Park Street Riot

This page shows the limited coverage that the Park Street Riot received in the newspapers at the time. For a more detailed account, see this Bristol Post article or the dedicated Wikipedia page. These reports are from American newspapers from the Library of Congress website.

The Park Street riot occurred in Park Street and George Street on 15th July 1944 when many black US servicemen refused to return to their camps after US military policemen (MPs) arrived to end a minor fracas. Further MPs were sent, up to 120 in total, and in subsequent confrontations an M.P. was stabbed, a black GI was shot dead, and several others were wounded.

All G.I.s were placed under curfew for several days and there was a complete news blackout. No stories appear in the Bristol or West Country newspapers due to reporting restriction, however, this wasn’t the case in America as this article demonstrates.

Interestingly though, it does make reference to a Daily Mail article about the ‘fracas’. It was two weeks before details started to emerge like this in the Jackson Advocate.

The US Army conducted an urgent investigation into the riot although there was still uncertainty as to the initial spark.

Rumours of further violence continued, which resulted in Eisenhower having to deny that 20 more black GIs had been murdered by white paratroopers.

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