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Negro Demonstration in Danville Turns Violent

June 10, 1963 - About 40 Negro youngsters, staging the third anti-segregation protest of the day in Danville, Va., were dispersed by fire hoses and club-wielding policemen this evening when they attempted to march on the city jail. Firemen appeared at both ends of a narrow alleyway, between the jail and a municipal building, and sprayed them with high-pressure fire hoses from both directions, bowling them over like tenpins. Then about 35 policemen moved in with nightsticks swinging and dispersed the crowd. There was no immediate count of the number hurt. Most of the Negroes fled, but some were hauled inside to join the 63 persons arrested during the 2 earlier demonstrations today. After the first demonstration, Mayor Julian Stinson warned that his patience was “just about at end” and threatened to “fill every available stockade.” He blamed a “couple hundred hoodlums” for the demonstrations, which first broke out in the city last week. Danville Negroes have demanded immediate and total desegregation in the southern Virginia textile and tobacco city of 50,000. They also want a city ordinance prohibiting segregation.

© 2024 by Joe Rubenstein

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