Racial Terror Lynching in America / Racial Terror Lynching of Mr. Fred Rouse

Marker Text: On December 11, 1921, Mr. Fred Rouse, a Black citizen, husband, father, and non-union butcher at Swift & Co. meatpacking, was lynched at this site by a white mob. Five days prior, he was beaten on Exchange Avenue in the Stockyards by a mob of meatpackers from a whites-only union who were picketing Swift & Co. After stabbing, then bludgeoning him with a nearby streetcar guardrail, the mob believed that they had murdered Mr. Rouse. Niles City police officers asked the agitated mob to relinquish Mr. Rouse’s body to them. They placed his body in the back of a police car, and after realizing that he was alive, drove him to the City & County Hospital Negro Ward at E. 4th and Jones Streets. At 11 pm on December 11, another white mob abducted Mr. Rouse from the hospital and drove him down Samuels Avenue to this site. Twenty minutes later, he was hanged from a hackberry tree and his body was riddled with bullets. A bloody pistol was found under his feet. During this era, Black workers like Mr. Rouse were regularly excluded from union membership, denied worker protections, and often faced hostile contempt and lethal violence from white workers seeking to maintain economic control. Three white men were charged in the murder of Mr. Rouse, including the acting Niles City police chief and another officer. All were acquitted. No one has ever been held accountable. Memorializing Mr. Fred Rouse reminds us to remain vigilant in pursuit of racial justice.