Blackwell demonstrations

A race riot took place on February 24, 1976 on the grounds of the Escambia County Sheriff's Office after nearly 500 African-Americans gathered to protest Sheriff Royal Untreiner's refusal to discipline Deputy Doug Raines, who had shot and killed a young black motorist, Wendel Blackwell, on December 22, 1975. Untreiner said the shooting was justifiable because Blackwell possessed a handgun, but some eyewitnesses claimed Raines had planted the gun after the fact.

Several local civil rights leaders, including B. J. Brooks of the NAACP and H. K. Matthews of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, organized demonstrations in downtown Pensacola, boycotted local stores, and met with Governor Reubin Askew to discuss the situation.

On February 24, just a few weeks after the February 5 riot at Escambia High School in which four people were shot, a crowd of nearly 500 gathered outside the Sheriff's headquarters and began repeating protest chants. Rev. Jimmie Lee Savage reportedly led demonstrators in the chant, "Two, four, six, eight, who shall we incarcerate? Untreiner, Raines, the whole damn bunch!"

Sheriff Untreiner, apparently hearing the word "assassinate" instead of "incarcerate," ordered the crowd to disband. When they did not leave the premises immediately, he sent seventy deputies with nightclubs into their midst.

In the ensuing melee, several protestors were injured. Thirty-four adults (including Matthews and Brooks) and thirteen juveniles were arrested on misdemeanor charges of unlawful assembly and malicious trespass. Three days later, felony extortion counts were added to the Matthews and Brooks charges, due to the alleged "assassinate" chant.

References

• Walter C. Rucker and James N. Upton. Encyclopedia of American Race Riots: Greenwood Milestones in African American History. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007.