LONGVIEW, Texas — This Saturday marks the 50th anniversary of one of the darkest days in Longview’s history.
On the night of July 4, 1970, 36 school buses were set on fire by explosives, an act of retaliation against the integration of schools in the coming year, 16 years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown VS. Board of Education that segregated schooling was unconstitutional.
Longview ISD teacher Vickey Dade remembers her parents talking to her about what happened.
“It shaped my life because it was an eye-opening experience of what the real world would be like,” said Dade. “No longer wanted to play up that late at night so we stayed in our yards and stayed close at home, being fearful of what had happened until they were caught.”
Former Longview Deputy Chief Darcy Burton was home from college the night of the bombing.
“It was not something that was unexpected,” said Burton. “Because there was the sentiment in the city of Longview then that there would be no integration.”
The bombing played a major role in Burton’s decision to become an officer and motivated him to the change the department for the better. Burton served with Longview PD until retiring in 2003.
“The way that it was done, the destruction that was involved in actually destroying a couple of dozen buses was something that was real eye-catching,” said Burton.
Burton recalls a headline form the investigation and says the response from former Longview Police Chief Roy Stone was typical of the period.
“It was obvious to everybody in this, you know, in this community, that that was not true. Everybody knew why the buses were bombed,” Burton said.
The Gregg County Historical Museum has no records of what happened and only a small mention on one of their boards.
Limited information can be found in the archives of the Longview News-Journal, but there aren’t many articles on the bombing. A majority of articles are related to the trial of Fred Loyd Hayes and Kenneth Ray McMaster, the two men convicted of setting the explosives under the buses.
Current Longview ISD Superintendent James Wilcox says right now, there is nothing in any of the schools' curriculum that teaches students about the bombing.
“Our students probably, for the most part, are not aware of the circumstances of that bus bombing 50 years ago,” said Wilcox.
But Wilcox wants that to change.
Wilcox is committed to adding to the curriculum, if it’s not already in development.
“I would say that that would be a done deal and it probably already is, and I'm just not aware of it,” Wilcox said.