Professor of history at the university of minnesota. She is currently just finishing up a faculty fellowship at Harvard FellowshipHarvard Universitys in history. She owned a joint ph. D. In history in African Americans studies at Yale University and specializes in 20th century African American and American History with an emphasis on immigration, war globalization and social movements and political resistance. She is the author of a number of books one of which is out available outside at encourage you to grab a copy while you can. The glory of their deeds, a global history of black soldiers and the great war era. That sage was working on that book as i recall as part of your work at the warren center, was a close to publication . So its almost done. Really sage, is a great friend of ours and were just so delighted to have you back here with us again. Thank you. Please join me in welcoming doctor welcoming dr. Matt how. And joining us tonight is a scholar who has a specialized focus on the red summer of 1919. And the fight of this nation to create a just and equitable society. Is a Staff Reporter for the wall street general, based in atlanta he covers politics, economics, breaking news in other subjects and hes worked in a variety of countries reporting from bosnia, iran, costa rica and other. Places for our purposes, most significantly he is the author of a compelling text read summer, the summer of 1919 and the awakening of black america. So please join me in welcoming cameron. I want to read you just a portion from this book clapping i think this really frames a proportion of our this evening. Just reminds us to silence your devices. laughter so thank you. As 1919 as manys 10,000 whites joy gathered in a field just as not a field outside analysts feel mississippi to watch abound and exhausted black man in John Hadfield as he was hoisted up the branch of a giant sweet gum tree. Vendors sold flags, trinkets and souvenir photographs. Local politicians delivered speeches. Young boys cried into the tree to look down at the wild eyed screaming heart hadfield. Who is a country fair political rally and public murder rolled into one. After world war one, black americans fervently hope for a newlypeace, prosperity inequality. But the civil rights moment was not to be. Instead, the a victory of evaporated to be replaced by the worst spate of antiblack violence. Labeled the red summer, the riots and lynchings would last from april to november, 1919 claiming hundreds of lives. Blacks responded by fighting back with an intensity and determination never seen before introducing the first stirrings of the Civil Rights Movement that would change america forever. Friends, please welcome our guest this evening, cameron much border and sage mouth our. clapping well id like to begin by thanking you for being here on such a lovely evening. As cameron no doubt recalls, we are almost to the day of the centenary of the worst of the riots i would say. But the riots had begun at least in the United States for at least a couple of months. There are a couple of things that are reminisces reminiscent of that summer, for me its always the. Whether it was an incredibly hot summer and one of the things that we historians know that when there is a spike in the heat, we start smacking each other around. And its no surprise that most of these race riots occur during heat waves. Well i just came here from chicago where we mean many other people were marking the centennial to chicago right which was certainly the most urban riot of these United States that year. It started because of the heat, mainly because of the heat. There was no air conditioning at that time and five young teenage African American men snuck through the white neighborhoods of chicago to get to the south side beach and they went swimming. They swam in an area that was sort of near the de facto black beach and the de facto white beach. There wasnt legal segregation in chicago but the raft that they were on the, werent very good swimmers drifted into the white beach and that was in this incredibly tense period, that was all that was needed to spark a massive race riot. Well thats a wonderful place to start actually. That is because one of the things that i argue about this era at large, not just 1919, but not the 19 tens and the 1920s and truthfully well throughout the 21st century, what weve seen this instance of these kids, lets not forget that their children, playing outdoors is that we are reminded that the very idea of leisure is contested. The very idea of belonging is contested so these children do not belong in a peach because free time is is itself segregated. That is that the space where it should be spent. Its not just beaches that are segregated. Whether its officially or by de facto practice but so too are sometimes parks, golf courses, swimming pools, public swimming pools. So in these social spaces become justice charged as the workplace. Neighborhoods in, terms of contested trains for African Americans in term especially in urban spaces. I would go so further and say that when the situation was so charge the smallest instant would lead to tremendous violence and rumor and gossip played a whole role in all of this. In the washington rioted occurs earlier in july of 1919, and a curse there was a whole frenzy of panic attack caused by the media unfortunately caused by the belief that African American men were attacking white women. We dont know exactly what happened but a white woman was were walking down the street and was jostled by two African American men walking the other way. We know that happened. But it became, did you hear about two men raping a white woman . That leads to the mayhem. So in 1920, one