January 1943

At the Alabama Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Company in Mobile, Alabama, white workers riot after Black workers are promoted to welding positions. A white mob of several thousand attacks Black workers with pipes and tools, injuring approximately 50 Black workers. The federal government, needing wartime production, negotiates a compromise segregating work areas rather than protecting Black workers' rights.

White workers at the Pennsylvania Shipyard in Beaumont, Texas riot after a false rumor that a Black man had raped a white woman. A mob of several thousand white men destroys Black businesses and homes in the Black neighborhood. Two people are killed, dozens injured, and over 200 arrested — the majority Black. Martial law is declared. The riot exemplifies how wartime racial tensions and false rape accusations were used to terrorize Black communities.