East St. Louis massacre

1917 massacre of Black Americans by white mob in East St. Louis, Illinois

The East St. Louis massacre was a series of violent attacks on African Americans by white Americans in East St. Louis, Illinois, between late May and early July of 1917. These attacks also displaced 6,000 African Americans and led to the destruction of approximately $400,000 ($0.4 in 1917 is equivalent to about <calculated amount> in recent years million in ) worth of property. and among the worst racial riots in U. S. history. In the aftermath, the East St. Louis Chamber of Commerce called for the resignation of the local police chief because officers were told not to shoot white rioters and were unable to suppress the violence and destruction. A number of black people left the city permanently; black enrollment in public schools in the area had dropped by 35% by the time schools opened in the fall. At the end of July, some 10,000 black citizens marched in silent protest in New York City in condemnation of the riot.

In 1917, the United States had an active economy boosted by World War I. Many would be workers were drafted or enlisted into military service, creating a shortage of labor for industrial employers in major cities, which had long been destinations for European immigrants. Concurrently, African Americans began the Great Migration from the rural Southern United States to seek better work and education in the North, as well as to escape from lynchings and the second class status of the Jim Crow era. Labor agencies recruited some workers for specific jobs, especially as strikebreakers, but labor demand was sufficient that migrants moved on their own, having heard about the new employment opportunities created by the wartime economy. Major industries in East St. Louis included Aluminum Ore Company, American Steel Foundry, Republic Iron & Steel, Obear Nester Glass, and Elliot Frog & Switch (a frog was part of a railroad switch). Many facilities were located just outside the city limits in order to escape paying taxes. Nearby National City had stockyards and meatpacking plants, attracting more workers. East St. Louis was a rough industrial city, where saloons outnumbered schools and churches. Ethnicities competed economically to survive. White workers often resented black newcomers due to competition for jobs and housing and fear they would be undercut by black workers willing to accept lower wages. In East St. Louis, local politicians, company foremen, and labor union officials fanned the resentment; the approval of the local police and National Guard were later considered important in helping to escalate the rioting. Tensions between the groups escalated. At a labor meeting held in City Hall on May 28 and made up mostly of white workers, rumors circulated of black men fraternizing with white women.

Following the May 28 meeting, some 1,000–3,000 white men marched into downtown East St. Louis and began attacking African Americans on the street and in streetcars, and burning some buildings. Illinois Governor Frank Orren Lowden called in the National Guard to suppress the violence. Although rumors circulated that blacks were planning retaliatory attacks, conditions eased somewhat for a few weeks. The tensions between black workers and white workers quickly formed again as no solutions to their economic challenges were agreed upon. The riot was precipitated by fatal errors. On July 1, a black Ford Model T occupied by white males drove through a black area of the city; passengers fired several shots into a group on the street. An hour later, a Ford containing four people, including a journalist and two police officers (Detective Sergeant Samuel Coppedge and Detective Frank Wadley), passed through the same area. Black residents, possibly assuming this car held the original attackers, opened fire on the car, killing one officer instantly and mortally wounding another. The next day, thousands of white spectators gathered to view the detectives' bloodstained automobile. The mob beat and shot blacks on the street indiscriminately, including women and children. After cutting the water hoses of the fire department, white rioters burned entire sections of the city and shot black residents as they escaped the flames. The following day on July 3, 1917, a reporter from the St. Louis Post Dispatch wrote: "For an hour and a half last evening I saw the massacre of helpless negroes at Broadway and Fourth Street, in downtown East St. Louis, where black skin was death warrant."

According to the St. Louis Post Dispatch:
All the impartial witnesses agree that the police were either indifferent or encouraged the barbarities, and that the major part of the National Guard was indifferent or inactive. No organized effort was made to protect the Negroes or disperse the murdering groups. The lack of frenzy and of a large infuriated mob made the task easy. Ten determined officers could have prevented most of the outrages. One hundred men acting with authority and vigor might have prevented any outrage. Hundreds of blacks fled across the Eads Bridge over the Mississippi River to St. Louis to escape the violence, while 1,500 sought refuge in city buildings. Governor Lowden ordered in the Illinois National Guard, who arrived on July 3. Numerous witnesses said that the Guard initially joined in the attacks on blacks rather than stopping the riot. More whites joined in. The New York Times reported that "ten or fifteen young girls about 18 years old, 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." After the massacre, the St. Louis Argus said, "The entire country has been aroused to a sense of shame and pity by the magnitude of the national disgrace enacted by the blood thirsty rioters in East St. Louis Monday, July 2."

