Everybody who could squeeze into the high school study hall was there. Men and women and children crammed the hot room like sardines, and overflowed into the hall. If you counted the people out on the school's green lawn, you'd guess 200 were there altogether. Not one of them was smiling.
There was anger in that room -- the cat fighting, scratching, crazy kind of madness that prompts little children to pull a favorite rag doll apart, rather than let each other play with it. This time, the rag doll was the Brownsboro, Tex., public school system, and grown men were playing tug of war with it. The Board of Education met at 7 p.m. Thursday, June 16, and the public was invited. It was hot, inside and out.
The high that day hit 90, with a strong dose of humidity. It was still 88 at sundown. Clammy heat was like death hanging in the air, prodding the sweating, angry people, pricking their tempers, pushing them toward violence. Thus have riots and mobs always simmered into boiling rage.
Everyone in Brownsboro had picked his side. There were those who came to the meeting to take sides, and there were those who stayed at home taking sides. An oldtimer who suatted in shade near the school entrance muttered, "They's them that tries to make out their minds ain't set, but give 'em a little fuss, and they'll bristle like hogs. Yep, ever' man in town's branded one side or t'other."
The Jacksons were there. Clarence taught agriculture in the high school, and there was a Jackson boy who'd complained to some of the school board members about the 33 seniors not getting their diplomas this year. The diploma fiasco had started a month before graduation when the school board fired Home Bass, who'd been superintendent in Brownsboro for 23 years. The seniors petitioned the board to place Bass' name on their diplomas, refusing to accept the new man's signature. The situation was still stalemated, with officials claiming the diplomas never arrived from a Houston printer, the post office protesting they did arrive, and the graduates bitterly refusing any without Bass' signature.
The Jackson boy was one of a group who called on new school board member Charles C. Rahm, an osteopathic doctor, and comparative newcomer in town. Rahm, they said, refused to hear their complaint, threatened to eject them from his office, and signed a police complaint against them for "disturbance." The charge was still pending as townspeople pushed into the high school for the public board meeting.
Homer Bass, the controversial exsuperintendent, stayed home, but his sister was there. She was Mrs. Clarence Jackson, wife of the agriculture teacher. Clarence Jackson's brother, Thurman, and his whole family, found space together in the study hall. Thurman Jackson and his wife had been school teachers in Beaumont, Tex. They'd resigned their positions to come home to Brownsboro when Jackson's mother-in-law became seriously ill. Thurman was operating the Birdwell Lumber Yard for her. Brother Clarence continued teaching agriculture in the hometown.
Like Clarence, Thurman was vitally interested in the school. He and his wife were trained teachers, and they had two daughters in the Brownsboro school system. All the Jacksons gathered for this meeting. They were solidly entrenched behind the banner of ousted superintendent, Homer Bass.
A Negro man stepped into the stream of crowding spectators, and let himself be swept into the room. Inside, he took a position against the rear wall, and stood waiting for the time when the board might hear a complaint from Bullock, Brownsville's (Brownsboro's) segregated school for colored children. The newly organized anti-Bass school board had just refused to rehire nine of Bullock's 14 teachers!
Bill Barton and his wife were there. Barton had long been a member of the school board. In the April 2 public election, he lost. His place went to an anti-Bass man.
W. B. Knight wasn't there. He'd been president of the school board before the April 2 election. He'd served six terms on the board. But his place had gone to another of Dr. Rahm's anti-Bass men.
Lanky, graying, Knight preferred to wash his hands of the whole mess, now that he'd been voted out. He tended his service station, across the alley from Dr. Rahm's new osteopathic clinic, and tried to put the problems of the school board out of his mind.
He was probably at the station now, selling a tank of gas, although he couldn't really forget what was going on a block and a half away, in the well-kept brick and concrete school building he'd helped build.
Homer Bass and W. B. Knight deliberately missed the meeting. They hoped the school system could weather this furor and survive. They didn't want to heap coals on the fire. But their friends, their kin, the people they'd served, packed the study hall a hundred strong. The school board regulated the educations of 1000 students.
