Columbia Riot
The 1964 Columbian race riot was started when two African Americans, Gladys Stevenson and her son, James C. Stevenson, walked into a white electronic store demanding to receive their radio after being swindled by the two white workers there. As the couple tried to walk out the front, one of the store managers, William Fleming, struck James who in return threw him into the plate window of the store. A blonde, white man who saw this happening from across the street ran over to the quarrel, knocked Mrs. Stevenson down, and continued to stomp on her. The two African Americans were later arrested and let out on bail, and a white mob grew escalating the whole scenario. Both white newspapers and African American newspapers covered the story, yet with different perspectives on the matter.
Both the African American newspapers and the white newspapers portray the same story but with different racial biased. Both newspapers claim that William Fleming was thrown threw the plate glass of the store, where as the African American newspaper said he cut himself from the shards of glass as he fell threw, as Nat Williams explained, and the staff correspondents from the white newspaper claimed James Stevenson had stabbed Fleming repeatedly with the shards of glass.
Both newspapers covered the mob and the four officers killings similarly until Sheriff Underwood became involved in the papers. The African American papers claimed that the sheriff sent his deputies on a house-to-house search for weapons, during which eleven African Americans