just a couple of years later in the worst of all race riots in American History, the tulsa race riots of 1921, it all begins with people bumping into each other in an elevator. So these small spaces where again the complicated relationship across race racial lines in gender lines become aggravated and amplified. Of course, 1919 also reminds us that violence rules on rumor. Violence moves on rumor. It is so often the case that we hear that this happened, that this didnt happen and before you know, no one even remembers why we are fighting in the first place. So kind of like a middle school brawl right . As a reporter today, i cant tell you how constant that a problem remains in terms of trying to deal with whether something is true, whether really happen, its a constant paranoia fear of journalists who. We go to sleep agonizing over that all the time. Lets take a step back for people who might not remember or know what conditions were like at the end of the summer of night a rather at the end of spring of 1919. Thats a great idea. So we have american soldiers starting to come back. Massive amounts yes. Sometimes 100,000 a month. Just coming off of great ships in coastal port cities. They are concerned about a return to normalcy whatever that would mean. So whether thats a return to their jobs, returned to their families, return other social standing, return to the actual physical place from whence they came, and not Everyone Wants to go back from whence they came. We are talking about men who are between the ages for the most part of 18 to 30, not the most stable part of our citizens every. But its true right . And absolutely under studied aspect for me and part of what i read about is that we did not have a language from what we call ptsd. These men have been thrown into the worst of the fighting, the most chaotic of the fighting in the last six months of the war, even no american soldiers did not see the level of destruction that other european troops had experienced over the course of all four years. Nonetheless, you dont have to be in the trenches for four years to know how destabilizing, how devastating it is to witness your friends being torn to shreds. And so we get these guys arriving in philly, in boston, in new york and its like, thanks for coming out. Off you go. That doesnt even yet include how African Americans felt about this expectation that after having crossed the atlantic, after having hurriedly established much of the infrastructure that made it possible for the American Army to fight in europe. Building the camps, building the barracks, building the Railway Lines, feeding people, spending hours loading and unloading ships only to then be treated like gum under one shoe by their own government. I think that the commission didnt help it wasnt as a smoothest see later. Sometimes i had to wait around and that led to a young man, charlestons a classic example, young men Milling Around looking for booze mostly. That was illegal. That riot begins won a bunch of men get five bucks to a guy who says hes gonna go get them some illegal liquor. Like 1 million other hustlers before and after him, he takes off and never comes back and the soldiers riot. I do think you are dead on in everything youre saying. Its really important for people, when i talk to people about 1919, they generally have the impression that america was this victorious power and that everything was great we are about to head into the jazz age and everything is fantastic. In fact, it was a really panicky time for the world but certainly for america. We had people, the bolsheviks had taken over russia, anarchists were sending bombs to politicians, there were a Record Number of strikes around the country, there was a high cost of living it was rising so people were having trouble paying their bills. Soldiers were pouring back into the domestic economy and they couldnt get the job these to have. White and black. In that frothy mess, it was a political cartoon of the time of the globe just sitting in bed biting his nails and all these things were blowing around around a. Said influenza was around the world. It was a real nerveracking time. And all that, three pretty positive things for by African Americans had to happen. But because they happen in this frothy chaos, they were focal points for anti black violence. Soldiers being the most theres also another ingredient in this frothiness that you described and that is that over the course of the war, it started before, but it went from trickle to flood. That is, that African Americans cast down their buckets and headed north. They follow the river and the rivers and Railway Lines to made them possible to vote with their feet as workers. So we get an actual departure of African Americans from the south to Northern Industrial states to replace the workers who had gone off to war. The immigration it got off. But also its important to know that this was nonetheless a concrete choice by African Americans to say after almost 50 years of farming with control over their wages, that they share cropping system is not working. Its a perpetual cycle of poverty. We cannot in fact own and hold on to land. So what will i . Did what is the very fundamental exercise of freedom. . To move. We have one hidden into the. Northern industry turn to the south and it was very advantageous for the owners of factories to have African Americans come up to work for them. First of all, often their wages were suppressed, secondly they were sort of inherent Union Busters because the unions were very reluctant to let African Americans into the unions at that time. See how this perfect situation for the factory owner. He can divide the factory floor, we can ian, bring in