In addition to the Jackson brothers and their families, Bill Barton, and the group from Bullock school, there were dozens like Jack Brewer, George Rash, Clarence Hatton, and Bill Melton. There was Arlin Boles, nephew of C. C. Boles, present school tax collector and a long time friend of the Bass family.
Twenty-three years ago, before Homer Bass became superintendent, his brother R. T. Bass, had been superintendent for seven or eight years. One day, R. T. Bass and C. C. Boles went to Athens, Tex., to negotiate a land lease, in connection with the school being consolidated. They stayed in an Athens hotel. That night R. T. Bass started down the stairs from his room, lost his footing and fell the length of the stairway, breaking his neck.
That incident, now 23 years old, had triggered the first distrust against his brother, Homer Bass.
First, there was unfounded gossip that R. T. Bass was under the influence of alcohol when he fell to his death. People who didn't know either brother accused them of excessive drinking.
Second, the school board made Homer Bass superintendent, promoting him from another Texas school in preference to a Brownsboro teacher who was expecting the job. Backers of the overlooked candidate never forgot, even after their man chose another business, worked at it, and retired.
Old timers who remembered these ancient but still smoldering resentments attended the meeting, backing up Dr. Rahm and his new school board. Dr. Rahm and his group had additional, more powerful support.
There was the Brownsboro banker, tall, well built and distinguished looking. he had fallen out with Superintendent Bass and the old school board more than 15 years ago. In those days, the state was slow in sending payroll cash to the Brownsboro bank. Sometimes, it arrived days late. The teachers complained that the local banker bowed his back and refused to cash their checks until he had the cash from the state. The school official wound up by moving their entire banking business to an Athens bank, 17 miles away. They've kept their banking business in Athens ever since. Last year, the school budget ran about $287,000, money the Brownsboro bank never touched.
Five years ago, Bass' enemies banded together. There was an attempt to send Homer Bass to the penitentiary for misappropriation of school funds. He was cleared in district court, but his enemies appealed the suit through the court of civil appeals in Dallas and through the supreme court in Austin, before they gave up.
Many of Bass' friend were old Brownsboro High graduates who had Bass' name on their diplomas. Many of them had neglected to vote in the April 2 election, primarily because they hadn't expected Dr. Rahm to gain control so easily.
After the election, two local citizens had circulated petitions asking the board members to resign. Of the approximately 900 voters in the district, 613 signed. The citizens had these petitions with them now, in the study hall, awaiting their chance to place them before the board.
The new president, Ivan H. Long, called the meeting to order. His fellow board members, ranged alongside of him, included David Brand, J. P. Parker, Herman Mayfield, board secretary Dr. Rahm, and Wayne Smith (the only Bass supporter still on the board).
Dr. Rahm wore a handsomely tailored suit and silk necktie despite the oppressive heat. He was six feet tall, slender, and neat as a store mannequin. His long fingers, osteopath's fingers, strong and well controlled, rested motionless on the table.
"Cool as a cucumber," someone whispered, pointing to him.
"Why not?" was the neighbor's reply. "I've heard he's been carrying a pistol on him for days. I don't know who called the deputy sheriffs here from Athens, but I'm glad they came."
Look closely, and you could spot the three lawmen. They were scattered through the room, slightly bigger than their neighbors, more watchful, less talkative, and each wearing an exaggerated air of calm indifference. This was the second time they'd been called to a Brownsboro school board meeting.
"Rahm doesn't look at all ruffled, even in this heat," one woman said.
"That's the big city in him. How long has he been here? Four or five years, isn't it? And he's still more like Tyler society than Brownsboro comfort. You'd think he'd hate it here. I wonder why he ever came here, to a little old town with 600 population."
"I heard they made it hot for him in Tyler."
"That's not true. He got divorced there, that's all. He pays his ex-wife alimony, and he came here and married his nurse."
