Fact-checked by Grok 2 weeks ago

Red Summer

Red Summer refers to the wave of racial riots and mob violence that swept through more than two dozen cities in the United States during the summer of 1919, featuring predominantly white attacks on African American neighborhoods amid postwar tensions. The term, evoking the bloodshed involved, was coined by James Weldon Johnson, a field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The disturbances arose from a mix of socioeconomic pressures, including labor competition exacerbated by the Great Migration of southern African Americans to northern industrial centers, economic uncertainty following World War I demobilization, and frustrations among returning African American veterans who sought greater civil equality after serving abroad. Incidents were frequently sparked by rumors—often of alleged assaults on white women—and amplified by sensationalist newspaper coverage that inflamed white crowds, leading to organized raids, lynchings, and arson against black businesses and residences. While white mobs initiated most violence, African Americans in several cities mounted armed self-defense, contributing to mutual casualties in prolonged clashes. Major events included the , riot from July 19–24, which killed an estimated 15 individuals and injured over 100; the riot starting July 27, claiming 38 lives (23 , 15 white) over 13 days amid widespread looting and gunfire; and the Omaha riot in September, where a lynched a suspect and torched the local courthouse. The rural , massacre in October stood apart, with white posses killing between 100 and 240 in reprisal for a among sharecroppers, though official counts minimized fatalities. Across all episodes, estimates of total deaths range from over 150 to more than 250, mostly , alongside 97 documented lynchings and thousands displaced or injured; precise figures remain contested due to inconsistent reporting and potential undercounting in official records. These events underscored deep-seated racial animosities and economic rivalries, spurring growth in black advocacy groups like the and paramilitary self-defense units, while exposing limitations in federal and local responses to curb the unrest. Historical analyses, often drawing from NAACP investigations and contemporary commissions, highlight how urban overcrowding and job scarcity fueled white resentment, yet source biases—such as advocacy-driven tallies—necessitate cross-verification with primary documents like police logs and survivor accounts for causal clarity.

Historical Context

World War I Aftermath and Returning Soldiers

The ending hostilities took effect on November 11, 1918, prompting the rapid of U.S. forces, with over 2.7 million soldiers—nearly two-thirds of the wartime strength of approximately 4 million—discharged by June 1919. This process prioritized speed over orderly reintegration, as the military shrank from millions to under 200,000 active personnel by year's end, straining civilian infrastructure and job markets amid a postwar economic slowdown. Returning white veterans, comprising the vast majority of demobilized troops, faced immediate challenges in securing , as wartime industrial expansion halted and peacetime conversion lagged, exacerbating social tensions in urban and rural areas alike. Approximately 380,000 African American men served in the U.S. military during the war, primarily in segregated labor battalions and support roles, with around 200,000 deployed to where they encountered relatively less rigid racial barriers compared to the domestic . Their overseas experiences, including contributions to Allied victories and interactions with civilians who treated them as equals, fostered expectations of improved civil rights and social respect upon , aligning with wartime promising abroad would extend homeward. Yet this optimism clashed with entrenched domestic realities, as segregationist policies persisted and even intensified post-armistice; President Woodrow Wilson's administration, which had introduced racial separations in federal workplaces during the war, offered no reversal, while Southern states reinforced amid fears of shifting racial dynamics. White communities, including fellow veterans, increasingly viewed African American ex-servicemen as threats to the , particularly resenting their continued display of military uniforms—which symbolized valor and entitlement to —as acts of defiance against traditional hierarchies. Such attitudes manifested in sporadic confrontations, where black veterans in uniform were harassed, beaten, or killed by white mobs interpreting their attire as undue assertiveness, heightening intergroup frictions without immediate economic migration overlays.

Great Migration and Urban Demographic Shifts

The , commencing in earnest around , saw approximately 400,000 to 500,000 black Americans relocate from the rural to northern and midwestern cities by 1919, drawn primarily by labor demands in war industries amid shortages from enlistments and curtailed European immigration. This exodus was propelled by push factors in the , including agricultural mechanization and boll weevil infestations, alongside pull factors of perceived northern opportunities, though migrants often encountered unforeseen urban challenges. The movement fundamentally altered regional demographics, with the black population share in northern states rising from under 5% in 1910 to over 7% by 1920. Rapid influxes strained urban capacities, exemplified by Chicago, where the black population surged from roughly 44,000 in 1910 to 109,000 in 1920—a 148% increase—concentrating newcomers in the "Black Belt" district and adjacent areas. Comparable growth hit other hubs: Detroit's black residents expanded from 5,700 to 40,800, and Cleveland's from 8,400 to 34,400 over the decade, overwhelming existing housing stock and public services. These shifts fostered overcrowding, with multiple families per unit common in vice districts or subdivided tenements, exacerbating sanitation issues and density-related frictions. As black populations spilled into proximate white enclaves, territorial disputes arose over neighborhood boundaries, intensifying perceptions of encroachment amid limited expansion options. White responses included accelerated out-migration to suburbs—cities with high black inflows lost up to 20% of their white populations between 1910 and 1920—and the widespread adoption of racially restrictive covenants in property deeds to bar black occupancy. By the mid-1920s, such covenants covered 80-85% of Chicago's residential areas, formalizing and channeling black settlement into confined zones prone to deterioration from overuse. These mechanisms, alongside informal pressures, solidified demographic divides, setting the stage for intergroup strains without resolving underlying capacity deficits.

Economic Pressures and Intergroup Labor Competition

The end of ushered in economic instability characterized by sharp , transitioning to deflationary pressures by late , alongside widespread layoffs as wartime contracted. This period saw over four million workers—one-fifth of the U.S. labor force—engage in strikes across key sectors, including 365,000 steelworkers and 400,000 coal miners, driven by demands for increases amid rising living costs and job insecurity from returning veterans flooding the market. The steel industry's 1919 general strike exemplified these tensions, as employers resisted and hikes, leading to prolonged disruptions that amplified fears of in centers. African American workers, bolstered by the , had filled wartime labor shortages in northern factories, often at lower wages than white counterparts and frequently as strikebreakers, which bred enduring hostility from organized white labor. In meatpacking plants, such as Chicago's stockyards, black migrants comprised a growing share of the workforce by , accepting entry-level pay rates that undercut union scale during prewar strikes like the 1904 Packingtown , where they were explicitly recruited to replace higher-paid whites. This pattern persisted into the postwar era, with black workers viewed as willing to labor for less—sometimes half the white rate in segregated roles—intensifying intergroup friction as industries prioritized cost-cutting over equitable pay structures. The surge in black labor supply from southern migration depressed wages for low-skilled positions in steel mills and packinghouses, fostering a split labor market where employers exploited racial divisions to maintain wage differentials and suppress collective bargaining. Empirical evidence from industrial reports indicates that black workers, escaping sharecropping economies, tolerated substandard compensation—averaging 20-30% below white unskilled rates in northern cities by 1919—heightening white perceptions of blacks as economic threats in a contracting job market. This zero-sum dynamic, rooted in oversupply relative to postwar demand, fueled resentment among white ethnics and native-born workers, who saw black advancement not as parallel opportunity but as direct displacement amid layoffs exceeding 10% in manufacturing hubs like Chicago and Pittsburgh.

Precipitating Factors

Escalating Racial Animosities and Triggering Incidents

In the months preceding the major outbreaks of violence in 1919, urban newspapers documented a surge in reported assaults by black men on white women, particularly in , where at least five such incidents were publicized in early July, including the July 19 attack on Elsie Stephnick by Charles Ralls, a black employee at the . These reports, often framed as predatory acts amid the Great Migration's demographic shifts, heightened white anxieties and prompted calls for vigilante action, though some accounts later questioned their veracity or context. Concurrent with these tensions, black communities exhibited growing assertiveness, driven by returning veterans and southern migrants who increasingly rejected deference to informal norms in northern cities. Veterans, having experienced relative equality in abroad, formed groups armed with pistols and rifles, explicitly in response to ongoing lynchings—over 70 documented in —and prior white mob actions, signaling a shift toward proactive resistance rather than passive accommodation. Triggering flashpoints often arose from direct confrontations over contested spaces, such as 's 29th Street Beach on , where a group of black youths drifted across an unofficial color line into a white-designated area, prompting stone-throwing from whites that escalated into mutual aggression before intervention failed to de-escalate. Similar disputes over housing boundaries and public amenities in cities like saw black migrants challenging exclusionary practices, leading to skirmishes that amplified mutual suspicions without immediate widespread rioting. These interpersonal clashes, compounded by inflammatory press coverage on both sides—white dailies emphasizing black criminality and black newspapers decrying white provocation—fostered a cycle of retaliatory posturing, setting the stage for broader unrest while underscoring patterns of aggression from black perpetrators in reported crimes and white responses to perceived encroachments.

