1946 Columbia Race Riot

This post-World War II race riot occurred in the town of Columbia on the night of February 25-26, 1946. Like other outbreaks of violence in the South in the immediate postwar era, this incident involved military veterans who were unwilling to accept prevailing racial norms upon returning to their hometowns. In 1946 Columbia contained about five thousand whites and three thousand blacks. Race relations in the county had often been tense in the prior generation; since 1925, for example, two lynchings had taken place there. But racial violence decreased during World War II, and in the postwar months there were few indications of future trouble.

On February 25, 1946, James Stephenson, a U.S. Navy veteran from the Pacific theater, accompanied his mother, Gladys Stephenson, to a local department store to pick up a radio that Mrs. Stephenson had left for repairs. She and a young white male clerk began to argue about the repair order; he became verbally aggressive, threatening her. James Stephenson stepped between the two and struggled with the clerk, who ended up crashing through a window in the department store. Local police arrested both Stephensons for disturbing the peace.......