John Earl Reese
Age 16
A Black teen out dancing with his cousins at a rural cafe
Gregg County, Texas
October 22, 1955
On the night of October 22, 1955, John Earl Reese, a Black 16-year-old, was out dancing with two of his cousins at a rural cafe in Gregg County, Texas. Racial tensions were high in the county, with many white residents angry about the integration of public schools and improvements being made to schools for Black children.
That night, two white men, 22-year-old Perry Dean Ross and 21-year-old Joe Simpson, decided to drive around and shoot at targets in the Black community, in protest of integration, according to a Justice Department memo on the case.
As Ross sped past the cafe where Reese and his teenage cousins were dancing, he kept one hand on the steering wheel. With the other, he fired nine shots from his .22 caliber rifle. One of those shots fatally struck Reese in the head. Reese’s cousin, who was interviewed years later by Northeastern University School of Law, remembered loud noises before Reese dropped her hand and fell to the floor. Reese’s two cousins were also shot, though not fatally. Ross and Simpson continued the shooting spree, firing at multiple targets in the Black community, including the home of a man whose brother was a local school principal. By the end of the night, Ross and Simpson reportedly fired 24 shots.
Initial Investigation
Texas Rangers joined Gregg County authorities in investigating the case. According to a Department of Justice memo, they interviewed over 300 witnesses. Both Ross and Simpson confessed, and in January 1956, they were arrested and charged with Reese’s murder. In a news article from the time, District Attorney Ralph Price described the killing as “a case of two irresponsible boys who were attempting to have some fun by scaring Negroes.”
More than a year passed between the arrest and the trial, and Simpson’s charges were dismissed after he agreed to testify against Ross, who pulled the trigger.
According to a DOJ memo on the case, Ross’s lawyers argued during the trial, “This boy wanted to scare somebody and keep the n—–s and the whites from going to school together now that’s the truth about it.” He asked the jury to “call it a bad day and let the boy go on in life.”
After a short deliberation, an all-white jury returned a verdict of guilty and recommended a two- to five-year suspended sentence for Ross. Neither Ross nor Simpson served any time in jail. (The DOJ memo incorrectly stated the date of the trial as April 23, 1956. It was 1957.)
According to the DOJ memo, in 1956 the FBI and the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ monitored the investigation, and then-FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was in touch with the local district attorney on the case. The matter was also referred to the U.S. Postal Service, as Ross and Simpson had damaged mailboxes during their shooting spree, but the DOJ determined there was no federal jurisdiction.
Till Act Status
In 2008, the FBI opened an investigation into the circumstances surrounding Reese’s death, reviewing court documents and news reports from the time of the murder, as well as the original FBI files. They also obtained death certificates for both Ross and Simpson.
Citing the deaths of Ross and Simpson, as well as a statute of limitations, the Department of Justice closed the case in 2010.
In 1955 John Earl Reese’s death certificate listed his cause of death as “accidental.” In 2010, the Civil Rights & Restorative Justice Project at the Northeastern University School of Law successfully petitioned to amend the cause. The certificate now lists his death as a homicide.
Case Status closed
Closed 04/15/2010
Themes
- Children
- Closed All Subjects Deceased
- Closed Cases
About the Project
This multiplatform investigation draws upon more than two years of reporting, thousands of documents and dozens of first-hand interviews. FRONTLINE spoke to family and friends of the victims, and witnesses, some of whom had never been interviewed; current and former Justice Department officials and FBI agents, state and local law enforcement; lawmakers, civil-rights leaders and investigative journalists, to explore the Department of Justice’s reopening of civil rights-era cold cases under the 2008 Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act.
In addition to an examination of the federal effort, the project features the first comprehensive, interactive list of all those whose cases were reopened by the Department of Justice. Today, the list stands at 151 names. Among the victims: voting rights advocates, veterans, Louisville’s first female prosecutor, business owners, mothers, fathers, and children.
The project consists of a web-based interactive experience, serialized podcast, a touring augmented-reality exhibit, documentary and companion education curriculum for high schools and universities.
A project like Un(re)solved would not be possible without the historic and contemporary contributions of universities, civil rights groups, and the press, particularly the Black press, who have ensured the ongoing public record of racist violence in the United States. To pay homage to these groups, the web interactive begins with a quote from journalist, activist and researcher Ida B. Wells, one of the first to document with precision the horrors of racial terror in America. “The way to right wrongs,” she wrote, “is to turn the light of truth upon them.”
At the outset of the project, FRONTLINE forged a relationship with Northeastern University’s Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ), bringing them on as an academic partner. Launched in 2007 by Distinguished Law Professor Margaret Burnham, CRRJ is a mission-driven program of interdisciplinary teaching, research and policy analysis on race, history, and criminal justice. Their work has expanded beyond the names on the Justice Department’s list, archiving documents in over 1,000 cases of racially motivated homicides.
With support from the CRRJ, FRONTLINE reporters gathered what could be known about the individuals on the list, conducting interviews with family, friends and witnesses, delving into newspaper archives and gathering documentation including headstone applications, draft cards and archival photographs.
At the heart of the project has been a drive to center the voices of the families of those on the list. FRONTLINE partnered with StoryCorps to record nearly two dozen oral histories with victims’ next of kin, which are featured both in the web-based interactive and traveling AR exhibit. These oral histories will also be archived in the National Library of Congress.
To lead the creative vision for the web experience and installation, FRONTLINE partnered with Ado Ato Pictures, a premier mixed reality studio founded by artist, filmmaker, and technologist Tamara Shogaolu.
Shogaolu rooted the visuals in the powerful symbolism of trees. In the United States, trees evoke the ideal of liberty, but also speak to an oppressive history of racially motivated violence. In Persian myth, trees are humanity’s ancestors, while in Toraja, Indonesia, they serve as sacred burial sites.
“I was really inspired by looking at the role of the tree as a symbol in American history” Shogaolu said. “It’s been looked at as a symbol of freedom, we look at it as a connector between generations, and also there’s the association of trees with racial terror.” When designing the creative vision for Un(re)solved Shogaolu wondered whether she might be able to reclaim the symbol of the tree. “As a person of color, we’re often terrified of being in isolated places in the woods. And I thought it was kind of crazy that there are natural environments that instinctually give great fear because of this connection with racial terror and I wanted to reclaim that — to turn these into beautiful spaces.”
Un(re)solved weaves imagery of trees, which also recall family ties, into patterns and textures from the American tradition of quilting. Among enslaved African Americans forbidden to read or write, quilts provided an important space to document family stories. Today, quilting remains a creative outlet rich with story and tradition for many American communities.
We invite you to enter this forest of quilted memories — a testimony to the lives of these individuals, and the multi-generational impact of their untimely, unjust loss.
(Credits to come)