"Is this new wife the one who has Bass blood? Why'd she let him side against Homer?"
"She's Homer's cousin, I think. Who knows why families will split like that?"
"I'd never had thought, three months ago."
Dr. Rahm's strong opposition to Superintendent Bass had surprised everyone in town, especially Homer Bass himself, who in March, 1960, had been the one to recommend the doctor for the school board. Rahm was then mayor of Brownsboro, a comparatively simple position in a town so small.
The vacancy resulted from the resignation of Preston Gideon, who resigned because his nephew was going to be a math teacher in the district. At the time Superintendent Bass told the board he thought Dr. Rahm had the qualifications to replace Gideon, and the board voted him in; three were for Rahm, two against, and President W. B. Knight abstaining.
At first, the doctor said little at the meetings. But gradually, his opposition to the superintendent took shape. Every recommendation Homer Bass made, Rahm opposed. he continually used authority that was formerly vested in the superintendent. When a hepatitis outbreak threatened to become and epidemic, Dr. Rahm protested when Bass consulted the county health department rather than himself.
During the April election campaign, the anti-Bass group beat the bushes, visited homes, and worked as if being on the school board was a $10,000-a-year job. Dr. Rahm's supporters asked the teachers, in a friendly way, for whom they planned to vote.
All of this activity reminded Homer Bass that some time earlier Dr. Rahm had asked him how he planned to vote in the mayoralty race. Bass had been frank. "I can go along with you, Dr. Rahm, but not with the two commissioners running with you."
One of the commissioners was a son of the Brownsboro banker!
Was this the reason for Dr. Rahm's opposition to Bass now? Homer Bass didn't know. But when he was asked to resign, he refused. When they fired him, effective before the end of the school term, with two months extra pay, he protested, and appealed to the state school board in Austin - the Texas Education Agency - on grounds that his contract had two years left.
Dr. Rahm and his board promptly hired a new superintendent, H. D. Larkin, retired former dean of Henderson County Junior College.
This was the tense situation that existed the night of June 16 as the crowd in the study hall grew quiet and the board began its routine business. The pro-Bass forces waited their turn. The anti-Bass citizens, not certain what might erupt, were restless and watchful. Most of an hour was gone when the board asked for old business.
The Negro man against the rear wall took a step forward and raised his hand. After 30 minutes in that hot room, his dark face glistened with perspiration. His friends from Bullock school stood and moved near him to signal their support of what he was going to say.
"Sirs," he began respectfully, "We from Bullock request that the board review its decision not to rehire nine out of our 14 teachers. We feel some explanation is in order."
Ivan Long glanced up and announced, "We don't have to give you a reason."
He rapped the gavel and called for other business. A fellow board member produced a folder of unpaid bills for the board's action. The crowd protested.
Long had to call for quiet. The reading of the bills began. It seemed to take an eternity. At intervals, the crowd grew restless and began murmuring, but Long brought them back to order. It was about 8 o'clock when they finished with the bills and voted to pay them. Thurman Jackson, the former Beaumont schoolteacher now turned lumber yard manager, had listened carefully to each item. He arose from his seat beside his wife and daughters, and asked to speak.
"We're discussing bills, Mr. Jackson."
"Yes, that's what I want to ask..."
Outside, the heat had diminished by three degrees. It was 85, and the people who couldn't find room inside were in comparative comfort on the lawn. Inside, the temperature was still rising. Thurman Jackson mentioned several of the bills that had been read, and asked the treasurer to break them down, itemize them penny by penny.
The board members stared at the tall, scholarly Jackson. His large, studious-looking eyes leveled on them. He seemed surrounded by his supporters, his schoolteacher wife, his two junior high school daughters, his schoolteacher brother, Clarence, and Clarennce's wife who was sister to Homer Bass.
Dr. Rahm drew an imaginary circle with his long finger. His jaw muscles flexed. he glances up at President Long and shook his head almost imperceptibly. Long signaled to a deputy at the back of the room.
