The Knoxville Riot
The Knoxville Riot
In late August 1919, a riot accompanied by looting and death erupted in Knoxville, Tennessee. The riot was the culmination of the tension that characterized the changed relations between blacks and whites in the years after World War I. It was triggered by a black male’s alleged forcible entry into a white woman’s house, robbery at gun point, murder, and an unsuccessful attempt to lynch him. The suspect was Maurice Mays, who was identified by the lone witness, Ora Smyth, as the one who shot and killed Mrs. Bertie Lindsey inside her bedroom on August 30, 1919. Because a reversible error was committed in the trial in the Criminal Court of Knox County, the case was remanded for a new trial. Mays was tried for the second time, but was again convicted, with the Tennessee Supreme Court upholding the conviction on another appeal. Mays was sentenced to death by electrocution, after which the city of Knoxville slowly returned to normal.
Keywords: riot, Knoxville, Tennessee, blacks, whites, robbery, murder, Maurice Mays, Ora Smyth, Bertie Lindsey
University Press of Mississippi requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
