John Earl Reese (October 9, 1939 – October 23, 1955) was a 16-year-old African American teenager who was murdered in Gregg County, Texas. His killing is considered by authorities to have been a hate crime, motivated by white opposition to the construction of a new school for Black children in the segregated community.
Background and Death
On the evening of October 22, 1955, Reese was at a local café in the Mayflower community near Longview, Texas, along with his cousins, Joyce Faye Crockett Nelson (age 13) and Johnnie Crockett (age 15). They were drinking soft drinks, listening to music, and dancing. Two white men, Joe Simpson and Perry Dean Ross, drove by the café in a car and fired nine shots through the window. Reese was fatally wounded and died the following day, October 23, 1955. His two cousins were injured but survived.
Motive
The shooting occurred in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. The assailants were reportedly angered by plans to build a new school for Black children in the Mayflower community. The attack was part of a broader pattern of intimidation and violence aimed at terrorizing African American residents into abandoning their push for educational equality.
Legal Outcome
Perry Dean Ross, the shooter, was convicted of murder but received a five-year suspended sentence. Joe Simpson was indicted but the charge was ultimately dismissed.
Aftermath and Recognition
Decades later, the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project at Northeastern University took steps to address the historical injustice:
- Reese's death certificate was amended from "accident" to "homicide."
- New gravestones were created for his burial site at Smith Chapel Cemetery in Mayflower, Rusk County, Texas.
- A local street was renamed John Earl Reese Road in his honor.
The U.S. Department of Justice has formally recognized Reese's murder as a hate crime committed in opposition to school integration.