"This man is disrupting our meeting. Would you arrest him, please."
The officer went to Thurman Jackson's side. "Let's go outdoors," he invited.
Jackson looked around, his eyes suddenly indignant. He started to started to speak, thought better or it, and followed the deputy to the door. His daughters, grabbed at their father's hands and pushed through the crowd after him. The crowd murmured angrily.
Some men near the front stood up and shouted threateningly at the board members. Behind them, the rest of the crowd rose to its feet. Everyone began to talk at once. Chairman Long rapped for quiet, but realizing the situation was out of control, he glanced frantically toward Dr. Rahm.
Dr. Rahm made a motion they adjourn and Long so declared. The board members searched now for the faces of the deputies, but all they saw were angry fellow citizens of Brownsboro.
The deputies were busy trying to clear the room and separate squabblers. Two officers were in the hallway, keeping the exits open, and ordering the people on with shouts of "Go home, it's all over now."
Deputy Charles Majors pushed back into the room in time to see the first ruckus near the board member's table.
Ousted board member Bill Barton was wrestling with Chairman Long. Barton landed a punch on Long's face, opening a cut above Long's eye. Deputy Majors rushed to separate the two men.
Meanwhile the others got out of control. It seemed that every board member was suddenly caught up in a raging brawl. During those quick seconds it exploded. Dr. Rahm was attacked. David Brand was knocked to the floor. J. P. Parker was hit in the face by one person and slugged on the back of the head by another. He slumped to the floor unconscious. Spectators George Rash - a Bass supporter - and Gus Crow, anti-Bass - fought furiously with each other. Wayne Smith, the only Bass man on the school board, tried to help Deputy Majors break up the melee.
When the fight started, Thurman Jackson and his daughters were in the hallway. The deputy who'd been escorting him outside abandoned Jackson to run back and try to control the brawlers. Jackson glanced back in the room, saw Deputy Majors running to stop the fight and followed.
No one can say for sure why Thurman Jackson reentered the study hall. Perhaps he meant to assist Deputy Majors. Perhaps he anticipated a free punch while the season seemed open on board members. Perhaps he saw his brother, Clarence, in the midst of the fist swinging, and wanted to pull him out. The majority who saw him believed he was going to help the deputy.
Jackson's oldest daughter said later, "I tried to keep him from going back in there. But he went anyway. He stumbled over a chair and fell down."
Just as Deputy Majors succeeded in separating the brawling Long and Barton there was a gun explosion.
Majors wheeled and saw three men in a tangle behind the table. He pushed his way toward them, and began yanking them up, one at a time.
Dr. Rahm got to his feet and brushed off his suit. His thinning black hair was tousled, his eyeglasses gone, and there was a red gash gaping above his eyebrow.
Schoolteacher Clarence Jackson arose breathing heavily. The third man did not move. He lay with his head against the polished baseboard, next to the encyclopedia rack. Blood was seeping through the front of his shirt. It was Thurman Jackson.
Wayne Smith held an object in front of Deputy Majors. It was a .25 pistol. "Here, I think you'd better take this. I grabbed it away from Dr. Rahm as quick as I could, after I saw him with it."
But at least two bullets had been squeezed from it first. Thurman Jackson was hit twice. Bill Melton, a pro-Bass spectator, got a bullet through the left arm above the elbow. Deputy Majors sent for an ambulance and bent over Thurman Jackson.
He was alive by a thread. His breath came in shallow, slow shudders.
All the injured gathered in groups, waiting for ambulances from the Tyler, Tex., Medical Center Hospital, and from Athens. Jackson's family knelt weeping over his unconscious body.
Dr. Rahm was the only medical man in Brownsboro.
Thurman Jackson was pronounced dead on arrival at Tyler. A bullet had snapped his spinal cord, plowed through a lung, and lodged behind his shoulder blade.
