Knoxville Riot of 1919

In the early hours of 30 August 1919 Knoxville police charged Maurice Mays with the murder of Bertie Lindsay, a white woman, on the identification of her cousin Ora Smith, who had been with her. Mays was a well-known figure in the city, an occasional deputy sheriff, rumoured to be the illegitimate son of Mayor John E. McMillan. Expecting trouble, Sheriff W. T. Cate had him taken to Chattanooga that afternoon.

The precaution did not matter. A crowd gathered at the Knox County jail, broke down the door and searched the building for a man who was no longer in it. The mob left the Black prisoners unharmed, freed a dozen white inmates, emptied the liquor storage room and wrecked the jail. It then headed for the Black section of the city. A National Guard detachment called to the scene was worse than useless: guardsmen joined the white mob and fired into buildings occupied by Black residents. More guardsmen arrived on Sunday morning and restored order.

How many died is not settled. The Tennessee Encyclopedia records two deaths - a National Guard officer shot accidentally by his own men, and one Black man killed - while other accounts of the riot put the toll at seven, six of them Black. No authoritative count was made. Thirty-six white men were arrested; an all-white jury refused to convict any of them. Mays was convicted of Bertie Lindsay's murder, won a new trial from the Tennessee Supreme Court in 1920, was convicted again and was electrocuted. Most historians who have examined the case since conclude he was innocent.