#TO/TEND/REFACTOR into evergreen notes # Discussion 3 Class: HIST 1877 Created: Apr 1, 2021 7:02 PM Reviewed: No Type: Discussion ### Red Summer Summary [Notes](https://www.notion.so/Notes-863372268c2f4706b6347470162b17f8) - Notes - 1920's Conflict and conformity (Lecture 13) - [[America]] was pushing towards isolationism and building the [[economy]] after [[world war 1]] [[Calvin Coolidge|Coolidge]] the first supporter of trickle-down [[economy|economics]] (Lecture 14, part 1) - The Harlem Renaissance and the creation of the NAACP - Veterans had a lot of trouble finding jobs because of the increased workforce (Part 3 1:30-2:00) - [[white supremacy]] promoted following "right pattern of thought" (Part 3 3:00-5:00) - The [[Red scare]] - fear that [[America]] would fall to [[Communism]] (Part 3) meant Labor unrest and mob violence to most [[America|Americans]] - Palmer raids - arrested 3,000 leftists, held without bail, denied lawyers) [[guilt]] by association (Part 3 13:00-15:00) - KKK promotes "110% [[America|Americanism]]" the most extreme right-wing form of [[white supremacy]]. Their beliefs in [[morality]], temperance, motherhood, good [[education]], etc were all rooted in white male supremacy (Part 4, 1:00-4:00) - Leaders of the KKK were the most immoral, and this lead to the decline of the movement (Part 4, 6:30-7:30) - This leads to an increase in lynchings till 1950 (Part 4, 8:00-8:30) - [[Evangelicalism|Fundamentalist]] [[Christianity]] - the bible is completely true, you have to be a protestant - 1919 - 78 lynchings (Part 5, 0:30-1:00) - UNIA - Universal Negro Improvement Association. Garvey is a Black segregationist/mixed [[reactionist]] - Prohibition was seen as a way to improve "inferior" people, i.e immigrants (18:30-19:00) - [[Progressives]] believed that federal [[government]] could limit individual freedoms for higher responsibilities (21:30-22:30) - Bootlegging helped the rise of the mafia - Unions 816 - NAACP 797 - Newspaper Headline accused [[Civil Rights]] activists of being guided by communists "REDS TRY TO STIR NEGROES TO [[Revolution]]" (Textbook 776) - White workers resented black workers who were hired as strike breakers. (Textbook 776) [Red Summer | National WWI Museum and Memorial](https://www.theworldwar.org/learn/wwi/red-summer) - Chicago 1919 riot Summary [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dktk8nr8IhI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dktk8nr8IhI) - All white police force refused to investigate the killers and fought against African [[America|Americans]] in the riots (3:30-4:00) [Chicago 1919](https://www.chicago1919.org/resources/) - Civic leaders lacked the funds or the will to prosecute most rioters - "Chicago�s 1919 race riots remind us that there is nothing natural or inevitable about [[segregation]]: it was invented and maintained through a powerful blend of violence, intimidation, and law." - As the Black Belt swelled across racial boundaries, whites formed neighborhood associations to pressure property owners not to rent or sell to black residents. - "520 Chicagoans were injured. Two-thirds of them were African American, as were two-thirds of the 138 persons indicted for riot-related crimes by the state�s attorney�s office. In other words, blacks had somehow made up most of the victims and most of the perpetrators during the race riot" - Document 1 [**Chicago Defender**] - Founded by African-American Robert Abbott > "The homes of blacks isolated in white neighborhoods were burned to the ground and the owners and occupants beaten and thrown unconscious in the smoldering embers. Meanwhile rioters in the �black belt� smashed windows and looted shops of white merchants on State street" (pg 2) > "In early morning a 13-year-old lad standing on his porch at 51st and Wabash avenue was shot to death by a white man who, in an attempt to get away, encountered a mob and his existence became history. A mounted policeman, unknown, fatally wounded a small boy in the 48th block on Dearborn street and was shot to death by some unknown rioter." > "whites had planned to make a �fore day� visit to the South Side homes with guns and torches. " > "over fifty policemen, mounted and on foot, while in the attempt to disperse a mob that was playing havoc with every white face, drew their revolvers and showered bullets into the crowd." - Document 2 [**Chicago Tribune**] > "Negroes who were found in street cars were dragged to the street and beaten. They were first ordered to the street by white men and if they refused the trolley was jerked off the wires" > "Rumors that a white boy was a lake victim could not be verified. The patrol boats scoured