 1921, in Fort Worth, Texas.
| Part of Jim Crow Era | |
 Aproximate location of the hanging of Fred Rouse | |
| Date | December 11, 1921 |
|---|---|
| Location | Hung on a tree at the corner of NE 12th Street and Samuels Avenue in Fort Worth, Texas, Tarrant County, Texas |
| Participants | A white mob of 30 people storm hospital to lynch Rouse a second time |
| Deaths | 1 |
Background
In 1921, the whites-only union workers in the Fort Worth, Swift & Co. meatpacking plant in the Niles City Stockyards (now part of Fort Worth) went on strike. The owners attempted to replace them with black strikebreakers. During union protests, there was a conflict and African-American Fred Rouse fired his gun wounding two white strikers who happened to be brothers.[1][2]
Lynchings
Enraged, the white seized, beat and stabbed him. An ambulance took him to a hospital where staff were shocked to find that the bloody body that entered their morgue was still alive. He spent several days recovering in a segregated basement ward of the Negro Ward of the City & County Hospital (330 E. 4th St.).[3][4] When members of the striking union heard that Rouse was still alive a mob of about 30 men snuck into the hospital and were able to identify him by his severe skull injury. Over the protest of the nurses, he is dragged out in his nightgown, despite the pleas of the night nurse to spare him. He has strung up on a tree at the corner of NE 12th Street and Samuels Avenue in Fort Worth, Texas and a white mob takes turns riddling his mutilated body with gunshots.[4]
Aftermath
The union officially disavows the lynching and six suspected members of the lynch mob are later indicted, including 2 policemen, but they never go to trial. [5]
The Tarrant County Coalition for Peace and Justice (TCCPJ), a nonprofit dedicated to memorializing victims of racial violence, on Saturday, December 11, 2021, broke ground on a historical marker that will stand at Rouse’s lynching site.[4]
Bibliography
Notes
References
- "Negro who shot strike pickets hanged by mob in Fort Worth". Arizona Republican. Phoenix, Maricopa, Arizona: Republican Pub. Co. 1921. pp. 1–12. ISSN 2157-135X. OCLC 2612512. Retrieved December 12, 2021.
- Selcer, Richard F.; Foster, Kevin S. (2011). Written in Blood: The History of Fort Worth's Fallen Lawmen. University of North Texas Press. ISBN 9781574413236. - Total pages: 440
- Selcer, Richard F. (2015). A History of Fort Worth in Black & White: 165 Years of African-American Life. University of North Texas Press. ISBN 9781574416169. - Total pages: 598
- Suarez, Miranda (December 6, 2021). "100 years after his death, a man lynched in Fort Worth gets his first-ever memorial". KERA-TV. Retrieved December 11, 2021.
- Tarrant County Coalition for Peace and Justice (2021). "Remembering Mr. Fred Rouse". Tarrant County Coalition for Peace and Justice. Retrieved December 12, 2021.