AZ: The History of Arizona podcast · David Rookhuyzen

Episode 236: The Thanksgiving Day Riot

·30 min·2 clips

By 11 p.m. on November 26, 1942, 364th Infantry soldiers and 733rd MPs are exchanging gunfire in Phoenix.

1. AZ: The History of Arizona podcast Episode 236, "The Thanksgiving Day Riot," centers on black soldiers in Arizona during World War II and the Phoenix confrontation of November 26, 1942. 2. Host David Rickhausen introduces himself as the narrator and links this episode to earlier coverage of Fort Huachuca and Arizona's wartime military buildup. 3. The episode asks why a Phoenix incident was later called a "race riot" and why Rickhausen считает that label too broad. 4. Cornelius C. Smith Jr. is used to explain how Fort Huachuca expanded in March 1941 from a prewar post into a major training site. 5. Smith's account says Selective Service trainees from Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, and Maryland pushed the post to 5,500 officers and soldiers. 6. The 92nd and 93rd Infantry Divisions were reactivated in 1942 and occupied part of the 1,400 structures at Fort Huachuca. 7. Black women in the Women's Army Corps worked there as postal clerks, secretaries, cooks, switchboard operators, bookkeepers, truck drivers, warehouse workers, and mechanics. 8. John P. Langley says the post averaged 25,000 people and reached a high of 42,500, making it the third largest city in Arizona. 9. The Blue Helmet, the 93rd Division newspaper, had the second largest circulation of any paper in Arizona. 10. Recreational life on post included baseball, theater, a cinema, a library, music service clubs, and visits by Lena Horne, Louis Armstrong, and Joe Louis. 11. Off post, Fry near Sierra Vista is described as a place for liquor, violence, and prostitution, and The Hook was tried as a regulated vice district near one of the gates. 12. The Hook used ID cards, doctor inspections, and required protection, but health officials shut it down by 1943 after criticism from the army and the black community. 13. In Tucson, eight black soldiers from Fort Huachuca had an altercation at the American Legion Hall in June 1942, and the city rejected a USO recreation center for black soldiers. 14. Nogales and Bisbee were later declared off-limits after fights involving white military police, black veterans, and a bar confrontation over a racial epithet. 15. In Flagstaff, 25-year-old Private Jesse Smith of Philadelphia was shot and killed by local law enforcement for unspecified misconduct. 16. The episode contrasts that treatment with Mexico, where soldiers said they could "kick up their heels" in Agua Prieta and Nogales, Sonora, when U.S. towns were closed to them. 17. Rickhausen describes a more accommodating Phoenix that still enforced segregation, with black residents confined to South Phoenix and barred from most hotels, restaurants, and municipal swimming pools. 18. He says poor housing, limited recreation, and a Thanksgiving beer ration for the 364th Infantry helped set up the conflict that followed between that unit and the 733rd Military Police Battalion. 19. The episode uses a direct, explanatory style with long historical summaries, named sources, and repeated references to dates, units, and locations. 20. Listeners interested in Arizona history, World War II, and Black military service will get the most from it, while people wanting a short local-news recap may skip it.

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