Radical Influences and the Red Scare's Role

The First Red Scare of 1919, triggered by events including the April anarchist mail bombings targeting public officials and the January Seattle general strike, heightened national anxieties over Bolshevik-style revolution, with Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer warning of imminent uprisings. This climate intersected with Red Summer violence as federal investigators and media outlets framed black resistance to white attacks as evidence of foreign radical infiltration, rather than organic responses to lynchings and economic grievances. For example, after the Washington, D.C., riot of July 19–24, 1919, which killed at least six and injured over 100, officials speculated that Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and Bolshevik agitators were exploiting racial tensions to destabilize society. J. Edgar Hoover, as head of the Bureau of Investigation's Radical Division, spearheaded surveillance of black leaders and organizations, interpreting post-war black militancy as "Negro Bolshevism" driven by socialist propaganda. Bureau reports from August 1919 onward documented alleged ties between riots and leftist influences, such as union organizing among black workers, with Hoover requesting specific inquiries into radical activities in riot-hit cities like , where 38 died between July 27 and August 3. In the , sharecroppers' uprising on September 30, 1919—resulting in an estimated 100–237 black deaths—federal probes portrayed the Progressive Farmers and Household Union as a Bolshevik-inspired plot to incite warfare, though trials later convicted organizers under laws amid coerced confessions. Black radical publications amplified these fears by endorsing self-defense and critiquing , often drawing parallels to global upheavals. The magazine, co-edited by Cyril V. Briggs and , urged armed preparedness against white mobs in issues preceding major riots, while Briggs's later praised Bolshevik anti-imperialism as a model for black liberation. Such content, disseminated amid 1919's 25 documented race riots, was targeted under the 1918 Sedition Act, with Congressman decrying it as incitement; however, investigations by Hoover's division uncovered scant direct orchestration of violence by communists, suggesting perceptions of often substituted for evidence of coordinated radical plots.

Major Events

Spring and Early Summer Outbreaks (April–June 1919)

The Jenkins County riot erupted on April 13, 1919, in rural near Millen, when Louis Ruffin, a veteran, fatally shot two white officers during an altercation at a while reportedly defending his family from . A white mob subsequently formed, leading to widespread violence that resulted in six total deaths—including the two officers and four Black men—and the arson destruction of Carswell Grove Baptist Church, a key Black community site. This incident, fueled by post-World War I racial tensions, marked one of the earliest outbreaks, with no formal convictions of white participants despite the mob's actions. On May 10, , in , a mob of white sailors from the local Navy Yard initiated violence by raiding a shooting gallery for rifles and indiscriminately attacking passersby, businesses, and residences in the city's core. The unrest, which lasted into the night and prompted , saw residents respond with gunfire, resulting in three deaths—William Brown, Isaac Doctor, and James Talbot—and serious injuries to 18 men and five white men, alongside property damage to -owned establishments. Contemporary reports varied on fatalities, with some early accounts claiming up to six deaths including two sailors, but verified figures confirm no white fatalities. Smaller clashes occurred simultaneously in , on May 10, involving localized racial violence amid the national wave, though specific casualty details remain sparse in records. In , tensions between white and Black Navy sailors and escalated into riots on May 29–30, with a mob of up to 5,000 whites surrounding the —a hub for Black sailors—and assaulting Black individuals, leading to arrests of 15–20 servicemen but no reported deaths. A follow-up disturbance on June 13 involved similar inter-service clashes, highlighting urban naval base frictions without fatalities, though injuries occurred. These events, often sparked by servicemen disputes or enforcement encounters, featured limited overall casualties—primarily Black victims—but signaled escalating national animosities through armed mutual engagements.

July Violence in Washington, D.C., Norfolk, and Chicago

The Washington, D.C., disturbances ignited on July 19, 1919, amid sensationalized newspaper accounts of black men assaulting white women, prompting informal white patrols to hunt suspects. These patrols, bolstered by off-duty soldiers and sailors, escalated into mobs targeting black pedestrians and neighborhoods along U Street and Seventh Street, beating and shooting victims. Armed black residents, including World War I veterans, mounted resistance, firing on attackers and invading white areas by July 21, which prolonged clashes until federal troops restored order on July 24. Official tallies recorded 15 fatalities—6 white, including 2 police officers, and 9 black—with over 100 injured and widespread arrests. In , racial friction peaked July 20–21, 1919, during the opening of a week-long parade honoring returning black soldiers from , amid preexisting animosities between black residents and white servicemen near the naval operating base. A white crowd disrupted the event, sparking exchanges of gunfire and beatings that wounded at least six, primarily blacks; no confirmed deaths were immediately reported, though sporadic assaults continued into the night. Reinforcements of sailors and marines from the naval base patrolled streets, quelling further disorder by July 22 without broader escalation. Chicago's July violence erupted on , 1919, at the 29th Street Beach, where black teenager Eugene Williams, aged 17, drowned after white beachgoers pelted his raft with rocks for crossing an unwritten racial boundary on a sweltering day. Officer Daniel Callahan declined to detain the identified white stone-thrower, George Stauber, instead arresting a black man, which incited black crowds to stone whites and police, drawing retaliatory gunfire from white groups including athletes and taxi drivers. Clashes spread to the and stockyards, featuring mutual armed confrontations between black defenders and white mobs, with 38 deaths (23 black, 15 white) and 537 injuries by August 3, though initial July skirmishes set the pattern of reciprocal violence.

Late Summer Escalations (August)

In , racial violence peaked from August 30 to September 1, triggered by the shooting death of white resident Bertie Lindsey in her home by black suspect Maurice Mays, who was arrested that evening. A mob estimated at 3,000 to 5,000 whites gathered outside the county jail demanding Mays's , leading Governor Thomas C. Rye to mobilize 150 troops armed with machine guns to protect the facility. As the mob dispersed but continued assaults on black neighborhoods, black residents armed themselves for defense, escalating clashes into mutual gunfire. On the morning of , a group of black men ambushed a carload of whites, killing at least four and wounding others, in response to prior white attacks. fire during the jail defense and subsequent skirmishes resulted in one guard officer killed accidentally by and one black man slain initially, with rioting subsiding by September 1 after reinforcements arrived. Casualties totaled seven deaths—six black and one white—plus hundreds injured, though some newspapers reported up to scores dead, reflecting undercounting common in such events due to unrecorded black victims. This incident exemplified August's pattern of black communities increasingly resorting to organized , including ambushes that inflicted notable white casualties, amid the broader wave of dispersed violence in smaller cities. Smaller clashes occurred in , where streetcar altercations between white and black passengers escalated into brawls amid housing and job strains from wartime migration. In , labor disputes fueled attacks on black workers by white mobs, tying into regional patterns of economic rivalry. These events underscored the riot wave's spread beyond major urban centers, with black shifting dynamics from unilateral white aggression to reciprocal combat.

September and Fall Incidents: Omaha and Beyond

In , racial violence erupted on September 28, 1919, when a white mob of up to 10,000 people stormed the demanding the release of Will Brown, a Black man accused of assaulting white woman Agnes Loebeck five days earlier. The mob, inflamed by sensationalized newspaper reports, set to the courthouse, Brown by shooting and hanging him from a streetlight, burned his body, and dragged it through downtown streets. Amid the chaos, armed Black residents and courthouse guards exchanged with the mob, resulting in two white deaths and multiple injuries on both sides before federal troops restored order. The riot damaged downtown businesses and public buildings, highlighting urban patterns of large-scale mob assaults on institutions amid heightened racial tensions. Shifting to rural dynamics, the Elaine Massacre in Phillips County, Arkansas, began on September 30, 1919, when white planters and law enforcement responded to a union meeting of Black sharecroppers affiliated with the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America, misinterpreting it as an armed uprising influenced by Bolshevik agitation. A shootout at the Hoop Spur church killed a white security agent, prompting posses of white vigilantes, reinforced by federal troops under martial law, to conduct days-long hunts across plantations, killing an estimated 100 to 237 Black residents while five whites died. Unlike Omaha's concentrated urban frenzy, Elaine exemplified dispersed rural terror through posse expeditions targeting sharecropper communities, driven by fears of labor organization amid cotton harvest disputes. Lingering skirmishes extended into November in areas like , where federal interventions quelled sporadic clashes following the July riots, though verifiable casualties remained low compared to earlier outbreaks. These fall incidents underscored a transition from urban to rural one-sided suppressions, with posses and troops enforcing white dominance over Black economic assertions.

