Red Summer of 1919

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Red Summer, coined by author James Weldon Johnson, is used to describe the summer and autumn of 1919. Race riots erupted in several cities in both the North and South of the United States. The three most violent episodes happened in Chicago, Washington, D.C. and Elaine, Arkansas.[citation needed]

Contents

[edit] Events

According to a period analysis of the events, there were 26 separate riots in communities and cities across the United States where blacks were the victims of physical attacks.[1]

The riots were sparked by postwar tensions of racism, unemployment and inflation. In 1919 it was estimated that 500,000 African Americans had emigrated from the South to the North and Midwest industrial cities for work during the period bookmarked by World War I.[2] During the war, African-American workers filled many jobs left empty by whites who had joined the military, or new ones created by the war mobilization. Following the war, rapid demobilization and a lack of price controls led to inflation and unemployment. The resulting competition for jobs between whites and blacks was fierce. European-American workers resented the changes that made them feel displaced, including the many new African-Americans adding to the rapidly growing cities.

The unrest was intensified by anxieties about changing attitudes brought by European immigrants, some of whom were active labor organizers and socialist. This was the time of the Red Scare, after the Russian Revolution and rise of the Bolsheviks. Blacks who wanted racial equality were branded "radicals". The Jamaican poet Claude McKay, who was a Communist then, wrote his poem "If We Must Die" in response to the situation.

Unlike earlier race riots in U.S. history, these riots were among the first where there was an organized black resistance to the white attacks.

The riot in Elaine, Arkansas was less typical of others that summer as it took place in the South and violence was directed against black sharecroppers.

[edit] Riots

Between January 1 and September 14, 1919 at least 43 African Americans were lynched, with an additional eight men burnt at the stake.[3]

Events during the Red Summer of 1919 (chronological order)[4]
Date Place Event
May 10 Charleston, South Carolina United States Navy sailors led the Charleston Race Riot, killing at least one man and causing the city to live under martial law for several weeks.
May 10 Sylvester, Georgia One reported dead.
May 29 Putnam County, Georgia
May 31 Monticello, Mississippi
June 13 New London, Connecticut
June 13 Memphis, Tennessee
June 27 Annapolis, Maryland
June 27 Macon, Mississippi
early July Longview, Texas The Longview Race Riot led to the deaths of at least four men and the destruction of the African-American housing district in the town.
July 3 Bisbee, Arizona The 10th U.S. Calvary was attacked by local police.
July 5 Scranton, Pennsylvania
July 6 Dublin, Georgia Two reported dead.
July 7 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Race riots throughout the city; at least one dead
July 8 Coatesville, Pennsylvania
July 9 Tuscaloosa, Alabama
July 11 Baltimore, Maryland
July 15 Port Arthur, Texas
July 19 Washington, D.C. During the Washington, D.C. Race Riot, five days of unrest led to six killed and 150 wounded.
July 21 Norfolk, Virginia Mobs attacked returning African-American soldiers and destroyed the local African-American neighborhood. At least six people were shot before Marines were called in by local police to subdue rioters.
July 23 New Orleans, Louisiana
July 23 Darby, Pennsylvania
July 26 Hobson City, Alabama
July 27 Chicago, Illinois After five days of the Chicago Race Riot, 50 people were reported dead; unofficial numbers were much higher. Hundreds of mostly black homes and businesses on the South Side were destroyed by mobs, and thousands of militia troops were called in to restore order.
July 28 Newberry, South Carolina
July 31 Bloomington, Illinois
July 31 Syracuse, New York
July 31 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
August 4 Hattiesburg, Mississippi
August 6 Texarkana, Texas
August 21 New York City, New York
August 29 Ocmulgee, Georgia One reported dead.
August 30 Knoxville, Tennessee During the Knoxville Race riot, a mob stormed the county jail to release 16 white prisoners, including convicted murderers. Turning to the African-American district, the mob killed at least seven and wounded more than 20 people.
September 28 Omaha, Nebraska One man was lynched and $1,000,000 in property damage, including burning of the county courthouse, was caused by white mob of more than 10,000 people during the Omaha Race Riot.
October 1 Elaine, Arkansas The Elaine Race Riot was provoked in an altercation as a white man was shot when trying to break up a black sharecropper organizing meeting. White landowners then formed a group to attack the African-American farmers. Five whites and between 100 and 200 blacks died as a result. Seventy-nine blacks were later tried and convicted, with 12 sentenced to death, and the remainder's accepting terms of up to 21 years. Appeals of their cases went to the U.S. Supreme Court which found them not guilty because of how their trials had been conducted. The ruling resulted in an expansion of federal oversight of state treatment of defendants' rights.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ "For action on race riot peril", The New York Times. October 5, 1919. Retrieved 5/26/08.
  2. ^ "For action on race riot peril", The New York Times. October 5, 1919. Retrieved 5/26/08.
  3. ^ "For action on race riot peril", The New York Times. October 5, 1919. Retrieved 5/26/08.
  4. ^ "For action on race riot peril", The New York Times. October 5, 1919. Retrieved 5/26/08.
  • Red Summer - A Season of Fear
  • Erickson, Alana J. Red Summer. In Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan, 1996.
  • Repression Against the IWW
  • Dray, Philip. At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America, New York: Random House, 2002.
  • Zinn, Howard. Voices of a People's History of the United States. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2004.
  • Tuttle, William M., Jr. Race Riot: Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919. 1970. Blacks in the New World. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996.
Languages