Long Binh Jail Riot and Race Relations
In 1966, as the number of American troops in Vietnam began to swell, the Army built an installation to house those servicemen who violated laws and regulations. Called the Long Binh Jail, it held prisoners who had been found guilty of felonies and misdemeanors, as well as those incarcerated while awaiting trial. It also served as a holding facility for those destined to be sent to the military prison at Fort Leavenworth in the United States. Prisoners were separated based on the severity of their offences. The jail was located in the major logistical base at Long Binh, which had over fifty thousand personnel assigned to it by 1967.
Maximum security prisoners were confined to shipping containers converted to contain several cells. Like most prisons everywhere, the prison, called Camp LBJ by most, was overcrowded and by mutual desire of the prisoners racially segregated. In both 1966 and 1967 the overcrowded conditions and racial tensions led to violence among the prisoners. Drug use was heavy, with drugs often smuggled in by guards. Most of the drug use was of marijuana and Quaaludes, which are a sedative which produces a hypnotic effect. To bring the drug use under control, Camp LBJ commander, Lt. Col. Vernon Johnson instituted a strip search policy.
Many of the black inmates of the facility had long been supportive of and in many cases part of the growing Black Power movement. On the night of August 29 several black inmates attacked security guards and began setting the entire camp on fire. Whatever they could get to burn was ignited. The administration building went first. It was followed by the mess hall and other facilities. Other inmates soon joined them until there was a group of about 200 inmates, who besides burning down the camp began to attack white inmates, beating them with makeshift clubs, fabricated from tool handles, or with the tools themselves.
Colonel Johnson was attacked and severely beaten when he tried to reason with the inmates. Military Police escorted those prisoners who were not involved in the rioting out of the facility. The rioters inside continued to burn whatever they could, and when supplies were delivered inside the camp some of the prisoners burned some of them. Over the course of a week the rioters began to surrender themselves to the MPs outside, in small groups and singly. When the final group of rioters surrendered it ended an incident in which 115 men had been injured, 53 of them prisoners.
The racially motivated riot also left one dead, an Army private who had been beaten to death during the riot with a shovel. The Army released the story of the riot, its causes, and how it was contained, but it received very little coverage at the time and less coverage since. There were other race riots on US military facilities during the Vietnam War, including in USS Kitty Hawk, an aircraft carrier and at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. The riots were exploited by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops, who frequently dropped flyers depicting racial violence in the United States, hoping to further inflame tensions between white and black troops.