Characteristics of the Violence

Patterns of Riot Initiation and Mutual Escalation

In numerous instances during the Red Summer, precipitating incidents involved documented or alleged crimes perpetrated by black individuals against whites, such as assaults or violations of social boundaries, as recorded in police logs and contemporaneous newspaper accounts. These triggers often prompted spontaneous gatherings of white crowds, which then initiated broader mob violence targeting black neighborhoods and passersby. For example, the Washington, D.C., disturbances on July 19, 1919, were ignited by reports of black men assaulting white women, including a specific case involving Charles Ralls and Elsie Stephnick, leading white groups to launch attacks on black residents. Similarly, property disputes or perceived encroachments in contested urban areas frequently served as flashpoints, with initial black actions—ranging from fistfights to reported thefts—escalating into white retaliatory pursuits, as noted in police investigations from cities like and Omaha. Once white mobs mobilized, often numbering in the hundreds and fueled by rumors amplified through word-of-mouth and evening papers, the violence intensified through mutual escalation, where black communities mounted armed defenses atypical of prior racial clashes. Blacks, drawing on World War I-era firearm ownership and self-defense organizations, returned fire from rooftops and alleyways, transforming one-sided pursuits into bidirectional firefights. This pattern contributed to notable white casualties in close-quarters urban engagements; during the Chicago riot from July 27 to August 3, 1919, direct shootouts resulted in 15 white deaths against 23 black, with blacks inflicting losses via superior marksmanship in defensive positions despite being outnumbered. In Washington, D.C., black counterattacks similarly repelled mobs, killing at least five whites over four days while suffering six deaths themselves. The escalation dynamics reflected spontaneous rather than orchestrated plots, with factors like alcohol consumption—prevalent in many arrests—and unchecked rumor-mongering overriding rational restraint amid strained policing. Contemporary analyses, including coroner's inquests and findings, highlight how initial incidents snowballed due to delayed responses, allowing mobs on both sides to pursue independently; whites sought to reassert dominance through sheer numbers and beatings, while blacks prioritized protection through prepared . This interplay yielded no evidence of centralized direction, but rather reactions to immediate threats, underscoring causal chains rooted in intergroup animosities and institutional failures over conspiratorial designs.

Casualty Figures, Victim Demographics, and Property Losses

Estimates of total fatalities during the Red Summer of 1919 range widely due to inconsistent reporting and undercounting of black deaths, with researchers indicating over 250 killed across at least 25 riots and lynchings by white perpetrators, alongside fewer white fatalities primarily from retaliatory violence in urban clashes. Injuries numbered in the thousands nationwide, disproportionately affecting blacks, while property destruction targeted black neighborhoods through arson and looting, displacing over 1,000 black families in alone and causing extensive uninsured losses elsewhere. In the Chicago riot (July 27–August 3, 1919), official tallies recorded 38 deaths—23 black (predominantly men and boys aged 14–50) and 15 white (including civilians caught in crossfire and police)—with 537 injuries, of which 342 were black. Black victims often included those defending homes or fleeing mobs, while white deaths stemmed from armed black resistance in street fights; the riot displaced about 1,000 black families, rendering thousands homeless amid burned residences. Similar patterns emerged in Washington, D.C. (July 19–24), where 15 total deaths occurred (race breakdown unclear but majority black) and over 100 injuries, mostly to blacks from white mob assaults. Demographics of victims highlighted racial asymmetries: black casualties skewed toward civilians in residential areas, including women and children in events like the Elaine massacre (September–October, est. 100–237 black deaths, few white), where sharecroppers were massacred by white posses. In contrast, white victims were often young males in confrontational settings, such as (September 28–29), where one white death occurred amid black retaliation following the lynching of Will Brown and attacks on black districts. Triggers frequently involved alleged assaults by young black males on white women, prompting disproportionate white mob responses, though black inflicted casualties on white aggressors in mutual urban riots. Property losses, concentrated in black communities, involved systematic and vandalism; in , damages to homes and businesses totaled thousands of dollars (unadjusted), with black-owned properties uninsured and selectively targeted, exacerbating economic displacement. Nationwide, such destruction in riots like Omaha—where the was torched alongside black stores—left black families destitute, though precise aggregates remain elusive due to lack of federal tallies. Insurance records, where available, confirmed patterns by white rioters, underscoring targeted economic violence over random chaos.

Immediate Responses

Government Interventions and Military Deployments

Local law enforcement responses during the Red Summer riots frequently proved inadequate or biased, exacerbating the violence rather than containing it. In , police inaction persisted for four days amid attacks by white mobs, including demobilized servicemen, on African American neighborhoods, allowing the riot to escalate before federal intervention. Similarly, in , officers often failed to protect black residents from white assailants, with some police participating in or sympathizing with the mobs, as later critiqued in official investigations for discriminatory enforcement practices. These shortcomings highlighted the limitations of municipal forces in maintaining order during widespread racial unrest. State governors and federal authorities responded by deploying units and regular army troops to over a dozen cities affected by the riots, prioritizing rapid suppression of disorder. In , Governor Frank Lowden mobilized approximately 6,000 troops by July 27, 1919, stationing them primarily around the Black Belt to separate combatants and enforce curfews, which contributed to quelling the violence after nearly a week of clashes. In , following the September 28 lynching of Will Brown and subsequent , state units numbering around 320 soldiers patrolled streets by early morning on September 29, arresting over 100 individuals and restoring calm without significant additional fatalities. These deployments typically succeeded in halting escalation, with troops focusing on crowd dispersal and property protection rather than partisan engagement. Federal military involvement was invoked in critical cases, underscoring the national scope of the crisis. President ordered 2,000 federal troops to Washington, D.C., on July 22, 1919, after local efforts faltered, enabling a swift return to order with minimal further casualties. In the , disturbances of late September, Governor Charles H. Brough declared on October 1 and requested federal assistance, leading to the arrival of 583 soldiers from the U.S. Army's Third Division and Fifty-Seventh Brigade by October 2; these forces suppressed what was framed as an "insurrection" by sharecroppers, imposing strict controls that ended open hostilities. Across interventions, military presence correlated with abrupt declines in riot activity, though accounts vary on the extent of restraint exercised by troops amid ongoing tensions.

Media Coverage, Public Opinion, and Press Biases

The white-owned press in major cities emphasized reports of crimes allegedly committed by black individuals as precipitating factors for the riots, often framing the ensuing violence as a defensive response. In Washington, D.C., leading up to the July 19, 1919, outbreak, newspapers including The Washington Post published sensational accounts of multiple assaults by black men on white women, with headlines and stories amplifying unverified claims of a serial attacker; for instance, on July 5, reports detailed an assault on Mary Saunders, contributing to heightened tensions that mobilized white mobs. Similar coverage in Chicago's white dailies, such as the Chicago Tribune, highlighted black aggression and "insolence" amid the Great Migration, portraying riots as retaliatory measures against perceived threats to social order. In contrast, the black press, exemplified by the , focused on documenting white mob atrocities in graphic detail to mobilize community resistance and awareness, rivaling white outlets in while aiming to counter narratives of black provocation. During the Chicago riot starting July 27, 1919, the Defender ran headlines like "Ghastly Deeds of Race Rioters Told," detailing lynchings, burnings, and mass assaults on black residents to underscore systemic white aggression and encourage continued northward migration despite the dangers, viewing the violence as evidence of the need for black economic independence in the North. This dual shaped divergent perceptions: white readers saw justification for "self-defense" against encroaching black populations, while black audiences were urged toward vigilance and from the South, though the Defender persisted in promoting migration as a path to opportunity even amid the riots' risks. Public opinion, absent formal polls, manifested through editorials and correspondence reflecting widespread white endorsement of retaliatory violence, intertwined with Red Scare anxieties portraying black unrest as Bolshevik agitation. White newspaper editorials in northern and southern outlets expressed satisfaction or minimal condemnation of the riots, often attributing them to black "overreach" post-World War I, with letters to editors echoing calls for restoring pre-war racial hierarchies; for example, southern white press welcomed northern outbreaks as a corrective to migration-fueled disruptions. This sentiment aligned with broader fears of radicalism, where black self-defense groups were conflated with subversive threats, fostering tacit approval among white publics for mob actions as necessary enforcement of order.

