Fort Worth Weekly // November 15-21, 2023

Volum e 1 9

N umber 30

November 1 5-21 , 2023

INSIDE

STAFF Anthony Mariani, Editor Lee Newquist, Publisher Bob Niehoff, General Manager Ryan Burger, Art Director Jim Erickson, Circulation Director Edward Brown, Staff Writer Emmy Smith, Proofreader Michael Newquist, Regional Sales Director

Full Circle

Jennifer Bovee, Marketing Director

As the troupe’s Mr. Rogers show winds down, goodness awaits in 2024.

Julie Strehl, Account Executive

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Tony Diaz, Account Executive Wyatt Newquist, Digital Coordinator

Hush Hour

Delectable sushi and some loud cocktails can be found in Keller.

Laurie James, Kristian Lin, Vishal Malhotra, Cody Neathery, Wyatt Newquist, Madison Simmons, Steve Steward, Teri Webster,

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By Buck D. Elliott

Harking back to Bakersfield yields wondrous results for Vincent Neil Emerson.

Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue, Cole Williams EDITORIAL

BOARD

Anthony Mariani, Edward Brown, Emmy Smith

Fort Worth Weekly mailing address:

Feature Buck U Stage Night & Day ATE DAY8 a Week

17 Eats & Drinks 21 Music

Music Awards. . . . 22

21 Classifieds

Backpage . . . . . . . . 24

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300 Bailey, Ste 205, Fort Worth TX 76107

NOVEMBER 15-21, 2023

Cover photo by Edward Brown

Buck D. Elliott, Juan R. Govea, Patrick Higgins,

While coaches are stealing signs and being paid exorbitantly not to coach, TCU quietly slouches toward a bowl berth.

Honey-Gold Sounds

21

Christina Berger, E.R. Bills, Jason Brimmer,

Wild Cards

17

By Patrick Higgins

CONTRIBUTORS

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY

By Edward Brown

Clintastic, Brand Ambassador

Cour tesy TCU Athletics

By Edward Brown

Stacey Hammons, Senior Account Executive

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E . R .

B I L L S

His June 18, 1996 obituary in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram is short and succinct.

It’s not much of a lede, but it’s where we should start.

Lawrence M. Peters died on June 13, 1996, and his obit ran on June 18. No picture. No next of kin listed. No mention of his loved ones.

Most of the obits around it have pictures of the deceased, several lines about the lives they led, and a list of survivors. Peters’ is uninteresting.

It brings to mind an old English expression long claimed to be a Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.” The adage is foreign to us, especially as social media trumpets the ways in which our lives are interesting, but in the old days, “interesting times” were often times of tribulation or danger.

Lawrence M. Peters’ obit is boring but misleading. He lived in very interesting times.

In the early 1950s, he worked as a bin stocker at Allied Mills on 401 N. Beach St. It’s not clear where he lived before, but by 1953, he was 35 years old and making $55 a week. He and his wife had been saving for a while, and they had enough to finance a house. A decent house in the Riverside neighborhood just east of downtown Fort Worth. It was also just a five-minute drive to his job. He was living the American Dream, right here in Cowtown.

He paid $1,278 down on a two-bedroom frame home at 109 N. Judkins, and trouble began as soon as he unpacked on August 21, 1953.

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY

NOVEMBER 15-21, 2023

fwweekly.com

Lawrence M. Peters, 78, a retired Allied Mills employee, was found dead Friday [June 13] in Teague. Funeral: 11 a.m. today at Avant A.M.E. Church in Teague. Burial: Fairfield. Mr. Peters retired in 1982.

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C o u r t e s y F o r t W o r t h S t a r - Te l e g r a m a r c h i v e s

B Y

Mr. and Mrs. Peters were Black. The Riverside neighborhood was white.

The “good” white citizenry of the neighborhood took immediate (though, perhaps in their minds, tactful) action.

