"Red Summer 1919."

Describes the bloody race riots that occurred in the United States during the summer and early autumn of 1919.In most instances,whites attacked African Americans in more than two dozens American cities,though in some cases blacks responded in groups to a singles action against one of their number notably in Chicago,which along with Washington D.C. and Elaine Arkansas witnessed the greatest number of fatalities.James Weldon Johnson coined the term "Red Summer."Employed since 1916 by the NAACP as a field secretary,he built and revived local chapters of that organization.In 1919,he organized protest against the racial violence of 1919.On April 11,1919,the US delegate rejected Racial Equality Proposal in the Paris Peace Conference,then the violent reaction occurred by African Americans.With the manpower mobilization and military draft of World War 1 and immigration from Europe cut off,the industrial cities of the North and Midwest experienced severe labor shortages.Northern manufacturers recruited throughout the south and an exodus ensued.By 1919, it was estimated that 500,000 African Americans had emigrated from the South to the industrial cities of the North and Midwest during World War 1.African American workers filled new positions as well as many jobs formerly held by whites.In some cities,they were hired as strikebreakers,especially during strikes of 1917.This increased resentment and suspicion among whites,especially the working class.Following the war,rapid demobilization and the removal of price controls led to inflation and unemployment that increased competition for jobs.In the autumn of 1919,Dr.George E. Hayes,an educator employed as Director of Negro Economics at the U.S. Department of Labor,produced a report on that year's racial violence desugned to serve as the basis for an investigation by the U.S.Senate Committee on Judiciary.It cataloged 26 separate riots on the part of whites attacking blacks in widely scattered communities.In addition,he reported that at least 43 African Americans were lynched,while another eight men were burned at the stake between January 1 and September 14,1919.Unlike earlier race riots in U.S. history,were among the first in which blacks resisted white attacks.Asa Philip Randolph defended the rights of blacks to commit violence in self-defense.Martial law was imposed in Charleston,South Carolina,where men of the U.S.Navy led the race riot of May 10,in which Isaac Doctor,William Brown,and James Talbot,all black men,were killed.Five white men and eighteen black men were injured in the riot.A Naval investigation found that four U.S. sailors and one civilian-all white men-were responsible for the outbreak of violence.The race riot in Longview Texas early in July led to the deaths of at least four men and the destruction of the African American housing district in the town.On July 3,the 10th U.S. Cavalry,a segregated African-American unit founded in 1866,was attacked by local police in Bisbee Arizona.In Washington,D.C.,white men,many in military uniforms responded to the rumored arrest of a black man for rape with 4 days of mob violence,rioting and beatings of random black people on the street.When police refused to intervene,the black population fought back.Troops tried to restore order as they city closed saloons and theaters to discourage assemblies.A summer rainstorm had more of an effect.When the violence ended,10 whites were dead,including 2 police officers,and 5 blacks.Some 150 people had been the victims of attacks.The NAACP sent a telegram to President Wilson to point out:The shame put upon the country by the mobs,including United States soldiers,sailors,and marines,which have assaulted innocent and offending Negroes in the national capital.Men in uniforms have attacked Negroes on the streets and pulled them from streetcars to beat them.Crowds are reported...to have directed attacks against any passing negro....The effect of such riots in the national capital upon race antagonism will be to increase bitterness and danger of outbreaks elsewhere.NAACP calls upon you as President and Commander in chief of the Armed Forces of the nation to make statement condemning mob violence and to enforce suck military law as situation demands.In Norfolk,Virgina,a white mob attacked during the homecoming celebration for African American soldiers.Sadly six people were shot,and local police in The Marines and Navy to restore order.The summer's greatest violence occurred during rioting in Chicago starting on July 27.Chicago's beaches along Lake Michigan were segregated in practice,if not by law.A black youth who swam into the area customarily reserved for whites was stoned and drowned.Blacks responded violently when the police refused to take action.Violence between mobs and gangs lasted 13 days.The resulting 38 fatalities included 23 blacks and 15 whites.Injuries numbered 537 injured,and 1,000 black families were left homeless.Some 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 militia force of several thousand was called in to restore order.At the end of July the Northeastern Federation of Colored Women's Club's,from their Providence Rhode Island convention,denounced the rioting and burning of negroes' homes then happening in Chicago and asked President Wilson "to use every means with in your power to stop the rioting in Chicago and the propaganda used to incite such.At the end of August the NAACP protested again,noting the attack on the organization's secretary in Austin, Texas the previous week.Their telegram said:The NAACP respectfully enquires how long the Federal Government under your administration intends to tolerate anarchy in The United States.During the Knoxville,Tennessee race riot at the end of August,a mob stormed the county jail to release 16 white prisoners,including convicted murders.Turning to the African-American business district,the mob killed at least seven and wounded more than 20 people.At the end of September,the race riot in Omaha,Nebraska witnessed violence on the part of a white mob of more than 10,000 who burned the county court house and destroyed property valued at more than a million dollars.One, man,Will Brown,was lynched.Troops under the command of Major General Leonard Wood,friend Theodore Roosevelt and a leading candidate for the Republican nomination for President in 1920, restored order.The Elaine Arkansas race riot was different in that it occurred in the rural south.It began when a white man, intent on arresting a black bootlegger,was shot by black sharecroppers who had been warned of possible trouble,and were defending a meeting of the local chapter of the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America.White landowners then formed a group to attack the African-American farmers.Five whites and between 100 and 200 blacks died as a result.Arkansas  Governor Charles Hillman Brough appointed  a Committee of Seven,prominent local white businessmen,to investigate.It concluded that the sharecroppers' Union,a Socialist enterprise,was established for the purpose of banding negroes together for the killing of white people."That story made headlines like this in the Dallas Morning news:%22Negroes seized in Arkansas Riots confess to Widespread plot;Planned Massacre of Whites today." Several agents of the Justice Department'sBureau of Investigation spent a week interviewing those involved-though they spoke to none of the sharecroppers-and reviewing documents.They filed a total of 9 reports making it clear that there was no evidence of a conspiracy on the part of the sharecroppers to murder anyone.Their superiors at Justice ignored their analysis.Seventy-nine blacks were later tried and convicted,with 12 sentenced to death.The remainder accepted prison terms of up to 21 years.Appeals of their cases went to the U.S. Supreme Court which reversed the verdicts because of trial errors.Federal oversight of defendants'was increased.