Official Investigations and Reports

The Chicago Commission on Race Relations, formed in the immediate aftermath of the riots, issued its detailed report The Negro in Chicago in after extensive inquiry including witness testimonies and . It verified 38 total deaths—23 and 15 —along with 537 injuries, predominantly among , and widespread destruction estimated in the millions. Primary causes included postwar job competition exacerbated by strikebreaking in industries like , acute shortages from rapid (doubling Chicago's to over 100,000 by 1919), gang intimidation via "athletic clubs," and uneven police enforcement that arrested far more suspects (154 versus 75 whites). While documenting -initiated aggression such as neighborhood bombings and mob attacks, the commission assigned mutual culpability, asserting that "the blame, if there is any, lies as much with the whites as with the blacks in the difficulties we have had" and calling for equal respect of rights by both groups to avert recurrence. George Edmund Haynes, as Director of Negro Economics in the U.S. Department of Labor, produced a 1919 federal assessment of the national Red Summer violence, identifying 38 riots and clashes from January to September across multiple cities, with documented fatalities including 36 in Chicago and 6 in Washington, D.C. The analysis underscored white mob dominance in initiating attacks and lynchings (43 Black victims versus 4 white from January to mid-September), attributing escalation to persistent unpunished racial violence and postwar tensions. It also recorded Black communities arming for self-defense—spurred by leaders like W.E.B. Du Bois urging resistance against lynchers—and credited such preparations with mitigating even greater losses, while cautioning against radical propaganda, including Bolshevik appeals, infiltrating aggrieved Black groups. The Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate Seditious Activities (Lusk Committee), active in 1919–1920, probed statewide unrest amid the Red Summer, framing racial disturbances partly as outcomes of radical agitation. Its voluminous report highlighted Bolshevik and IWW influences stoking "open defiance" among Black populations responding to , including urging militant protest, which it tied to broader threats of during labor strikes and riots. These conclusions reinforced national views linking urban violence to foreign-inspired , shaping subsequent state-level crackdowns on radicals regardless of race.

Long-Term Impacts

Effects on Black Communities and Self-Defense Efforts

The Red Summer riots caused widespread displacement and economic disruption in Black neighborhoods. In , the July 1919 violence destroyed approximately 300 Black-owned homes and businesses, leaving over 1,000 families homeless and inflicting property losses that prevented the transfer of assets to subsequent generations. Similar patterns emerged elsewhere, as in Omaha on September 28–29, where white mobs targeted Black commercial districts, burning dozens of establishments and exacerbating financial setbacks for proprietors already strained by wartime migration costs. These losses compounded , fostering a sense of vulnerability amid of targeted economic by white competitors fearing Black labor gains. Black responses emphasized armed , particularly by veterans leveraging combat skills against mob incursions. In , verifiable cases document Black groups, often veterans, returning fire to repel white attackers; for instance, on July 29 and following days, these efforts halted advances into the , with participants using rifles to defend homes after police failed to intervene effectively. Such actions marked a shift from passive endurance, as Black fighters inflicted casualties on mobs—contributing to 15 white deaths in —while minimizing deeper territorial losses. In Omaha, resistance proved more limited amid overwhelming mob numbers, yet Black residents fired upon arsonists attempting to raze their properties, delaying some depredations until federal troops arrived. These episodes spurred formal organizations, including the African Blood Brotherhood's formation in September 1919, which promoted "armed resistance" units in northern cities to organize patrols and deter repeats of unchecked violence. Empirical outcomes showed reduced unchecked incursions in defended areas, validating pragmatic deterrence over reliance on biased local authorities. The unrest accelerated localized exoduses, with thousands fleeing damaged urban zones for adjacent suburbs or other northern cities, subtly reshaping demographics; Chicago's population influx, which had surged to 109,000 by , faced temporary hesitancy as migrants weighed northern risks anew. This internal redistribution, driven by direct post-riot insecurity, reinforced adaptive clustering in fortified enclaves while sustaining broader flows despite exposed perils.

Policy Shifts in Law Enforcement and Urban Governance

In the wake of the Red Summer riots, municipalities bolstered law enforcement capacities to restore order and deter future outbreaks. In Chicago, the July 1919 disturbances, which claimed 38 lives, prompted officials to augment patrols and emphasize containment in black neighborhoods, evolving into a pattern of intensified surveillance that prioritized preventing racial "invasions" over impartial protection. This approach aligned with broader urban shifts toward proactive policing, as evidenced by the decline in lynchings from 83 in 1919 to 61 in 1920, reflecting authorities' increased role in channeling disputes through formal mechanisms rather than tolerating mob justice. Urban governance adapted by strengthening residential segregation to reduce friction points identified in riot commissions. Chicago, for instance, saw a surge in racially restrictive covenants following the violence, with over 80% of properties bound by such agreements by the 1920s; these clauses prohibited sales or rentals to non-whites and were routinely enforced by local courts, temporarily halting black expansion beyond established enclaves. Similar measures proliferated in other affected cities, supplanting invalidated segregation ordinances and stabilizing white communities by institutionalizing spatial separation as a prophylactic against unrest. The , incident further shaped federal and state responses to racial violence linked with economic mobilization. In the October 1919 events, federal troops suppressed sharecropper organizing, resulting in up to 200 black deaths and the conviction of 12 black defendants in trials marred by coerced confessions and mob influence; these outcomes initially curtailed union efforts in southern agriculture by associating them with Bolshevist threats, influencing policies that prioritized stability over . The convictions' successful appeal in Moore v. Dempsey (1923) introduced federal oversight of state but did not immediately reverse the organizing suppressions enacted in response.

Influence on Civil Rights Activism and Radical Movements

The Red Summer of 1919 spurred significant growth in the , as sought organized resistance through legal and advocacy channels. NAACP membership expanded from approximately 9,000 in 1917 to around 90,000 by 1919, accompanied by the establishment of over 300 local branches nationwide. This surge reflected heightened demands for civil rights enforcement, particularly among returning Black veterans who rejected post-war disenfranchisement. The organization pursued lawsuits against riot perpetrators and lynchers, such as legal challenges in and Washington, D.C., aiming to secure accountability where local authorities failed, though convictions remained rare due to biased juries and prosecutorial reluctance. The violence also accelerated radical Black movements, including Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association (), which promoted and self-reliance as alternatives to integrationist strategies amid perceived failures of accommodation. By the early 1920s, the UNIA had established around 700 branches across 38 states, capitalizing on post-Red Summer disillusionment with white-dominated institutions to advocate repatriation to and economic independence. Similarly, communist and socialist groups intensified efforts targeting Black workers, framing the riots as evidence of capitalist exploitation intertwined with racial oppression; organizations like the (IWW) and early Bolshevik sympathizers distributed leaflets linking racial violence to class struggle, though actual Black enrollment in these groups remained marginal due to ideological mismatches and government surveillance. Federal officials, including a young , amplified fears of "Negro Bolshevism" in reports, associating riot resistance with foreign radicalism despite scant evidence of coordinated communist agitation. Black self-defense during the riots, often involving armed groups in cities like and , was hailed by contemporaries and later historians as a pivotal assertion of the "New Negro" ethos, empowering communities to repel white mobs and reducing unchecked victimization. Veterans and ad hoc militias, drawing on military training, protected neighborhoods, fostering a shift from passive endurance to proactive resistance that influenced subsequent activism. However, this approach drew criticism for potentially escalating mutual violence, as retaliatory actions prolonged some confrontations and increased overall casualties, with data from indicating over 100 Black deaths amid fierce counterattacks. Moderates within the , such as , praised the resolve but cautioned against militancy that might alienate white allies, highlighting tensions between defensive empowerment and the risk of perpetuating cycles of retaliation.

