The riot began with a fistfight between a white sailor and a black man who was thought to have insulted the sailor’s girlfriend.
What happened next is unclear, but an altercation began between all three black people and the white police officers, with Price jumping on one of the officers and an officer pulling out a shotgun.
Over 30,000 people participated in the rioting, most of them blacks who looted and burned primarily white-owned businesses, got into fistfights with the police, and beat and mugged white motorists.
From January 1 to September 14, 1919, 38 riots were documented across the nation and at least 43 blacks were lynched by white mobs, while 11 black men were literally burned at the stake.
In July there were riots in Longview, Texas, and Bisbess, Arizona, and during the latter the white police force attacked the veterans of a black cavalry regiment without provocation.