cheaper labor. But youre right. Generally for the African Americans, it was a better situation to get away from jim crow. Definitely. But it adds to this idea that after the war we have to get those people back into their place. Get out of my neighborhood, get out of my workplace, get out of my their entire place. So black people are to walk in the street with the muck that ran through the streets. What we see are African Americans saying that i will not be moved. You mentioned some black intellectuals and some other important advancement, organizational advancement that was happening during the war. My you tell us a little bit more about the . This title of his top is double either boys was a great intellectual writing about the crisis at that time. He made it clear that the soldiers who had just fought for democracy and were told repeatedly youre fighting to save democracy were gonna come back changed. They were gonna come back demanding a different situation than the one they had left. I thought played a key role in formulating peoples views of what they were expecting when they came back i think the African American soldiers encountered numerous examples of these little incidents in my book. One, they came back were in the uniforms often cause thats the only clothing they had. But when they would get back to the small towns in the south, they would be spit on, they would be yelled at, they would be threatened. In some cases they were killed. The sort of flareups were happening all the time. In my book the, there were lots of letters going back in the u. S. Railroad ministration. Soldiers will be coming back, sleeping in the birth of the Railroad Cars to go home because they were decommission and as soon as they cross the masondixon line, white men in the cars would stand up and say hey, they have to go to the colored car. Another white man, just one instance and say were they say these people just these men just phosphorus in europe. So becomes this really tense moments. Theres another soldier who have quoted in the book who recalls people muttering as he walked on the street in this town in arkansas where hes wearing his uniform. Hes being uppity, hes trying to rise above his station and eventually moves to st. Louis. This is happening all the time in and the intellectuals are capturing this desire to really. The boys settled all. We fought for democracy, there were gonna fight for democracy here. Again, we have to take a step back and think about how we imagine an African American say in 1913. The average american if he say when a African American, they were in overalls, working a farm. 90 of African Americans worked in the south and lived in the south. And were farmers of one type earn. Other so the idea that in just two years of American Intervention in the war, we would move them from overalls to an officers uniform with gleaming metals confirming their power was absolutely incendiary for a lot of american people. It stood as a greater challenge to getting them back in their place. One of the things we hear is about the french had ruined our knee grows. Theres a lot of concern about americans, especially African Americans suffering from a kind of contagion from having seen the french democracy. From having tasted a life with fewer social and legal barriers. African americans have all these different ways of communicating their refusal to return its funny mention taste. Because when my book came out, i went on a book tour and i was in baltimore i was on a radio show with a journalist who would be unfortunate enough to interview the last living World War Two veteran who happen to be African American in baltimore. The man was very old by the time we interviewed him. And all the man talked about was eating escargot and drinking wine in france. Everybody was doing so nice to him and giving him food all the time. That was the experience that the french people were thrilled that people were coming to fight for them. There are a couple of things here. I have a good friend were having a conversation, he calls me about every three months to ask me how my book is. Going and i say listen youre oppressing the at this stage. But we were talking about how the friendship at ruin the African Americans. One of the things African Americans do to promote and telegraph their awakening is that they start to throw french words into their everyday parlance, their everyday interactions. So as to again change the position analogy that they had. So you might say hey how its gone he might say oh hello share. The other thing African American men do and this is what drives southerners batch it crazy. An excuse my term. Thats a medical. Trump they would name their daughters with french names. And this person called and said oh my aunts have names like just leaner julie. And this is to say that ive been completely transform my contact with france. That transformation is the site of the conflict in the summer of 1919. The walking tour that we just gave in chicago. We began a talkative victory monument and for decades it was the only only monument for an African American soldier and United States. Its a very rugged soldier with a rifle and a bayonet facing south. And i dont think that was unintentional. Hes pointing right at the south. So we are very familiar with mohammed ease alleys stance during the vietnam war. Affiliate kong is never done anything to me. He uses different. Language its important to remember that 50 years before that African Americans were saying the exact same thing. That they were prepared, a fellow philip brand off an africanamerican of the period had the dubious distinction of being declare by chagger hoover of is being the most dangerous new grown