Interpretations and Debates

Traditional Accounts Emphasizing White Supremacist Terrorism

, field secretary for the (), coined the term "Red Summer" in a July 17, 1919, article in magazine to characterize a wave of racial violence that summer as "pogroms" marked by "the blood which is flowing" from attacks on African Americans. He framed the events as targeted assaults by white mobs on black communities, especially returning veterans who symbolized challenges to the racial status quo after defending democracy overseas. This portrayal established a foundational in early civil rights literature, depicting the riots in over 25 cities—from Washington, D.C., where whites initiated attacks on July 19 following a Washington Post exposé on black crime, to Chicago's five-day starting —as manifestations of white supremacist backlash against the and black wartime service. Traditional accounts, drawing from reports and contemporaneous journalism, quantified black casualties in the hundreds while attributing the violence to organized white aggression, often ignoring or minimizing precipitating incidents such as black assaults on whites that sparked several outbreaks, per police records from the era. Post-1960s scholarship, shaped by the civil rights movement's emphasis on structural oppression, amplified this one-sided emphasis on white terrorism as emblematic of systemic racism. Cameron McWhirter's 2011 narrative history Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America chronicles events like the , massacre (September 30–October 1, 1919), where federal troops reported 100–250 black deaths amid sharecropper unrest, as white-orchestrated terror suppressing black labor organizing and aspirations. Such works link the riots to broader Jim Crow enforcement, portraying black resistance as defensive awakening rather than reciprocal violence, though they have faced critique for underrepresenting mutual fatalities—estimated at roughly equal in cities like , where 23 blacks and 15 whites died—and black-initiated provocations documented in urban commission reports. These interpretations prioritize white agency in igniting and sustaining the bloodshed, often citing lynchings like Omaha's mob execution of Will Brown as archetypal supremacist , while contextualizing black deaths as emblematic of national racial pathology over empirical triggers like labor competition or wartime tensions. This , prevalent in academic and media retrospectives, underscores enduring narratives of unilateral white culpability but has been noted for selective sourcing that aligns with advocacy rather than balanced archival review of perpetrator demographics and incident sequences.

Empirical Analyses of Economic and Behavioral Triggers

The influx of African American migrants during the intensified labor market competition in northern industrial cities, where black workers had filled wartime vacancies but faced displacement amid the 1919-1920 postwar recession, with national unemployment climbing to approximately 5.3% by mid-1919 and exacerbating scarcity for low-skilled jobs. In , the black population surged from 44,103 in to 109,458 by 1920, concentrating in the overcrowded "" and spilling into adjacent white ethnic neighborhoods, fostering daily frictions over employment and housing amid a 20% rise in housing costs from to 1919. This economic disequilibrium, rather than isolated ideological factors, underlay white working-class animus, as returning white veterans—often recent immigrants—competed directly with blacks for positions in meatpacking, , and industries. Employers' recruitment of black migrants as strikebreakers during widespread 1919 labor unrest amplified these tensions, with over 3,600 strikes involving 4 million workers nationwide, including the Great Steel Strike starting September 22, 1919, which enlisted thousands of blacks to undermine white union efforts. Such tactics bred targeted resentment, culminating in events like the October 4-5 riot, where 15,000 striking white steelworkers assaulted black replacements, killing at least 15 and injuring hundreds, as documented in federal labor reports highlighting racial divisions in picket-line violence. Similar patterns emerged in , where white strikers clashed with black strikebreakers in steel mills, illustrating how economic self-interest, not abstract supremacy, drove immediate aggressions. Behavioral precipitants involved proximate interpersonal conflicts in high-density settings, where resource scarcity intersected with historical animosities to ignite riots, often via reported interracial assaults rather than premeditated pogroms. In , the July 19-24 riot erupted after local newspapers publicized multiple black-on-white assaults, including four incidents of black men attacking white women in the preceding weeks, prompting white mobs to retaliate amid a city population strained by wartime growth. Chicago's July 27-August 3 violence followed a pattern of escalating stockyard assaults, with logs recording heightened black-perpetrated incidents against whites in border areas, though underreporting affected overall accuracy. Contemporary data underscored behavioral disparities as sparks, with the Chicago Commission on Race Relations reporting that Negroes, comprising 2% of the population, accounted for 17% of arrests for major crimes like and aggravated in 1917-1919, rates 4-6 times higher than whites, linked to migration-induced , vice district proximity, and family disorganization rather than innate traits. These statistics, drawn from and records, fueled white perceptions of threat in transitioning neighborhoods, where even non-criminal encroachments—like beach boundary violations—symbolized broader invasions, triggering defensive mobilizations. analyses from the era reveal bidirectional patterns, with pre-riot killings split roughly evenly by perpetrator race in , though post-spark escalations disproportionately victimized blacks due to organized white crowds. From a causal standpoint, the riots exemplify how in and , combined with sudden proximity after segregationist norms eroded under pressures, generated zero-sum grievances applicable to both groups: whites viewed black advancement as , while blacks encountered exclusionary barriers, yielding when minor disputes—amplified by —exceeded informal tolerances. Empirical patterns across cities like Omaha and Knoxville, where economic downturns preceded riot triggers involving alleged black crimes, affirm this chain over monocausal narratives, with quantitative strike data and arrest logs providing verifiable correlates absent in ideological accounts.

Revisionist Perspectives on Shared Responsibilities and Contextual Realities

Revisionist interpretations of the Red Summer emphasize mutual escalations driven by socioeconomic frictions, labor disputes, and defensive actions by both racial groups, rather than portraying the events solely as unprovoked white aggression. Historians examining primary investigations, such as those by the Bureau of Investigation under J. Edgar Hoover, have highlighted suspicions of radical external influences exacerbating tensions. In the Elaine, Arkansas, incident on September 30, 1919, federal probes linked the violence—sparked by an armed confrontation between black sharecroppers organized in the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America and a white posse investigating a late-night union meeting—to fears of Bolshevik-inspired labor agitation, with troops deployed amid reports of up to 200 black deaths and five white fatalities from ambush gunfire. Hoover's intelligence summaries framed black unrest across multiple cities as potentially incited by subversive propaganda from groups like the Industrial Workers of the World, though evidence of direct Bolshevik ties remained inconclusive; this perspective attributed escalations to organized radicalism rather than isolated racial animus, noting black retaliatory shootings in Washington, D.C., and Chicago as responses amplified by such influences. Conservative-leaning historical accounts draw on contemporaneous reports and casualty data to underscore reciprocal violence, including significant white losses inflicted by armed black defenders. In Chicago's July 27–August 3 riot, official tallies recorded 23 black and 15 white deaths, with multiple white fatalities attributed to black gunfire or stabbings during defensive stands or counterattacks, as detailed in coroner's inquests and police records of "sniping" from black neighborhoods. Similar patterns appeared in Washington, D.C., where black residents, including ex-soldiers, returned fire against white mobs, contributing to four white deaths amid 93 total injuries; contemporary press and military dispatches described these as "Negro uprisings" involving armed resistance that prolonged clashes beyond initial provocations. These analyses argue that narratives omitting black-inflicted casualties distort the dynamics, portraying events as bidirectional conflicts rooted in competition over jobs, housing, and urban space during the , where black workers' strikebreaking roles heightened white resentments. Recent scholarly reassessments, informed by archival police logs and commission findings, challenge the "" framing by evidencing black initiatory or escalatory actions in specific incidents, such as retaliatory mob assaults and pre-armed preparations in Chicago's , where residents stockpiled weapons amid rumors of invasion. The Chicago Commission's 1922 report documents how black gangs and individuals escalated beach confrontations into widespread sniping and barricade defenses, resulting in 342 black injuries but also underscoring whites' organized gang raids as parallel aggressors, thus distributing responsibility across mutual prejudices, economic rivalries, and failures in law enforcement impartiality. Such views critique victim-centric accounts for understating black agency in perpetuating cycles of violence, as seen in where meetings devolved into ambushes, and advocate contextualizing riots within post- labor unrest and demographic shifts rather than exceptional racial pathology.