George Rash was hospitalized with knife slashes in his abdomen and back. Both he and the uninjured Gus Crow were charged with assault with intent to murder each other.
Bill Melton was hospitalized for the bullet wound in his upper left arm.
Four members of the board had been mauled and hurt. Chairman Long's cut over his eye was treated by a doctor. David Brand and J. P. Parker - who'd been knocked unconscious - had less serious injuries. Dr. Rahm had a deep cut on his forehead. Sheriff's officers sat beside him while and emergency doctor in Athens, the county seat, patched him up. Then officers hustled him off to an undisclosed Jail.
County Attorney Mack Wallace and District Attorney Jack Hardee teamed up immediately for mass questioning of Brownsboro citizens who'd attended the fatal board meeting. They worked all night taking statements. Anybody who saw fighting was asked to put what he had seen in writing.
The district attorney said, "Charges will be filed for every violation of the law we can find arising out of this affray and shooting."
Dr. Charles C. Rahm, hidden in a "secret" jail to avoid a possible lynching, was charged with the murder of Thurman Jackson and assault to murder Bill Melton. Reconstructing the scene from statements and from the path of the wound and powder burns on Jackson's shirt, officers believed Jackson had stumbled over a chair and was on the floor when Dr. Rahm held him with one hand and shot him with the other.
Thurman's brother, Clarence, was charged with misdemeanor assault and battery. The same charge was filed against Clarence Hatton, a Bass man who suffered a broken hand in the fight, Arlin Boles, S. M. (Bill) Watley, ex-board member Bill Barton, and Bill Melton who was still hospitalized with his gunshot wound.
Everyone charged was pro-Bass except Gus Crow - and, of course, Dr. Rahm.
Authorities feared more violence. Approximately 50 people in the town of 600 had been angry enough to fight. Still unanswered was the $64 question as to why the board last May 31 refused to rehire nine Bullock school teachers, three out of four school bus drivers, and a janitor. Pro-Bass people said the people were not rehired because they had failed to support Rahm and his men in the supposed secret vote general election. They described Dr. Rahm as a "little Castro" who tried to run the town like a dictator when he was mayor. One of his projects, while mayor was to make the dead end alley behind his clinic a street, "to create more room for building in Brownsboro." That project had fallen through because of lack of funds and lack of interest among the townsmen.
Now the murder and violence shook all the old coals of anger, and people were more aroused than ever before. They called in four Texas Rangers and seven highway patrolmen to keep the peace in Brownsboro.
Thurman Jackson was buried on Saturday, June 18. Jackson, who'd died in the middle of a controversy, had lived, ironically, the life of a scholarly peacemaker. He'd made close friends in three different churches. Joining together to conduct his services were Rev. William Browning, Methodist; Rev. Lee Teakell, Baptist, and John Teel, Church of Christ minister.
Arlin Boles was a pall bearer the day after he paid his fine for the assault and battery charge. It cost him $25 and court costs of $19.50.
The petition to oust Brownsboro's school board remained unread, and citizens wondered what would happen to their schools. Ex-Superintendent Homer Bass and ex-school board chairman W. B. Knight understood a great deal about the machinery of the state board. The public was worried and deeply saddened by the events, as were the two former school officials.
Knight sat in the shade by his service station, across the alley from Dr. Rahm's closed and shuttered clinic. He shook his gray head.
"It's very possible the state board will take over, and that might help. I don't know if it would solve the dissension or not. But I remember a similar action at Aldine a couple years ago. The state dissolved the school board and put in a new one."
He shook his head again. "The state board took away the school's affiliation and state aid in the Aldine case."
In Austin, Commissioner of Education Dr. J. W. Edgar announced that on June 27 the state board would hold a hearing on the firing of Homer Bass.
He added that the Brownsboro board's failure to reelect more than half its Negro school teachers might result in the school's losing of its accreditation.
Homer Bass spoke of the murdered Thurman Jackson. "He had two daughter in school, and was just interested in seeing that they had a decent school to go to."
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