america. He says im absolutely prepared to fight in alabama but not in france. I have no particular battle there though i value democracy. What we see after the war is that that same vision comes back. Were very familiar with return fighting, a short but absolute jab panned by w. Eat the boys. And theres another one that if we must die by jamaican poet claude mckay. That poems last line if we must die, let us be with our backs pressed to the wall dying but fighting back. Because so transgressive after world war one he is of course branded a communist and they considered supporting him etc. But in world war ii, churchill returns to that very language in order to galvanize britain. Claude mckay, the anecdote is important to go through. Hes a Railway Porter in 1919 and his traveling with his friends, like a lot of young black man at the. Time going from town to town and every time the door opens for them to go to their hotel that night, they dont know if theres a riot. Again, rumor and newspapers which were usually a day late where all the information they had. So they started running to their hotel car, carrying a gun. He was very terrified, hes so nerve racked by all this the one day goes into the bathroom of one of the rail cars and scrawls at the on it. If we must die. And he comes back and reads it back to his friends, some of them start crying. And he sends it off to this little magazine which publishes it and then its published all over, especially among the African American press. It never mentions race, the poem does never mention race. But everyone knew what it is about. To the point where there were white senators in the senate saying this is seditious. I think it wasnt included in hoovers reports about sedition because fighting back was seditious. Yes. In fact a threat to democracy. In fact lets talk about sedition. Because the summer of 1919 is also a period when americans are afraid of their own shadows and thats part of that return to normalcy. Or this frenetic need to rip turn to normalcy. We are worried that having exposed ourselves to europeans and their provincial wars, that we will in fact bring back that kind of instability to the United States so all of a sudden everyone is a potential communist, the bolsheviks next door. It becomes suspicious behavior to read a german newspaper or speak german in public. And i why they try to pass a law making english the official language of the state when of course it is not. But of all of a sudden you become very worried not only a bolsheviks in our myths, but how those bolsheviks would get into the minds of other words wise naive African Americans. It plays a role throughout 1919. Over and over again as these riots are upped, the Media Coverage is not sometimes they all these rumors that are flying around and up in print. It gives it a solidity, one of them is that there are communists operating in among the knee gross and that they are causing problems. There is very little evidence that that was the case. Certainly the leading organization of that year was the naacp. Their position was Pretty Simple which was we are american citizens and we deserve the same rights as every other american citizen and we are going to fight to do that. When and how we vote, where we live, what jobs we have, what agitation we get. We are against opening violence against African American so we are gonna fight on those fronts. That was considered seditious, that was considered to the point where texas shut down the naacp and when the naacp had at the time came to visit austin to try to unravel this mess, he was beaten in broad daylight to a bloody pulp by a mob that included a judge and some other law officials. There was a big report that hoover, that the attorney general produced that year and it has tons of communist material in the forest portion of it. A lot of anarchist quotes and then it just switches suddenly very awkwardly to the moderator and you just African American quotes from African American publications that we would read today and say, well they should have equal rights. Its very jarring and weird but at the time it was just this really contested. Hence the name red summer right . Red summer means that were really ceiling read as James Robert Johnson will tell us in just a moment, suggesting the blood running through the streets but its also because of the red scare, the communists were everywhere. And this idea that they would in particular target African Americans and again infect them with these notions that challenged the core of the american racial hierarchy that worked let us not forget as well for the north as it did for the south. Well James Earl Johnson will bring him up on the screen. I developed as i was researching the book a man crush for the sky. Hes an awesome dude. Hes one of those people you start reading about. James walden johnson. He was fluent in spanish, he was a lawyer, he wrote tin pan alley music with his brother. He wrote poetry, he wrote a novel, he wrote the amazing essays, hes doing all this amazing work and the boys taps him in 1917 is as i want you to come to the naacp to work with me. That organization have been founded after a riot in springfield illinois and it was dominated primarily by white people from the new york area. It was not an African Americanled organization at that time. James weld and johnson says i might do it, but i dont know if it might hurt my writing. I wont have time and he said, we really need you so he does join and it completely hurts his writing. He cant produce anything. 