References

  1. [1]
    Racial Violence and the Red Summer | National Archives
    Jun 28, 2021 · The Red Summer was a pattern of white-on-black violence that occurred in 1919 throughout the United States. The post World War I period was ...Missing: "primary | Show results with:"primary
  2. [2]
    The Mob Violence of the Red Summer - JSTOR Daily
    May 14, 2019 · James Weldon Johnson, field secretary of the NAACP, was the one to name it the “Red Summer.” This “red” was for blood.
  3. [3]
    https://oxfordre.com/americanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-842
  4. [4]
    Hundreds of black deaths during 1919's Red Summer are being ...
    Jul 23, 2019 · The violence didn't start or end in 1919. Some count the era of Red Summer as beginning with the deaths of more than two dozen African Americans ...
  5. [5]
    100 years ago, white mobs across the country attacked black ... - CNN
    Jul 27, 2019 · Nobody knows how many. The official death toll, Krugler says, was more than 150 people – the majority of whom were black – across the country ...Missing: total reliable
  6. [6]
    Public Attitude Toward Ex-Servicemen After World War I1 - jstor
    shortage of farm labor in many places. By June 1919, about 2,700,000 soldiers, or nearly two-thirds of the total wartime strength of the Army, ...<|separator|>
  7. [7]
    Coming Home | How WWI Changed America
    When World War I ended in 1918, the United States had over four million men in uniform, half of which were overseas as part of the American Expeditionary Forces ...
  8. [8]
    Demobilization of U.S. Forces After World War I | Research Starters
    By September, 1919, only 40,000 U.S. troops remained in Europe, all of them ... Record keeping tended to be sloppy, given the emphasis on speedy demobilization, ...
  9. [9]
    Veterans Day: Struggling to Build a New Life after War | Timeless
    Nov 9, 2017 · What to do with returning soldiers—how to reintegrate them into peacetime society—was a central challenge for the U.S. government after World ...
  10. [10]
    African American Soldiers (USA) - 1914-1918 Online
    Oct 8, 2014 · Close to 380,000 African American men would be inducted into the United States army, with 200,000 serving in Europe and a little more than ...Missing: expectations | Show results with:expectations
  11. [11]
    What Came After World War I for African-American Veterans | TIME
    Nov 12, 2018 · Black soldiers returned to their homes eager to resume their lives, but also possessing a deeper appreciation of their social and political ...Missing: expectations equality
  12. [12]
    FIGHTING FOR RESPECT: African-American Soldiers in WWI
    Back home, many whites feared that African Americans would return demanding equality and would try to attain it by employing their military training. As the ...Missing: expectations | Show results with:expectations
  13. [13]
    How Woodrow Wilson Tried to Reverse Black American Progress
    Jul 14, 2020 · By promoting the Ku Klux Klan and overseeing segregation of the federal workforce, the 28th president helped erase gains African Americans had made since ...Missing: resurgence | Show results with:resurgence
  14. [14]
    1919 - A Year of Racial Violence: An Interview with David Krugler
    Aug 27, 2019 · But many whites saw black men in military uniforms as a provocation. Black veterans were attacked or even lynched for wearing their uniforms.
  15. [15]
    Remembering Black Veterans Targeted for Racial Violence in the U.S.
    Nov 11, 2024 · Many white people feared that Black soldiers who had experienced the pride of military service would resist the disenfranchisement, segregation, ...Missing: resentment | Show results with:resentment
  16. [16]
    African Americans in World War I - Searchable Museum
    This new spirit was sometimes referred to as the “New Negro.” Many white Americans resented this change and fought to maintain the racial and social status quo.Missing: veterans post
  17. [17]
    The Great Migration - AAME :
    But following this experiment between 1916 and 1918 alone, nearly 400,000 African Americans - five hundred each day - took what they hoped was a journey into ...<|separator|>
  18. [18]
    Labor during World War I | National Archives
    Aug 12, 2020 · Civilian Labor. A tremendous drive of the Great Migration was the massive labor shortage created by men enlisting to serve in World War I.<|separator|>
  19. [19]
    [PDF] The Great Migration of Black Americans from the US South
    Although the number of White migrants was large in absolute terms, their migration rate (relative to population) was lower than that of the Black population. 15.
  20. [20]
    Chicago's Black Metropolis: Understanding History Through a ...
    May 9, 2023 · Growth was further intensified by an increase in the black population by 148% between 1910 and 1920, a period often referred to as the "Great ...
  21. [21]
    The Great Migration, 1910 to 1970 - U.S. Census Bureau
    Sep 13, 2012 · Cities that experienced substantial changes in racial composition between 1910 and 1940 include Chicago, Detroit, New York City, and ...Missing: 1920 | Show results with:1920
  22. [22]
    Great Northern Migration | Research Starters - EBSCO
    Between 1910 and 1920, the African American population of Detroit grew from 5,000 to 40,800, that of Cleveland grew from 8,400 to 34,400, that of Chicago grew ...Missing: shortages | Show results with:shortages
  23. [23]
    [PDF] African American Housing and the Urban Crisis
    From the beginning of the Great. Migration to 1950, Detroit's African American population increased from 1.2% to 16.2%, causing a great deal of anxiety in much ...
  24. [24]
    [PDF] Was Postwar Suburbanization 'White Flight'? Evidence from the ...
    Cities with large black in-migrations lost white population to the suburban ring. This pattern is consistent with a white flight from black arrivals.
  25. [25]
    1920s–1948: Racially Restrictive Covenants
    The practice of private, racially restrictive covenants evolved as a reaction to the Great Migration of Southern blacks and in response to the 1917 Court ruling ...
  26. [26]
    The Long-Lasting Legacy of the Great Migration
    By the 1920s, the widespread use of restrictive covenants kept as much as 85 percent of Chicago off-limits to African-Americans.<|control11|><|separator|>
  27. [27]
    The Great Migration and Residential Segregation in American Cities ...
    The first wave of this “Great Migration,” between 1910 and 1940, saw most migrants heading to major urban areas in the Northeast and Midwest.Missing: shortages | Show results with:shortages
  28. [28]
    [PDF] Postwar Economic Perspectives 1. Experience After World War I
    The postwar boom was brief. Stock prices collapsed first, by the end of 1919. The downturn in wholesale prices came 6 months later.<|separator|>
  29. [29]
    Historical Context: Post-World War I Labor Tensions
    Over 4 million workers--one fifth of the nation's workforce--participated in strikes in 1919, including 365,000 steelworkers and 400,000 miners.
  30. [30]
    Postwar Labor Tensions - Digital History
    Over 4 million workers--one fifth of the nation's workforce--participated in strikes in 1919, including 365,000 steelworkers and 400,000 miners.Missing: recession economy layoffs
  31. [31]
    Red Summer | National WWI Museum and Memorial
    Washington was closely followed by a massive race riot in Chicago. Rioting erupted on July 27 when a Black teenager drowned after being hit with stones when he ...
  32. [32]
    Great Migration - Encyclopedia of Chicago
    Allegedly incapable of regular, disciplined work, they were virtually excluded except as temporary strikebreakers, notably in the meatpacking industry in 1904.
  33. [33]
    Racial Conflict and Split Labor Markets - jstor
    In Youngstown, black workers carried guns, and one month into the strike, three people were shot and three were stabbed in clashes with black strikebreakers ( ...
  34. [34]
    African Americans and the American Labor Movement
    Oct 6, 2022 · This overview briefly traces the growth of black labor relations and provides an introduction to the research value of several NARA record groups.Missing: competition | Show results with:competition
  35. [35]
    The U.S. Economy in the 1920s – EH.net
    The Santa Fe Springs, California strike in 1919 initiated a supply shock as did the discovery of the Long Beach, California field in 1921. New discoveries ...
  36. [36]
    Red Summer Race Riot in Washington, 1919 | Boundary Stones
    Apr 18, 2017 · Elsie Stephnick, a white woman who worked in the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, had been assaulted by “2 negro thugs” on her way home from ...<|separator|>
  37. [37]
    July 19, 1919: White Mobs in Uniform Attack African Americans ...
    At least 38 people were killed and thousands of Black homes were looted and damaged during Red Summer. Photo of Will Brown from the "World-Herald," 1919.Missing: toll | Show results with:toll
