MS. 3 SHOTS Negroes burning Georgia Flag
0.25


MS. Downtown Augusta street, smoke and fire.
???


MS. 4 SHOTS Aerials night smoke fires house burning in city.
1.05



Initials RM/NR/le



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: In Augusta, Georgia, six black men were shot to death in a night of looting and firebombing, Monday night (May 11) and Tuesday morning (May 12).

The rioting was touched off by the fatal beating of a 16-year-old Negro youth in the city jail. Police said the boy was attacked but two black cellmates. Negro towns people claim the police beat the youth death.

State police and national guardsmen armed with machineguns were ordered into the city of 70,000 by Governor Lester Maddox, who ordered them not to "permit anarchy." The Negro ghetto was sealed off and a curfew clamped on Augusta after firebombs lighted at least 50 fires in stores situated in the black area.

More than 60 persons were injured and there were hundreds of arrests before the sniping, looting and rioting was brought under control.