the lake in the vicinity of Twenty-ninth street for several hours in a vain [[SEARCH]]." - Document 3 [**The Crisis October 1919**]( - [Walter Francis White](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwj4nvrpu97vAhVRZ80KHdliBvMQFjAAegQIBxAD&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FWalter_Francis_White&usg=AOvVaw3aYbq2KASObi4jgBqJAzec) (July 1, 1893 � March 21, 1955) was an African-American [[Civil Rights]] activist who led the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for a quarter of a century, 1929�1955 - Unions blamed packers, and packers blamed unions - **8 General causes for the riots** 1. Race Prejudice Many white and [[black people]] have come from the south and are contributing to increased racial tensions (Page 294) 2. [[Economic Competition]] - Black workers were in a hard place between racist Unions that did not advocate for them and owners who only welcomed them because they would accept lower wages than the white workers (Page 294) 3. Political Corruption/ Exploitation of negro voters - Thompson had recently been reelected mayor with the help of the Black and German residents and against the will of the white-owned newspapers. (Page 295) 4. [[police inefficiency]] - State Attorney Maclay Hoyne declared that the riots were due to vice in the second ward on August 25th > "[Hoyne] seemed to either forget or to ignore the flagrant disregard of law and order and even of the common priciples of decency in city management existing in many other sections of the city" (Page 295) - State attorney Hoyne charged the police with bias in which rioters they arrested (295) 5. newspaper lies about crime committed by [[black people]] - Newspapers had "glaring, prejudice breeding" headlines (295) - Black rioters were blamed for a fire that was later proved to be started by white rioters. (295) 6. unpunished crimes against [[black people]]'s housing - White men who organized as "Athletic and Social Clubs" were later shown to be the source of fires. (296) - Violent groups such as "Regan's Colts" beat and attacked black men, [[women]] and children with little to no repercussions (296) 7. reaction of white and Negroes from [[war]] - Document 4 [[Carl Sandburg](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjJ0ejqvN7vAhUSac0KHZiCCvIQFjAAegQICRAD&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FCarl_Sandburg&usg=AOvVaw0wkxjIsErImljgNpQdNu_F)] - [Carl August Sandburg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sandburg) (January 6, 1878 � July 22, 1967) was an American poet, biographer, journalist, and editor. He won three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln - The district around the stockyards and packing houses provided the most "white hoodlums" (pg 1) - "blind lawless [[government]] failing to function" (pg 2) - Three conditions made the Chicago riot different than others 1. The Black Belt population doubled during the [[war]] with no new housing. 2. "The Black Belt of Chicago is probably the strongest effective unit of political power, good or bad, in [[America]]" (Page 2) 3. A group of mixed nationalities races proclaimed that they were opposed to violence between white and black union members. - The radical factors in any racial situation in an American city are housing, [[Politics]] and [[war]] [[Psychology]], and organization of labor (page 2 - Document 5 [Birmingham Article] - "Both whites and negroes have committed outrageous acts, which they would not have dreamed of committing in hours of sanity and reflection." (para 1) - "The attack on the negro lad who cross the line was indefensible. It was done in a fit of madness. But the races should not have been so close together." - "evidence of the fact...that the differences between the races temperamentally and socially are so great that they cannot be bridged." - Document 6 [Coroners Report] - White men entered a car, threatened the drivers and forced the black passengers out where they then beat them ### Post - Part A: Summarize the event you chose, paying particular attention to causes, [[media]] coverage, and [[government]] response (police, national guard, political leadership, etc.). Racial tension was high across [[America]] in 1919, with riots across the country and a total of 78 lynchings (Lecture 14, Part 5, 0:30-1:00) White [[racism]] was so rampant that most violent incidents were initiated by regular citizens and not radicalized groups. (Red Summer, para 7) In Chicago, it was not different. When looking at historical events through the lens of [[Primary Sources]], it is important to keep in mind the biases of the time and the place in the story that each source