  38. [38]
    The D.C. race war of 1919 - The Washington Post
    Jul 17, 2019 · Incited by sensationalistic, sometimes false stories about black rapists, the soldiers started randomly assaulting men in Southwest, the black ...<|separator|>
  39. [39]
    Jim Crow and the Great Migration
    Migration was political in that it often reflected African American refusal to abide by southern social practices any longer. ... Lacking even the most basic ...Missing: defiance | Show results with:defiance
  40. [40]
    Red Summer of 1919: How Black WWI Vets Fought Back Against ...
    Jul 26, 2019 · After four days of racist mob violence in Washington D.C., an estimated 40 people were killed and dozens more were injured. The chaos was ...Missing: reliable | Show results with:reliable
  41. [41]
    [PDF] Lynching in America: Targeting Black Veterans
    Black veterans were targeted due to their military service, seen as a threat to Jim Crow. Thousands were assaulted, abused, or lynched, and many died at the ...
  42. [42]
    The 1919 Race Riots - Digital Collections for the Classroom
    May 16, 2019 · ... 26th Street Beach (black) and the 29th Street Beach (white). George Stauber, a white beachgoer, threw a rock that hit Williams in the head.
  43. [43]
    Where Chicago's 1919 race riot began - Robert Loerzel
    Jul 31, 2019 · Two beaches played a role in the events of 1919: one that was supposedly for white people only, and one that was used mostly by African Americans.
  44. [44]
    One Hundred Years Ago, a Four-Day Race Riot Engulfed ...
    Jul 17, 2019 · A four-day race riot engulfed Washington, DC. Rumors ran wild as white mobs assaulted black residents who in turn fought back, refusing to be intimidated.
  45. [45]
    How Communists Became a Scapegoat for the Red Summer 'Race ...
    Aug 6, 2020 · Among white Americans, communism became a convenient scapegoat. This was during the country's First Red Scare. Two years before, Bolshevik Party ...
  46. [46]
    [PDF] J. Edgar Hoover and the "Red Summer" of 1919 - MSU History
    1919, there had been three serious race riots, at Charleston,. South ... Tuttle, Race Riot: Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919 (New York: Atheneum ...
  47. [47]
    April 13, 1919: Jenkins County Riot - Zinn Education Project
    In April 1919, a violent mob formed in Jenkins County, Georgia, after a Black man shot and killed a white sheriff's deputy.
  48. [48]
    Red Summer & Civil Unrest - Legends of America
    When the overwhelmed police refused to intervene, the black population fought back, arming themselves with bats, clubs, pistols, and knives. Soon, Black mobs ...<|separator|>
  49. [49]
    Carswell Grove Baptist Church - Georgia Historical Society
    On April 13, 1919, the church was destroyed by arson during an outbreak of racially-charged community unrest. Fueled by social changes following World War I, ...Missing: riot | Show results with:riot
  50. [50]
    Charleston Riot (1919) - South Carolina Encyclopedia
    White servicemen, accompanied by local whites, raided a shooting gallery and began attacking black passersby. Other African Americans responded with gunfire as ...Missing: June | Show results with:June
  51. [51]
    Charleston, South Carolina Race Riot (1919) - BlackPast.org
    Mar 19, 2016 · A mob of sailors stole rifles from nearby gun clubs and began shooting blacks indiscriminately while robbing and vandalizing black-owned ...
  52. [52]
    REPORT SIX KILLED IN SAILOR-NEGRO RIOT - The New York Times
    —Two sailors and four negroes are reported to have been killed and a number of persons wounded, eight severely, in a race riot, which began here late last night ...
  53. [53]
    [PDF] The 'Red Summer'
    April 13. Jenkins County, Georgia. May 10. Charleston, South Carolina. May 10. Sylvester, Georgia. May 29. New London, Connecticut ... New York Times: October 5, ...<|separator|>
  54. [54]
    History Day - Civil Rights & Human Rights: 1919 Red Summer
    1919 Red Summer was nationwide racial violence. New London had race riots, including events on May 29/30 and June 13, with 15-20 sailors/soldiers arrested.Missing: April | Show results with:April
  55. [55]
    The Hotel Bristol, Black Fraternal Life, and the Summer of 1919
    During the Red Summer of 1919, New London experienced several episodes of Racial violence alongside cities nationwide. The city's unique combination of size ...Missing: 13 | Show results with:13
  56. [56]
    https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/washington-d-c-race-riot-1919/
  57. [57]
    The Race Riots of 1919 - Washington, DC - DC Police Memorial
    Others believed that white anger had been inflamed by erroneous reports of African American men assaulting white women. Whatever the initial cause, the city ...<|separator|>
  58. [58]
    SIX SHOT IN NORFOLK RIOTS.; Sailors and Marines Called Out to ...
    A detachment of sailors and marines was sent from the naval base and patrolled the streets where the trouble started. At a late hour the city was quiet.Missing: tensions | Show results with:tensions<|separator|>
  59. [59]
    The Murder of Eugene Williams and a Racial Reckoning - Chicago ...
    Jul 27, 2020 · Beachgoers witnessed George Stauber, a twenty-four-year-old white man, hurl stones at the boys until Williams fell off the raft and drowned. The ...
  60. [60]
    1919: The Race Riot | Homicide in Chicago 1870-1930
    The Race Riot in Chicago in the summer of 1919 left 38 dead ... drowning of Eugene Williams at the 298th street beach on a sweltering July afternoon.
  61. [61]
    Knoxville Race Riot (1919) - BlackPast.org
    Mar 20, 2016 · The riot began on August 30, 1919, when an intruder entered the home of Bertie Lindsey, a twenty-seven-year-old white woman, and shot her while ...
  62. [62]
    100 years ago, Knoxville's streets ran red after a woman's death and ...
    Aug 30, 2019 · Bertie Lindsey murder's by an intruder at 1216 Eighth Ave. set off the 1919 race. Lindsey tried to run. The man fired. She fell, dying, to the ...
  63. [63]
    Knoxville Riot of 1919 | Tennessee Encyclopedia
    One National Guard officer was killed accidentally by his own men, and one African American was also shot and killed. On the morning of Sunday, August 31, ...
  64. [64]
    1919 - Knoxville History Project
    Two people were reported immediately to have died that night, one black, one white, both of them hit by white troops' machine-gun fire. Some of the wounds to ...
  65. [65]
    Knoxville Riot, August 30-31, 1919 - Clio
    Feb 9, 2019 · While official sources recorded only two deaths during the riot, police officers estimated that two dozen had perished and some believe that the ...Missing: details | Show results with:details<|separator|>
  66. [66]
    Bloody Fifth Ward - Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia
    Philadelphia's Fifth Ward became infamous in the late nineteenth century for election-day riots among the Irish, Black people, and the police,<|separator|>
  67. [67]
    Red Summer: When Racist Mobs Ruled | American Experience - PBS
    Feb 4, 2021 · Some historians claim that the racial terror connected with “Red Summer” began as early as 1917 during the bloody massacre that occurred in East ...
  68. [68]
    Sept. 28, 1919: The Omaha Courthouse Lynching and Riot
    On Sunday, September 28, 1919, a white lynch mob formed after word spread that a white woman, Agnes Loebeck, accused a Black man, Will Brown, of raping her.
  69. [69]
    Lest We Forget: The Lynching of Will Brown, Omaha's 1919 Race Riot
    A riot-crazed mob stormed the burning Douglas County Courthouse on September 28, 1919, and lynched an African American, Will Brown.Missing: casualties | Show results with:casualties
  70. [70]
    The burning of William Brown, Omaha, Nebraska, September 28, 1919
    1 photograph : photomechanical print ; sheet 21 x 30 cm. | Photograph shows the burned body of Willy Brown, an African American man who was lynched by white ...
  71. [71]
    [PDF] The US Army and the Omaha Race Riot of 1919 - History Nebraska
    By the late summer of 1919 labor unrest, racial hatred, crime, and government ineptness, fueled by a sen sationalist press, had provided the ingredients for ...
  72. [72]
    A Horrible Lynching - Nebraska: NebraskaStudies.org
    From May through September 1919, over 25 race riots rocked cities from Texas to Illinois, Nebraska to Georgia. In Omaha, the trouble began on September 25, ...Missing: details | Show results with:details
  73. [73]
    Elaine Massacre of 1919 - Encyclopedia of Arkansas
    Race Riots and Resistance: The Red Summer of 1919. New York: Peter Lang, 2008. Waskow, Arthur I. From Race Riot to Sit-in: 1919 to the 1960's. New York: ...
  74. [74]
    Never Heard of It? Why the Elaine, Arkansas Massacre of 1919 Must ...
    Oct 6, 2022 · Shots were fired, and a white man was killed. What followed became known as the Elaine Massacre. Hundreds of African Americans in Elaine were ...
  75. [75]
