99 years ago over several days in 1917, East St. Louis Illinois, across the river from St. Louis:
Wiki:
=> In 1917 the United States had an active economy boosted by World War I. With many would-be workers absent for active service in the war, industries were in need of labor.
... With many blacks finding work at the Aluminum Ore Company and the American Steel Company in East St. Louis, some whites feared job and wage security due to this new competition; they further resented newcomers arriving from a rural and very different culture. Tensions between the groups escalated, including rumors of black men and white women fraternizing at a labor meeting on May 28.[4][5]
Following the May 28 meeting, some 3,000 white men marched into downtown East St. Louis and began attacking African Americans. With mobs destroying buildings and beating people, the governor of Illinois called in the National Guard to prevent further rioting. Although rumors circulated about organized retribution attacks from blacks,[4] conditions eased somewhat for a few weeks.
On July 2, a car occupied by white males drove through a black area of the city and fired several shots into a standing group. An hour later, a car containing four people, including a journalist and two police officers (Detective Sergeant Samuel Coppedge and Detective Frank Wadley) were passing through the same area. Black residents, possibly assuming they were the original suspects, opened fire on their car, killing one officer instantly and mortally wounding another.[4][6] Later that day, thousands of white spectators who assembled to view the detectives' bloodstained automobile marched into the black section of town and started rioting.[7] After cutting the water hoses of the fire department, the rioters burned entire sections of the city and shot inhabitants as they escaped the flames.[4] Claiming that "Southern negros deserve[d] a genuine lynching,"[8] they lynched several blacks. Guardsmen were called in but accounts exist that they joined in the rioting rather than stopping it.[9][10] More joined in, including allegedly "ten or fifteen young girls about 18 years old, [who] chased a negro woman at the Relay Depot at about 5 o'clock. The girls were brandishing clubs and calling upon the men to kill the woman."[4][11]
...
The ferocious brutality of the attacks and the failure of the authorities to protect innocent lives contributed to the radicalization of many blacks in St. Louis and the nation.[15] Marcus Garvey declared in an inflammatory speech that the riot was "one of the bloodiest outrages against mankind" and a "wholesale massacre of our people", insisting that "This is no time for fine words, but a time to lift one's voice against the savagery of a people who claim to be the dispensers of democracy."[2][16]
In New York City on July 28, ten thousand black people marched down Fifth Avenue in a Silent Parade, protesting the East St. Louis riots.
East St. Louis has been described as the worst labor-related violence in US history --- and that legacy has been considerable. 99 years ago this week. Those who ignore their history, etc.
Detail from the image above:
=> In 1917 the United States had an active economy boosted by World War I. With many would-be workers absent for active service in the war, industries were in need of labor.
... With many blacks finding work at the Aluminum Ore Company and the American Steel Company in East St. Louis, some whites feared job and wage security due to this new competition; they further resented newcomers arriving from a rural and very different culture. Tensions between the groups escalated, including rumors of black men and white women fraternizing at a labor meeting on May 28.[4][5]
Following the May 28 meeting, some 3,000 white men marched into downtown East St. Louis and began attacking African Americans. With mobs destroying buildings and beating people, the governor of Illinois called in the National Guard to prevent further rioting. Although rumors circulated about organized retribution attacks from blacks,[4] conditions eased somewhat for a few weeks.
On July 2, a car occupied by white males drove through a black area of the city and fired several shots into a standing group. An hour later, a car containing four people, including a journalist and two police officers (Detective Sergeant Samuel Coppedge and Detective Frank Wadley) were passing through the same area. Black residents, possibly assuming they were the original suspects, opened fire on their car, killing one officer instantly and mortally wounding another.[4][6] Later that day, thousands of white spectators who assembled to view the detectives' bloodstained automobile marched into the black section of town and started rioting.[7] After cutting the water hoses of the fire department, the rioters burned entire sections of the city and shot inhabitants as they escaped the flames.[4] Claiming that "Southern negros deserve[d] a genuine lynching,"[8] they lynched several blacks. Guardsmen were called in but accounts exist that they joined in the rioting rather than stopping it.[9][10] More joined in, including allegedly "ten or fifteen young girls about 18 years old, [who] chased a negro woman at the Relay Depot at about 5 o'clock. The girls were brandishing clubs and calling upon the men to kill the woman."[4][11]
...
The ferocious brutality of the attacks and the failure of the authorities to protect innocent lives contributed to the radicalization of many blacks in St. Louis and the nation.[15] Marcus Garvey declared in an inflammatory speech that the riot was "one of the bloodiest outrages against mankind" and a "wholesale massacre of our people", insisting that "This is no time for fine words, but a time to lift one's voice against the savagery of a people who claim to be the dispensers of democracy."[2][16]
In New York City on July 28, ten thousand black people marched down Fifth Avenue in a Silent Parade, protesting the East St. Louis riots.
East St. Louis has been described as the worst labor-related violence in US history --- and that legacy has been considerable. 99 years ago this week. Those who ignore their history, etc.
Detail from the image above:
