The Racial Riots of the Red Summer of 1919
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MASARYK UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF EDUCATION Department of English language and literature The Racial Riots of the Red Summer of 1919 Bachelor thesis Brno 2017 Supervisor: Author: Michael George, M.A. Michaela Klosová Prohlášení „Prohlašuji, že jsem bakalářskou práci vypracovala samostatně, pouze za použití citovaných zdrojů.“ Declaration “I proclaim that I have assembled this bachelor thesis by myself and that I used only sources cited in the bibliography.” …………………………….. Acknowledgement I would like to thank to my supervisor Michael George, M. A. for his kind guidance, encouragement, valuable advice, time and helpful remarks. Annotation The aim of this bachelor thesis is to present and examine the period of the racial riots of the Red Summer of 1919 to the reader and provide him/her with the deeper insight of selected racial riots, as well as the resistance of Afro-Americans against the white rioters. The first chapter provides the historical background that led to the rioting. The second chapter deals with five selected riots of Jenkins County, Longview, Washington, Chicago and the town of Elaine. The third chapter describes the three front of resistance to the white mobs. Key Words: Red Summer, Riot, Lynching, Mob violence, Afro-American, Negro, Resistance, Rumors. Anotace Cílem této bakalářské práce je představit čtenáři období rasových nepokojů tzv. Red Summer, které se událo v roce 1919 ve Spojených Státech Amerických a poskytnout relevantní informace k vybraným veřejným nepokojům. Dalším cílem je představit čtenáři vzdor Afro-Američanů proti davovému násilí. První kapitola se zabývá historickými souvislostmi, které vedly k rasovým nepokojům. Druhá kapitola se soustředí na představení a popis pěti vybraných rasových nepokojů, a to ve městech, Longview, Washington, Chicago, Elaine a Jenkins County. Třetí kapitola se zaměřuje na tři fronty odboje proti davovému násilí Američanů. Klíčová slova: Red Summer, veřejné nepokoje, lynčování, davové násilí, Afro- Američané, Černoch, vzdor, fámy. The List of Content Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 7 1. Setting the Roots to the Red Summer rioting ................................................................. 9 1.1. The WWI participation of Afro-Americans ............................................................. 9 1.2. The socio-economical changes in America ........................................................... 11 2. The riots of the Red Summer ........................................................................................ 13 2.1. Jenkins County, Georgia ........................................................................................ 13 2.2. Longview, Texas .................................................................................................... 15 2.2.1. The resistance in Longview ............................................................................ 16 2.2.2. The militia intervention................................................................................... 17 2.3. Washington, D.C. ................................................................................................... 18 2.3.1. The response to the rioting .............................................................................. 20 2.4. Chicago, Illinois ..................................................................................................... 21 2.4.2. The police and the militia Intervention ........................................................... 25 2.5. Elaine "massacre", Phillips County, Arkansas ...................................................... 26 2.5.1. The Committee of Seven ................................................................................ 29 2.5.2. Victims of the massacre .................................................................................. 30 3. Three-Front fight of Afro-Americans ........................................................................... 31 3.1. The first front of resistance .................................................................................... 31 3.1.1. Fighting the White Mob .................................................................................. 31 3.1.2. The Afro-American Armed Self-Defense ....................................................... 32 3.1.3. The New Negro ............................................................................................... 32 3.2. The Second Front of resistance .............................................................................. 33 3.2.1. Negro Crime Stereotypes ................................................................................ 34 3.2.2. Radicalization – The Reds .............................................................................. 35 3.3. The Third Front of Resistance ............................................................................... 36 3.3.1. Haynes Report ................................................................................................. 36 3.3.2. The NAACP .................................................................................................... 38 3.3.3. The Lynching ...................................................................................................... 39 3.3.4. Fight for Justice............................................................................................... 39 3.3.5. The end of rioting ............................................................................................ 42 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 45 Works Cited ...................................................................................................................... 46 Introduction The period of the Red Summer was called "the greatest period of interracial strife the nation has ever witnessed" by J.H. Franklin (480). It was the time of the racial unrest, mostly performed by white mobs that started rioting for various reasons against Afro- American community. The period of 1919 was a difficult one. The whole world was changing after the Great War. Many American soldiers were returning from Europe where they helped to fight for the democracy. Many of them were Afro-Americans hoping for "equality" since they had been living under Jim Crow segregation laws and the white majority did everything to keep Afro-Americans segregated at any manner possible. And some of them were victims of rioting that spread across southern and northern states of the United States. Even though the rioting of the Red Summer is one of the most "bloodiest" in the first half of the twentieth century, it has not been discovered by many or it seems to be forgotten. Therefore the aim of this bachelor thesis is to present the period of the Red Summer of 1919 to the reader and provide him/her with the deeper insight of selected racial riots, as well as the resistance of Afro-Americans against the white rioters. This thesis is divided into three chapters. The first chapter deals with the historical background that tracks the roots of rioting of 1919 and possible causes of the racial unrest within this period. The second chapter describes five major racial riots of this period and provides the narratives of the causes that led to the violence, as well as the responses from the local or governmental authorities and enables the reader to discover the racial relations in the United States in the 1920s. The third chapter is dedicated to the three front resistance of Afro-Americans against the white oppressors from three different points of view – the self-defense, the media and fight for true information and the justice and consequences that helped to fight for that. - 7 - 1. Setting the Roots to the Red Summer rioting The Red Summer is a period of racial riots full of aggression, allegations, accusations, injustice, mob violence and lynching, from April to November of 1919, ranging from the South to the North of the United States. The term of Red Summer was first used by James Weldon Johnson, the field secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, with red as a metaphor for the bloodiness these riots represented (McWhirter 13). The historian J.H. Franklin called that summer of 1919 "the greatest period of interracial strife the nation has ever witnessed" (480). According to Jan Voogd, an author of the Race Riots and Resistance: the Red Summer of 1919, the "uniqueness" of the Red Summer lays in the number of anti-black riots within such a short period of time (18). The Red Summer counts approximately 25 major riots and mob actions. Hundreds of people, mainly black, were killed or injured and tens of thousands had to leave their homes or workplaces. Businesses lost millions of dollars to deconstruction. Lynching was nearly daily occurrence. It is estimated that at least 52 black Americans were lynched1 (McWhirter 13). But in order to understand what caused such hatred against the black community in the summer of 1919, that had already lived for decades under the longstanding racism of Jim Crow, the roots of the riots need to be seen from two different angles that are bound together: the war experience of Afro-Americans and the socio-economical changes within the USA. 1.1. The WWI participation of Afro-Americans The Afro-Americans had long been considered second class citizens from the time of slavery through the Jim Crow years. However; the First World