holds. Additionally, when events involve oppressed communities, it is often best to start with their account, as they are the most intimately aware of their oppression. For these reasons I will use Walter F. White's account as the starting point for the account of the causes, actions, and results of the Chicago Race Riots of 1919. White lists eight main causes for the Chicago Race Riot, but underlying them all was racial prejudice. Sandburg estimates that the black population of Chicago had increased two to three fold during [[World War 1]] (Doc 4, pg 2) and White estimates that an additional 20,000 white southerners had come north and "spread the virus of race hatred." (Doc 3, pg 294) The increase in black population was met with resistance in the form of neighborhood associations who's only [[purpose]] was keep black residents out (Summary, para 3). Labor relations were also tense as white workers resented black workers who were hired as strike breakers, (Textbook 776) and black workers resented racist labor unions that did not advocate for them. (Doc 3, 294) The Mayor of Chicago is an interesting person in this event, as he was elected with the help of Black and German voters, and against the will of the daily newspapers (Doc 3, 295). These papers would often print what White called, "prejudice breeding" headlines. (Doc 3, 295) Together these tensions fed white fragility and [[racism]] so much that on July 27 George Stauber murdered Eugene Williams for swimming accross a imaginery line. In retrospect, even the most racist commentaries saw this as an act, "done in a fit of madness." (Document 5) Despite the [[self]] of the killer being known, the police refused to arrest him and instead confronted the crowd of African-American onlookers, leading to one man firing on the officers and the officers to retaliating. (Summary, para 4) What followed was three days of useless violence. White rioters entered trolley cars to beat black passengers (Doc 6), and if they could not enter they pulled it of the wires (Doc 2, pg 1). The windows of white-owned shops in the black neighborhood were smashed in, while black-owned homes in white neighborhoods were burned and their occupants were thrown out and beaten. (Doc 1, pg 2) While the Mayor may have been in support of the black [[community]], the police were not and actively fought against African-[[America|Americans]]. (Summary Video, 3:30-4:00) The accounts of these three days are nothing short of gruesome. In the end, 520 people were injured, with twenty-three black men and fifteen white men being killed. (Summary, para 5) There were few direct results of the Chicago riot. The justice system failed to arrest white rioters, so in the end, most of the victims and most of the convicted rioters were black. (Summary, para 6) - Part B: What parallels do you see between the causes, [[media]] coverage, and [[government]] reactions between your Red Summer event and the Black Lives Matter [[protests]] of the past 12 months? What does this suggest about how much [[America|the United States]] has changed or not changed in the past century? The parallel is murder fueled by [[racism]] that is upheld by the state and enforced by the police. A full comparison between the Red Summer and 2020 is an extremely difficult one to make, involving a hundred years of [[Civil Rights]] activists and a hundred years of unresponsive politicians, but the question of how much we have changed is very easy to answer: not enough. It has been 156 years since the Thirteenth Amendment, 102 years since the Red Summer, 67 years since the [[Civil Rights]] Act, 66 years since the Voting Rights Act, 53 years since the Fair Housing Act, and yet last summer millions of people in at least 40 countries gathered to protest police brutality. ([NBC](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/map-george-floyd-[[protests]]-countries-worldwide-n1228391)) All these laws were either too little, too late or both. The constructors of oppression were legislated faster than their deconstructors, so the effects have remained. [[BIPOC]] are still oppressed by systems that are built to protect and uphold [[white supremacy]]. - An analysis of more than 7,750 demonstrations in 2,400 locations across the country found that 93% happened with no violence, according to [[America|the US]] Crisis Monitor, a joint effort by Princeton University and the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. [Comparison between Capitol siege, BLM [[protests]] is denounced](https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-capitol-siege-race-and-ethnicity-violence-racial-[[injustice]]-afd7dc2165f355a3e6dc4e9418019eb5)