Upstanding white community leaders like George A. Seaman (a former city councilmember), Mack Dumas, Rayford M. Shelton, and George Brown formed the Riverside Merchants and Home Owners Association in response to the new residents. The association didn’t want their nice, respectable suburbia encroached upon by “Negroes.” Seaman and other association members met with Peters and offered to pay his down payment plus equity and moving expenses to leave.

“I want to stay,” Peters told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “I worked hard and saved my money to buy a clean, decent home. I went to the real estate company to buy a house, and they sold me this one.

I don’t want any trouble with anyone. I wouldn’t have moved in here if I’d had any idea it would upset these people, but now I’ve gone to the trouble of moving, and it’s a nice home. I’d like to stay. I’ll be a good citizen and a good neighbor.”

On August 25, 1953, the real estate firm that sold the Peters couple their home announced it was canceling all future listings in the area “as a result of white protests over its and other companies offering homes for sale to Negroes.”

But others slipped through.

On Saturday, Sep. 26, an unidentified Black family tried to move into 113 N. Judkins — the house right next door to the Peters residence — and a belligerent crowd of white protesters gathered and told them they were not welcome. The white mob was so unnerving and threatening that the incoming Black family loaded back up before they were even unpacked and left.

C o u r t e s y F o r t W o r t h S t a r - Te l e g r a m a r c h i v e s

This month is the 70th anniversary of a nonfatal car bombing to intimidate new Black neighbors, but you didn’t hear it from us.

Whites bombed the car of a Black English teacher near Lake Como in 1954.

When Peters returned home later, the white mob warned him, shouting that they “would put a bomb under” his car. Seaman later insisted that a number of folks “heckled the Negroes moving into the house” next door but that no one had threatened Peters.

“Some of them just yelled at him that he had missed a party by coming home so late,” Seaman said. “This is not a temporary deal.

We’re going to see this thing through, and we’re going to win.”

Seaman and the others planned meetings all over Riverside. “And by Riverside,” Seaman clarified, “I mean Oakhurst, Haltom City, Oak Knoll, and Richland Hills.”

The Riverside Merchants and Home Owners Association membership was limited to individuals who signed affidavits affirming that they were not Communists, that they would do “nothing to devaluate Riverside property,” and that they were “Caucasians in race.”

On Monday, Aug. 31, the Fort Worth branch of the NAACP proposed the creation of a mayor-appointed biracial commission to promote a better understanding between whites and Blacks in the area. In an official statement, they issued constructive advice to all parties: “Look for qualities that are more than skin deep, and you will get excellent neighbors. If the people of Riverside and other areas in Fort Worth can begin judging neighbors on this democratic basis, we can contribute to the advance of human relations and serve as a model community in housing for other areas of these United States.”

Soon, signs reading, “This house not for sale to Negroes” began greeting Peters from homes up and down his street. Then, during the wee hours of November 2, 1953, the empty residence at 113 N. Judkins was doused in gasoline and burned, and several sticks of dynamite were placed under the hood of Peters’ car and detonated. The explosion blew out the front living room windows of the Peters house, and Peters was frustrated and defiant. When a reporter solicited his response after the attack, he was bitterly unequivocal.

“Tell them I’m going to stay,” Peters said. “Tell them I’m not going to move out.”

After worrying for several hours that Monday, Peters contacted the FBI. After explaining his predicament to an aide of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, he spoke with Hoover himself. “I told him I needed protection because the police here didn’t seem to be doing anything.”

Hoover listened patiently and promised Peters he would send agents to Fort Worth to investigate. He never did. Mack Dumas from the Riverside Merchants and Home Owners Association suggested that the bombing may have been perpetrated by allies of the Negroes “to gain sympathy for their cause.” Some claimed Peters had created a “Frankenstein” by moving to the Riverside area and that he couldn’t leave 109 N. Judkins because he would be “letting other Negroes down.”

Peters scoffed at the notion and stated continued on page 5