“We had to run for our lives” – The Halloween Riots of 1974 & 1975

Image from the Greenville Times, October 24 1990. Available on microfilm in the North Carolina Collection at Joyner Library.

If you read the East Carolinian, then you’ll have read today’s paper regarding downtown precautions for Halloween and the general notice to Greenville residents, visitors, and ECU students to celebrate safely. Halloween here has a history of being full of party goers, Fourth and Fifth Streets packed with students, residents, and visitors alike. But did you know that Greenville’s mayhem-filled Halloween history goes back to 1974?

Downtown Greenville that year was the place to go, with 6 different night clubs lining Fourth Street and Fifth Street along Cotanche. October 31, 1974 saw a surge in Halloween goers. Around 11:00 pm that night, people began filing out of the clubs, quickly ballooning into 250 or more people packed into a two street block. The Greenville Police were called to disperse the crowds and at around 11:30 a couple of people in the crowd “began throwing rocks and eggs”¹. At 1:00 am there was still a mass of people in the streets, so the police resorted to pepper fog and began herding them towards the dorms. “We had to run for our lives with the police chasing us… We didn’t know what was going on, coming out of the bars,” reflects Roger Kammerer, a Joyner Library staff member who was a student here at ECU in 1974.² “We ran into [our dorm room in Garret], turned off all the lights, and hid in the closet.”³ Kammerer says he and the rest of the students living in the dorm were followed inside, and police banged on all of the doors attempting to get an answer. Eventually they left. Only 2 students were arrested that evening, and a handful of policemen and civilians received minor injuries.

Halloween 1975, nicknamed by students as “Greenville’s Second Annual Halloween Riot”, saw an even greater rise in Halloween partiers at the clubs in downtown.⁴ Once again, around 11:00 pm the police arrived to disperse the crowd of an estimated 400 or more Halloween goers. Multiple records show that at around 11:30 pm the police gave the crowd five minutes to disperse. “‘When I got downtown the crowds had begun to throw bottles and bricks. We gave them the order to disperse or they would be arrested in five minutes,’ said [Glenn] Cannon,” who was the Greenville City Police Chief at the time.⁵ Many witnesses, however, stated they never heard the order over the din of the crowd and clubs on Fourth Street and Fifth Street, and were entirely unaware an order was ever given. Smoke and tear gas were used between 11:45 pm and midnight in an effort to break up the crowd. “Reports of some witnesses said that tear gas and fog were sprayed inside the nightclubs, forcing occupants into the streets”.⁶ 27 people were arrested and the crowd dispersed. Over the next hour, a group of about 300 people gathered at Fifth and Reade, possibly to protest the arrests from earlier in the night, though this is unclear. This group began breaking store business windows and stealing merchandise from the stores, the damage later totaling about $3,700. Twenty-nine additional people were arrested for inciting a riot, and one for damage to personal property, bringing the night’s total arrest count to 57 people. Twenty-nine of those arrested during the night were ECU students.

Of all the Halloween incidents in East Carolina University history, that of 1975 is possibly the most controversial. Students, alumni, and some residents of Greenville were outraged at how the situation had been handled by Cannon and the Greenville Police. Due to the controversial and confusing nature of the events of October 31, 1975, the SGA unanimously decided to investigate the facts surrounding the riot, “whereas ‘the confrontation… showed a lack of good judgement and responsibility on the part of those involved… and a degree of hostility does exist between the students and the civil authorities of Greenville’”.⁷ This investigation found several things, including that: a) the order to disperse could not be heard, and b) that the road had been completely blocked off with barricades and people attempting to disperse had no way to do so. Student Government made several recommendations following the end of their investigation: 1) that Glenn Cannon be removed from office, 2) for efforts to be made in order to improve student relationships with the Greenville Police, 3) “that all charges of failure to disperse and inciting a riot be dropped, and 4) that an ECU student have a non-voting membership in the Greenville City Council”.⁸ Except for Cannon’s removal, all other recommendations were accepted, though the dropped charges took additional time and insistence on the part of the students, who threatened to boycott the downtown businesses in December.

Along with the 1975 riot, later riots like those in the late 1980s caused for the nightclubs to close their doors on Halloween for a couple of years at a time, but they always reopened again. Halloween continues to be massive and full of tricks in downtown – be safe out there tonight!

1 Hause, Eric. M. “History of Halloween in Greenville.” Greenville Times 24 Oct 1990, p. 4.
2 Kammerer, Roger. Personal Interview. 31 Oct 2019.
3 Ibid.
4 “Newsline: October.” 1976 Buccaneer. East Carolina University Yearbooks. UA50.01. University Archives, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC. p. 292.
5 Green, Sydney. “Riot erupts Friday night.” Fountainhead 4 Nov 1975, p. 1.
6 “Riot Erupts In Downtown Greenville.” 1976 Buccaneer. East Carolina University Yearbooks. UA50.01. University Archives, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC. p. 10.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.