Race Riots in America 1918-1937
Following the end of slavery, one of the main reasons political, social and economic racial segregation and oppression was carried into the twentieth century was due to the fact that prominent radical republicans failed to aid freedmen past labeling them free and granting them enfranchisement. Due to the fact that the South lacked voting power, the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments were passed, which in theory gave black men equality and voting rights, along with abolishing slavery. Although the federal government originally kept troops in the South to protect these new freedoms, progress was cut short.
By 1877 the North had lost its political will in the South and while slavery remained abolished, the Black Codes and segregation laws helped erase most of the freedoms passed by the 14th and 15th amendments. Through violent social and economic tactics, corrupt legal technicalities and a general lack of black political action, African-Americans were forced into slavery-esque institutions such as sharecropping, and were gradually removed from the voting process.
White exclusiveness manifested itself spatially. It emerged via social distance, characterized by paternalism and dominance. Even so in urban-industrial areas as physical distance, marked by competition and uncertainty. Yet, whites always imposed on these uncertainties to keep blacks in their ascribed socioeconomic or political places, and used violence as the final moderator.
Whatever the period, well established racial lines tended to minimize intergroup tension. However, when lines blurred in times of transition, in which the resulting ambiguity threatened whites, emboldened blacks, and sparked interracial clashes. When whites perceived real or imagined assaults anywhere along the color line, they lashed out at blacks, who fought back. Often, the rioting transcended politics and produced greater violence.
Although the violence differed in motive and method, most of the many black victims died horrific, deaths by white mass mobs, usually in the former Confederate states. They were targeted by men who shared the concept of southern honor, which centered on ‘‘white female virtue’’ and, when violated, demanded action. Yet the selection of victims also revealed white anxieties over socioeconomic and political changes occurring at the time.
Following World War I, dismal economic conditions including very low wages and major floods in the South and desires for racial freedom drove about 500,000 blacks into midwestern and mid-Atlantic industrial areas where labor opportunities opened. This demographic shift challenged the color line in employment, and, in July 1917, sparked white violence in St. Louis, Illinois. This was quickly followed by several incidents between black soldiers and white residents of Texas. These outbursts signaled another era of racial violence that became more bloody and varied after World War I. Though black migration to the north increased interracial competition nationally, the experience of fighting for democracy abroad heightened black expectation for postwar improvement on an even larger scale.
In response, racist whites unleashed an epidemic of mob violence throughout the nation. In 1919 seventy-eight lynchings and twenty-five race related riots were recorded in southern states. These series of lynchings and riots came to be known as the ‘‘Red Summer.’’ Racist whites focused their nationalism and aggression, apparently unspent in the recent war, generalizing their hatred onto all black people who, in turn, fought back in an ongoing escalation of bloodshed. Most of the rioting was communal, interracial combat that reached its height in Chicago and usually involved war veterans from both races.
The serial bloodshed ended when approximately 200 sharecroppers seeking to unionize Arkansas. Bloodshed due to riots carried into the new decade at Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921, and Rosewood, Florida in 1923, where allegations of rape against a black man, followed by failed attempts to lynch or locate the suspect because of black defense, provoked overwhelming white slaughter of black people and obliteration of their communities.
Black migration continued throughout the 1920s, adding perhaps one million residents to black urban communities that evolved into compact ghettos of collective racial awareness, whose numbers and militancy provided security from white rioting. Still, living conditions worsened as blacks found themselves hemmed into increasingly limited space. Relatively fewer racial outbursts occurred during the Great Depression perhaps due to reduced opportunities for employment and relief programs.
Following the end of slavery, one of the main reasons political, social and economic racial segregation and oppression was carried into the twentieth century was due to the fact that prominent radical republicans failed to aid freedmen past labeling them free and granting them enfranchisement. Due to the fact that the South lacked voting power, the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments were passed, which in theory gave black men equality and voting rights, along with abolishing slavery. Although the federal government originally kept troops in the South to protect these new freedoms, progress was cut short.
By 1877 the North had lost its political will in the South and while slavery remained abolished, the Black Codes and segregation laws helped erase most of the freedoms passed by the 14th and 15th amendments. Through violent social and economic tactics, corrupt legal technicalities and a general lack of black political action, African-Americans were forced into slavery-esque institutions such as sharecropping, and were gradually removed from the voting process.
White exclusiveness manifested itself spatially. It emerged via social distance, characterized by paternalism and dominance. Even so in urban-industrial areas as physical distance, marked by competition and uncertainty. Yet, whites always imposed on these uncertainties to keep blacks in their ascribed socioeconomic or political places, and used violence as the final moderator.
Whatever the period, well established racial lines tended to minimize intergroup tension. However, when lines blurred in times of transition, in which the resulting ambiguity threatened whites, emboldened blacks, and sparked interracial clashes. When whites perceived real or imagined assaults anywhere along the color line, they lashed out at blacks, who fought back. Often, the rioting transcended politics and produced greater violence.
Although the violence differed in motive and method, most of the many black victims died horrific, deaths by white mass mobs, usually in the former Confederate states. They were targeted by men who shared the concept of southern honor, which centered on ‘‘white female virtue’’ and, when violated, demanded action. Yet the selection of victims also revealed white anxieties over socioeconomic and political changes occurring at the time.
Following World War I, dismal economic conditions including very low wages and major floods in the South and desires for racial freedom drove about 500,000 blacks into midwestern and mid-Atlantic industrial areas where labor opportunities opened. This demographic shift challenged the color line in employment, and, in July 1917, sparked white violence in St. Louis, Illinois. This was quickly followed by several incidents between black soldiers and white residents of Texas. These outbursts signaled another era of racial violence that became more bloody and varied after World War I. Though black migration to the north increased interracial competition nationally, the experience of fighting for democracy abroad heightened black expectation for postwar improvement on an even larger scale.
In response, racist whites unleashed an epidemic of mob violence throughout the nation. In 1919 seventy-eight lynchings and twenty-five race related riots were recorded in southern states. These series of lynchings and riots came to be known as the ‘‘Red Summer.’’ Racist whites focused their nationalism and aggression, apparently unspent in the recent war, generalizing their hatred onto all black people who, in turn, fought back in an ongoing escalation of bloodshed. Most of the rioting was communal, interracial combat that reached its height in Chicago and usually involved war veterans from both races.
The serial bloodshed ended when approximately 200 sharecroppers seeking to unionize Arkansas. Bloodshed due to riots carried into the new decade at Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921, and Rosewood, Florida in 1923, where allegations of rape against a black man, followed by failed attempts to lynch or locate the suspect because of black defense, provoked overwhelming white slaughter of black people and obliteration of their communities.
Black migration continued throughout the 1920s, adding perhaps one million residents to black urban communities that evolved into compact ghettos of collective racial awareness, whose numbers and militancy provided security from white rioting. Still, living conditions worsened as blacks found themselves hemmed into increasingly limited space. Relatively fewer racial outbursts occurred during the Great Depression perhaps due to reduced opportunities for employment and relief programs.