Katana VentraIP

Red Summer

Red Summer was a period in mid-1919 during which white supremacist terrorism and racial riots occurred in more than three dozen cities across the United States, and in one rural county in Arkansas. The term "Red Summer" was coined by civil rights activist and author James Weldon Johnson, who had been employed as a field secretary by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1916. In 1919, he organized peaceful protests against the racial violence.[1][2]

For the EP, see The Red Summer (EP).

Date

1919 (1919)

Mostly white mobs attacking African-Americans

White supremacist terrorist attacks, riots, and murders against black Americans across the United States

Hundreds

In most instances, attacks consisted of white-on-black violence. Numerous African Americans fought back, notably in the Chicago and Washington, D.C., race riots, which resulted in 38 and 15 deaths respectively, along with even more injuries, and extensive property damage in Chicago.[3] Still, the highest number of fatalities occurred in the rural area around Elaine, Arkansas, where an estimated 100–240 black people and five white people were killed—an event now known as the Elaine massacre.


The anti-black riots developed from a variety of post-World War I social tensions, generally related to the demobilization of both black and white members of the United States Armed Forces following World War I; an economic slump; and increased competition in the job and housing markets between ethnic European Americans and African Americans.[4] The time would also be marked by labor unrest, for which certain industrialists used black people as strikebreakers, further inflaming the resentment of white workers.


The riots and killings were extensively documented by the press, which, along with the federal government, feared socialist and communist influence on the black civil rights movement of the time following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. They also feared foreign anarchists, who had bombed the homes and businesses of prominent figures and government leaders.

April 13: In rural , the riot of Jenkins County led to 6 deaths, and the destruction of various property by arson, including the Carswell Grove Baptist Church, and 3 black Masonic lodges in Millen, Georgia.

Georgia

May 10: The resulted in the injury of 5 white and 18 black men, along with the death of 3 others: Isaac Doctor, William Brown, and James Talbot, all black. Following the riot, the city of Charleston, South Carolina, imposed martial law.[3] A Naval investigation found that four U.S. sailors and one civilian—all white men—initiated the riot.[15]

Charleston riot

Early July: A white , led to the deaths of at least 4 men and destroyed the African-American housing district in the town.[3]

race riot in Longview, Texas

July 3: Local police in , attacked the 10th U.S. Cavalry, an African-American unit known as the "Buffalo Soldiers" formed in 1866.[16]

Bisbee, Arizona

African-American veterans lynched after World War I

African Blood Brotherhood

– the notion that African Americans have been subjected to genocide

Black genocide

Buffalo supermarket shooting

Charleston Church shooting

Freedmen massacres

King assassination riots

List of ethnic riots § United States

List of expulsions of African Americans

List of incidents of civil unrest in the United States

List of massacres in the United States

Lynching in the United States

Mass racial violence in the United States

Racial Equality Proposal

Racism against African Americans

Racism in the United States