The Weekend Wheeling Could No Longer Ignore

Part One of “Wheeling Under Investigation,” a three-part series examining the 1971 West Virginia Human Rights Commission report.

On the weekend of January 2, 1971, Wheeling’s racial tensions broke into public view.

Police and Black residents clashed. Contemporary reports described firebombings, arrests, vandalism, and a destructive fire that consumed a supermarket and adjoining warehouse.

Yet even the most dramatic claim—that the commercial fire was connected to the racial disturbances—shifted from one account to another. The official record was contradictory.

That uncertainty is important.

The West Virginia Human Rights Commission did not pretend that a three-day public hearing could settle every accusation arising from the weekend. Its final report acknowledged that testimony was often partisan, defensive, and inconsistent. The commissioners declined to decide criminal questions that were beyond the commission’s responsibility and investigative capacity.

What the hearing could do, however, was reveal why distrust had grown so deep that one turbulent weekend could bring Wheeling to a breaking point.

The Call for a Public Inquiry

The request for state involvement came from several directions.

On January 6, 1971, the Wheeling Human Rights Commission asked the West Virginia Human Rights Commission to conduct a fact-finding investigation. Five days later, WE EXIST, a Black citizens’ organization, requested hearings into what it described as a “rapidly deteriorating situation.”

The Greater Wheeling Community Development Council, an interracial organization, also asked the state commission to investigate the events of January 2.

The state responded quickly.

Public hearings were scheduled for February 1, 2, and 3. Chairman Russell Van Cleve presided alongside commissioners D. Paul Camilletti of Wheeling, the Rev. J. Matthew Coleman of Bluefield, and John A. Jones of Weirton. Assistant Attorney General Thomas P. O’Brien Jr. conducted the inquiry with assistance from Executive Director Carl W. Glatt.

All testimony was given under oath or affirmation and recorded by a certified court reporter. The witnesses appeared voluntarily. The only two subpoenas issued were requested by witnesses so they could obtain authorized absences from work.

Forty-one people testified during the hearings.

The witness list crossed many of Wheeling’s institutional boundaries. It included representatives of WE EXIST and the NAACP, Black residents, police officers, clergy, school officials, city administrators, housing and urban-renewal representatives, attorneys, business leaders, and members of civic organizations.

The commissioners also toured a recreational facility that witnesses had described as inadequate.

Five Questions Beneath One Weekend

The inquiry was organized around five subjects:

• Unemployment and underemployment among Black youth

• Inadequate recreational facilities

• Substandard and insufficient housing

• Alleged police abuses

• Inadequate community-relations programs

That framework changed the meaning of the investigation.

The central question was no longer simply, “What happened on January 2?”

It became, “What conditions made January 2 possible?”

The commission’s answer was unusually direct. Wheeling’s problems had resulted from:

“Years of apathy, indifference, and neglect.”

That may be the most consequential conclusion in the entire report.

The commissioners believed that the hearing had helped ease the immediate tension. It brought public officials, community leaders, police representatives, and Black citizens into the same room for what the report called a wholesome airing of community problems.

At the same time, the commissioners admitted that the hearing had not completely succeeded as a traditional fact-finding investigation. There were too many contradictions surrounding the individual incidents.

Nevertheless, the conflicting testimony exposed deep resentments that could not be explained by the behavior of a few people during one weekend.

Beyond a Search for Blame

The report resisted two easy explanations.

It did not accept every accusation as an established fact. It also did not allow disputes over fires, arrests, or police tactics to erase the larger grievances described under oath.

Instead, the commissioners redirected public attention from the search for a single culprit toward the city’s shared responsibility for employment, housing, recreation, policing, and civil-rights enforcement.

This was a crucial distinction.

A city can investigate who threw a bottle, who started a fire, or whether an officer used unnecessary force. Those questions matter. But answering them does not explain why an entire community had lost confidence in the institutions created to serve it.

The commission found that the events of January 1971 were not the beginning of Wheeling’s racial problems. They were the visible result of conditions that had accumulated over many years.

A Small Community Facing a Large Test

The census information attached to the report helps establish the scale of the inquiry.

In 1970, Wheeling had 48,188 residents. The report listed 1,790 Black residents and placed the city’s total non-white population at approximately four percent.

Wheeling’s Black community was numerically small, but the testimony demonstrated that small numbers did not mean small consequences.

Discrimination and isolation could become especially durable when public institutions assumed that the needs of a minority population were marginal. A problem affecting only a small percentage of residents could remain unaddressed for years—until accumulated frustration finally became impossible to ignore.

Read today, the report preserves both a crisis and a civic choice.

Wheeling could treat the January weekend as an isolated episode to be controlled and forgotten. Or it could treat the hearing as a warning that public order without equal opportunity was fragile.

The commission chose the second interpretation.

Its report asked Wheeling to look beyond the events of one weekend and examine the structures that shaped everyday life for Black residents.

The next installment in this series follows the commission into Wheeling’s workplaces, parks, and neighborhoods—where unequal opportunity could be measured not only in laws or promises, but in the practical ability to find work, reach recreation, and secure a decent home.

-T

Historical Terminology Note

This article includes historical terms such as “colored” and “Negro” when quoting original sources or identifying organizations as they were known at the time. These terms reflect the language and racial conditions of their era; their inclusion is not an endorsement of their use today.

In our own narrative, we use Black and African American, as appropriate. We preserve historical wording to document the past faithfully while honoring the dignity, humanity, and experiences of the people whose stories we share.

Source: Report to the West Virginia Human Rights Commission of the Public Hearing in Wheeling on February 1, 2, 3, 1971 Relative to the Racial Tension Situation in Wheeling on the Weekend of January 2, 1971, approved April 8, 1971, particularly report pages 1–3, the witness list in Exhibit D, and the census information in Exhibit G.