1919, hes all over the country giving speeches after speeches and hes recruiting all over the south which was a place where they did not have a lot of members. He can read his speeches and you think this is malcolm x and read another speech and you say this is Martin Luther king. Hes tackling all the issues that later become what the Civil Rights Movement has to deal with in the fifties in the sixties. We have other people whose voices are very important. On your left is monroe trotter. He is a journalist from boston and he is very active in for example denouncing birth of a nation and the kinds of violence it is advocating invited. States and on the right is of course w. Y duboiss iran a sauce man in many ways but far more insufferable than the. Other we talked about this what is meant by the red summer bolsheviks blood riots these are daily occurrences for americans. Seems to indicate that the war has crossed the pond the mood in europe may. Its very important to remember that race riots did not occur just in the United States they had started in europe as early as 1915. I become in medical hospitals what an obvious place to see contested terrain whose life has created value the white soldier or the black soldier . The british, the french, the americans all have we see a lot of fighting we also get a lot of violence in european port cities Colonial Cities are pouring in their alarming rates. With a great sense of urgency so in 1718 we start to get these race riots in western france, and bordeaux, and st. Louis are, to a lesser extent in marseille in the south. We get them immediately after the war in walls and british military, casper caught cardiff lot liverpool. Where allied and american troops are stockpiled and waiting for the ships that could carry them home. With ports frozen, those ships cant go as quickly as possible with influenza striking so many soldiers, they were very concerned about putting 10,000 soldiers on one ship and having so many diet see. Are so many get sick on the way which certainly happened. This concern about american contact and one other extent south africans, and white southerners who are in europe start these riots. And in the European Press we had a lot of accounts of the soldiers are the representative saying things like, well you europeans thought you were so great and incapable of racial strife. But when you have no, rules you have people who dont know their place enhanced we have to get involved and have these riots. So its very interesting reading and then we have all of this fighting that occurs on the very ships bringing back these veterans. In the case of canada and its black soldiers, they are so concerned about this fiery mood that they have their black soldiers remove their uniforms wall at sea. Just want to say one last thing about uniforms. One of the reasons that uniforms are in fact encouraged to keep their uniforms for 30 to 90 days after returning that so a grateful nation can bestow its gifts right . And those thanks can be anything from food to sex, to booze, two words. So when we have when we require the soldiers are ripping off their uniforms, its in part to say that we owe you know thanks. What did you do to erase the contribution by the soldiers . There are multiple root causes. Im gonna move quickly because we want to hear your questions. The fight over labor, the fight over housing, especially urban spaces. The fight over racial equality and civil rights. Whose writes, who gets to define this democracy . And of course the time or nerds tradition because it works so well, interracial sex and universal paranoia because it also requires us to think about why women or just women at large and their sexual choices right . If shes with someone who is not you, that means she chose hopefully that someone who is not you and that alone can be contested moment. This is a quick list and not even a full one of the various locations where we see race riots and 1919. Hawaii, mexico, trinidad and tobago, british under, as jamaica, portuguese africa, the list is long. Common factors in my research, heat and leisure. Migration and housing crunches. Federal once returning to the cities. Laborers unions and communists, something that cameron just touched and of course the creation of transnational black alliances, the naacp is national. Marcus derby starts to take off that year. One thing i would point out you would mention sharecroppers. Sharecroppers are the quintessentially downtown clause in American History. Certainly to the point where lennon is running to the communist politburo, why cant we recruit more people more black people in the south to join our cause . But in 1919, they would invariably be ripped off when they went to weigh their cotton at the cotton gins. But that year because it was such a high demand for cotton, cotton prices were went through the roof, they were actually doing fairly well relatively. So you see a lot more sharecroppers families buying land, see a lot more sharecroppers buying cars. These are bones of contention, these are flash points. You see that black i driving on the street . In a brandnew car . When i begin my book with a small riot, not even a town is a small black church and a part of georgia, a very rural part of georgia for this day. When the mob riots, they burn the church down, it killed several people and they destroy the man the man who has cars. Its a very important part. For them because cars then like now are the second largest expenditure that anyone will make. In the white mobs move into the black belt of chicago and riot and destroy the place, they make a point of destroying to trolls because those were expressions of wealth. Its why they burned down churches, thats why they burned down, when you talk about bombing caravans. White people would drive through black neighborhoods and sort of a string of cars throwing bombs around, throwing oil