After the riot, varying estimates of the death toll circulated. The police chief estimated that 100 African Americans had been killed. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) estimated deaths at 100–200. Some 6,000 African Americans were left homeless after their neighborhoods were burned. A Congressional Investigating Committee, which met in the fall of that year, concluded that no precise death toll could be determined, but reported that at least 8 whites and 39 African Americans died. While the local coroner had documented nine white deaths, the deaths of African American victims were less clearly recorded. Activists who disputed the committee's conclusions about deaths argued that the true number of deaths would never be known because many black corpses were not recovered or did not pass through the hands of undertakers, who reported to the coroner.

The ferocious brutality of the attacks and the failure of authorities to protect civilian lives contributed to the radicalization of many blacks in St. Louis and the nation. Marcus Garvey, black nationalist leader of the UNIA from Jamaica, declared in a July 8 speech that the riot proved that the United States' claim to be a "dispenser of democracy" and its criticism of the Empire of Germany for human rights abuses in the Great War was hypocritical. Garvey called the violence "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." In New York City on July 28, ten thousand black people marched down Fifth Avenue in a Silent Parade, protesting the East St. Louis Riot. They carried signs that highlighted protests about the riot. The march was organized by the NAACP (then based in New York), leader W. E. B. Du Bois, and groups in Harlem. Women and children were dressed in white; the men were dressed in black.

On July 6, representatives of the East St. Louis Chamber of Commerce met with the mayor to demand the resignation of the Police Chief and Night Police Chief, or radical reform. They were outraged about the rioting and accused the mayor of having allowed a "reign of lawlessness". In addition to the high death toll, the riot had caused extensive property damage to city businesses and houses. The Southern Railway Company's warehouse was burned, with the loss of more than 100 carloads of merchandise, worth more than $525,000 to the company; some 44 freight cars, and 312 houses were also burned. A white owned theatre, valued at more than $100,000, was also destroyed. Congressman Leonidas C. Dyer (R Mo. ), a representative from a St. Louis urban district, asked for a federal investigation. President Woodrow Wilson wrote to him on July 28, saying that special agents of the Department of Justice could not find enough evidence to justify federal action in the matter. He said: "I am informed that the attorney general of the State of Illinois has gone to East St. Louis to add his efforts to those of the officials of the county and city in pressing prosecutions under the State laws. The representatives of the Department of Justice are so far as possible lending aid to the State authorities in their efforts to restore tranquility and guard against further outbreaks." Hearings on the massacre before the Committee on Rules and the House of Representatives began on August 3, 1917. A federal investigation was eventually opened. In October the state tried 25 blacks and 10 whites on charges related to the massacre, including homicide and incitement to riot. Lena Cook survived an attack to testify against three white men, who had killed her husband, Ed Cook, and son, 14 year old Lurizza Beard. While not charged with the deaths of Cook's family, John Dow, Charles Hanna, and Harry Robinson were tried for the murder of William Keyser, a white merchant who'd been killed by a bullet which passed through the body of Lurizza Beard. Dow and Hanna were both found guilty of murder and each sentenced to 15 years in prison. Harry Robinson later pleaded guilty to conspiracy to riot and was sentenced to 5 years in prison. On October 12, 1917, two whites, Herbert Wood, 40, and Leo Keane, 17, were found guilty of murder in the death of Scott Clark, a black man. Wood and Keane had grabbed Clark, fastened a noose around his neck, and dragged him through the street. They were stopped and arrested by police, but Clark later died of his injuries. The prosecution demanded a death sentence for Wood and a long prison term for Keane. However, the jury instead fixed the sentences at 14 years, the same punishment recently imposed on ten black men who were convicted of murdering a white police officer during the riots. Included among the defendants was Dr. LeRoy Bundy, a black dentist and prominent leader in the East St. Louis black community. He was formally charged with inciting a riot. The trial was held in the county court of St. Clair County, Illinois. Bundy, along with 34 other defendants, of whom 10 were white, was convicted and sentenced to prison in connection with the riot. Another source said that a total of nine whites and twelve blacks were convicted of serious crimes and sent to prison. Richard Brockway, a key ringleader of the riots, was found guilty of conspiring to riot and sentenced to five years in prison.