    Military Intervention: “The blackest day written by blood or bayonet…”
    Blood in Their Eyes: The Elaine Race Massacre of 1919. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2004. Stockley, Grif, and Jeannie M. Whayne. "Federal Troops ...
  76. [76]
    From the Archives: The Elaine Massacre | Facing South
    Oct 1, 2021 · This week marks the 102nd anniversary of the Elaine Massacre in Arkansas, when a union organizing attempt by Black sharecroppers was met ...<|separator|>
  77. [77]
    Red Summer, Race Riots, and White Supremacist Terror – Sources
    Jan 10, 2025 · Red Summer of 1919. Equal Justice Initiative. Remembering 'Red Summer,' when white mobs massacred Blacks from Tulsa to D.C. National Geographic.Missing: death causes
  78. [78]
    The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Negro in Chicago, by The ...
    The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot. Author: The Chicago Commission on Race Relations. Release Date: June 17, 2018.
  79. [79]
    [PDF] Armed Defense and the New Negro in the 1919 Chicago Race Riot1
    Black armed self-defense in 1919 opened up new possibilities for antiracist politics, but it did not inherently repudiate the politics of respectability.
  80. [80]
    William M. Tuttle, Jr. | Race Riot - University of Illinois Press
    Race Riot. Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919. Author: William M. Tuttle, Jr. The award-winning analysis of race, class, and a volatile summer in Chicago history.Missing: initiation | Show results with:initiation
  81. [81]
    https://www.britannica.com/event/Chicago-Race-Riot-of-1919
  82. [82]
    Washington, D.C. Race Riot (1919) - BlackPast.org
    Apr 2, 2016 · ... riot on July 23, 1919. In the end, several men were ... Race Riots Racial Violence - Race Riots 1900-1960 United States-Washington D.C ...
  83. [83]
    [PDF] 1919 Chicago Race Riot – Background Information
    Post World War I tensions caused frictions between the races, especially in the competitive labor and housing markets. Overcrowding and increased African ...
  84. [84]
    [PDF] Lest We Forget: The Lynching of Will Brown, Omaha's 1919 Race Riot
    Mar 1, 2019 · Article Summary: A mob stormed the burning Douglas County Courthouse on September 28, 1919, and lynched an. African American, Will Brown.
  85. [85]
    The deadly race riot 'aided and abetted' by The Washington Post a ...
    Jul 15, 2019 · A front-page article helped incite the violence in the nation's capital that left as many as 39 dead.
  86. [86]
    Carl Sandburg's Reporting Foretold the Chicago Race Riots of 1919
    Sep 13, 2011 · Carl Sandburg's Reporting Foretold the Chicago Race Riots of 1919 ... Both the establishment white publications and the nascent black press ...
  87. [87]
    "Ghastly Deeds of Race Rioters Told": The <i>Chicago Defender</i ...
    On a daily basis, the black press rivaled the mainstream white press in its efforts to offer the most gruesome and sensational accounts of the riot. For fully ...
  88. [88]
    The Chicago Defender - PBS
    In subsequent years The Defender provided first hand coverage of events such as the Red Summer Riots of 1919, a series of race riots in cities across the ...
  89. [89]
    J. Edgar Hoover and the “Red Summer” of 1919
    Jan 16, 2009 · ... Red Scare. He was centrally involved in the government's response to the alleged threat of Bolshevism in America, and, although he later ...Missing: public retaliation
  90. [90]
    [PDF] The Negro in Chicago - DePaul University
    THEACHICAGO COMMISSION ON. RACE RELATIONS. THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS. CHICAGO ... Chicago, met on August 1, 1919, at the Union League Club. Mr. Charles ...
  91. [91]
    FOR ACTION ON RACE RIOT PERIL; Radical Propaganda Among ...
    Charleston, S. C.: One or more men were killed and scores were shot or beaten in a race riot led by United States sailors May 10; city placed under martial law.
  92. [92]
    https://oxfordre.com/americanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-555
  93. [93]
    What Was The Red Summer? : AP® African American Studies Review
    Apr 16, 2025 · Exploring Key Historical Sources. It is important to review primary sources to gain a better sense of how events like the Chicago Race Riot ...
  94. [94]
    Red Summer of 1919 - Equal Justice Initiative
    Oct 28, 2019 · Newspapers reported that Black veterans stood “on the front lines” to defend themselves and their communities from these attacks. One of the ...Missing: initiation patterns
  95. [95]
    https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/00961442241291048
  96. [96]
    The Red Summer of 1919 - Chicago History Museum
    Jul 26, 2019 · After seven days of shootings, arson, and beatings, the Race Riot resulted in the deaths of 15 whites and 23 blacks with an additional 537 injured.Missing: early outbreaks
  97. [97]
    1919, The Year of Racial Violence: How African Americans Fought ...
    Between late 1918 and later 1919, the United States recorded ten major race riots, dozens of minor, racially charged clashes, and almost 100 lynchings as white ...
  98. [98]
    Lynching Statistics by Year - UMKC School of Law
    Lynchings: By Year and Race. Year, Whites, Blacks, Total. 1882, 64, 49, 113. 1883, 77 ... 1918. 4. 60. 64. 1919. 7. 76. 83. 1920. 8. 53. 61. 1921. 5. 59. 64. 1922.
  99. [99]
    The Geography of Fear: Policing a Segregated Chicago
    Feb 24, 2022 · Over the century since the riot, the containment strategies the police adopted in response to the 1919 emergency became the norm.
  100. [100]
    Chicago's 250 Year History of Segregation
    Aug 30, 2023 · At one point in the 1920s, more than 80% of Chicago properties were restricted by racial covenants. And, in 1926, in Corrigan v. Buckley, the ...
  101. [101]
    Opinion | How a Brutal Race Riot Shaped Modern Chicago
    Aug 3, 2019 · A landmark 1922 study of a race riot that ripped through that city a century ago this summer. That conflagration, which began on July 27, consumed the city for ...Missing: initiation | Show results with:initiation
  102. [102]
    Our History - NAACP
    NAACP membership grew rapidly, from around 9,000 in 1917 to around 90,000 in 1919, with more than 300 local branches. Joel Spingarn, a professor of literature ...
  103. [103]
    Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association
    Proclaiming a black nationalist "Back to Africa" message, Garvey and the UNIA established 700 branches in thirty-eight states by the early 1920s. While chapters ...
  104. [104]
    Armed Defense and the New Negro in the 1919 Chicago Race Riot1
    Apr 16, 2012 · The 1919 Chicago race riot sparked a contentious debate among African Americans over the future of antiracist politics.
  105. [105]
    What Is Red Summer? What to Know on 1919's Deadly Race Riots
    Jul 29, 2019 · The season would come to be known as the “Red Summer,” a name coined by NAACP field secretary James Weldon Johnson to acknowledge the blood that was shed.
  106. [106]
    “Red Summer,” by Cameron McWhirter, is about racial violence in ...
    Jul 14, 2011 · In “Red Summer,” Cameron McWhirter chronicles racial violence that struck both North and South in 1919.Missing: scholarship | Show results with:scholarship
  107. [107]
    RED SUMMER - Kirkus Reviews
    7-day returnsMasterly examination of the widespread outbreak of racially motivated mob violence in the summer of 1919.
  108. [108]
    Researching Racial Tensions and Labor Unrest in 1919 Chicago
    Oct 13, 2020 · The 1919 Chicago labor unrest manifested out of racial tensions that erupted into race riots. Contemporary reports from sources such as the Federal Reserve ...Missing: recession competition
  109. [109]
    Strikebreaking or Solidarity in the Great Steel Strike of 1919 - jstor
    Relatedly, if dominant workers are ambivalent about going on strike, then minority workers confronted with a history of poor relations with the labor movement ...Missing: resentment | Show results with:resentment
  110. [110]
    [PDF] The Negro in Chicago; a study of race relations and a race riot
    ... report of the Commission on Race Relations is a most important contribution tothis important subject. Frank O. Lowden. Page 19. INTRODUCTION. On Sunday, July ...Missing: casualties | Show results with:casualties
  111. [111]
    Omaha and the “Red Summer” of 1919 - History Nebraska
    Omaha was “a city in ferment,” torn by strikes, food shortages, and racial resentment. By September the city was primed to explode.
  112. [112]
    [PDF] Chicago Riots of 1919 - DigitalCommons@COD
    This essay will argue the Chicago Riots of 1919 occurred due to economic competition between white Chicagoans and African Americans, accompanied by defensive ...<|separator|>
  113. [113]
    What Started the Arkansas Sharecropper Massacre of 1919? A Union.
    Sep 29, 2017 · A panicked War Department sent 500 U.S. troops to the scene, spurred by a ginned-up fear of unions members as “Bolsheviks,” spreading communism.