Lynching of Fred Rouse
1921 Texas lynching
53-year-old meatpacker Fred Rouse was lynched on December 11, 1921, in Fort Worth, Texas.
Background
In 1921, the whites-only union workers at the Swift & Co. meatpacking plant in the Niles City Stockyards (now part of Fort Worth) went on strike. The owners attempted to replace them with black strikebreakers. During union protests, African-American worker Fred Rouse was accosted by some of the strikers, and he was stabbed in the back with a knife. This resulted in Rouse firing his gun, wounding two white strikers who happened to be brothers. At this point, Rouse was clobbered, disarmed, and taken into custody by a Niles City policeman. Once Rouse was disarmed, the mob pried Rouse away from the policeman. Rouse attempted to escape, but was refused entrance onto a streetcar. The mob then beat Rouse into "insensibility," and when he appeared to have perished, the mob allowed the police to recover Rouse's body and place it in a police wagon.
“Lynching of Fred Rouse” enters the record as 1921 Texas lynching. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Lynching, Fred and Rouse can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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