and setting things ablaze. This is a map of some, and here its very important to say just some of the places that witnessed a level of violence that warranted, that ultimately made under the pages of the local newspapers. Its estimated the between 34 and 47 white riots occurred in 1919 alone. These sites do not account for the daily micro aggressions that are fueled by the same kind of ire, but the same contest of states. There are a lot of lynchings that took place in the south we will never know about. Even during the war itself. So speaking of lynchings, this is a map of lynchings just in the south but its important to remember that it didnt just happen in the south. They werent all African Americans, the majority were African Americans but they were no. They were oftentimes jewish, italian laborers activists, hispanic, they were homosexual sometimes, they were women, which we forget. And lynching isnt the only way that it is made clear for a people that their lives are in danger. Banishment, we have to remember that between 1917 and easily 1927 African Americans are on the run for a different set of reasons. This is a short but by no means complete list of some of the key race riots that we get in the media years after the war. Soviet july 27th to august 3rd 1919 this is one chicago is a flame over these race riots. Here is just an example of the chicagos front page. Interestingly, they couldnt publish the paper because they were cut off penned into their neighborhoods. The owner of defender has to drive the paper to a place in indiana where they eventually publish. It so if you look at the newspaper and the dates that i just showed, you will get a sense it nothing you have to look in the middle of august to find the retelling of this race riots. Of course this was International News not to chicago. News but this is another chicago newspaper the broad accent, African American newspaper. One of the things that i read about the summer of 1919 really changed the military presence in African American communities. When we have the race riot in omaha, tanks are brought in, machine guns are brought in. Tanks are the emblem of world war one, tanks are the things we some associate with no mans land in northern france not downtown omaha. And so here i find this photo just absolutely delicious and its potential. What is happening between these two . And then theres the child on this side who saying this is jussie. Its probably a little kid selling newspapers but nonetheless, theres the lunchroom which we know in the sixties will become a sight of civil robots rights protest. Who stands down . Who stands down . Here, you want to talk about chicago . That might be washington. Its important to note that after the chicago riot, the African American community desperately wanted the militia to come in because they were besieged and there really was no food or water and medical supplies getting in. Leaving African American hospital was overwhelmed and the nurses in the staff are exhausted needed people to bring supplies in. It was 100 degrees. Yes and again remembers boiling hot. There are white gangs moving up and down the perimeter of the African American premier and their black angus moving within it looking for white victims. It becomes this chaotic place where they just want order restored and when the militia finally shows up they do exactly that. They restore order very quickly, a point bandits at the white mobs, the white mobs vanish. So heres a truck delivering milk and bread in chicago and it has to be with armed guards. But we cant forget that even as that is a good military presence, a safe car, in a broader National Political culture that sees African Americans as a criminalize population, we forget that these weapons are not there to keep African Americans in place but rather to protect them. These become images that afterwards represent a higher level of violence perhaps needed to put African Americans where they belong. Lets take chicago is a classic example. A really reshapes the city of chicagos politics up to this day i would argue. You have this hardening of neighborhoods. This is my neighborhood, this is your neighborhood. Its vulcanized. And that vulcanization was already there but it really hardens. Theyre strong belief is it definitely a member of one of the gangs thats regional Richard Dailey the mayor of chicago, exactly in the rise participating. So if anyone knows chicago that wouldnt be too surprising. So what are we center here in your white midwesterner or any american, maybe even more so southern what are we afraid . This is what were afraid of. This is what were afraid of young, healthy African American who we decided not to use weapons before they went to europe but of course came back knowing. We train them on other weapons with the intent to kill and told them that they were doing it for democracy. We are very worried that especially with bolsheviks whispering in their airs this could quickly turn against us. That is the anxiety thats being stoked, that is the rumor that is being stoked. And so, scenes like this, a prayed in fact celebrating the soldiers returning in chicago, hell know the st. Griffins, are they griffins . At the chicago book library, this could take over the south. And so a very firm hand is needed. These kinds of posters meant to encourage African American enlistment during the war. African americans pointing their bay nets white people who are afraid. This is exactly what we have to embrace in the black memory. Im going to read a little quote from Chester Franklin who was an editor at the call of kansas city at the time. He wrote an article called the new knee grow in capital letters and he wrote in that article in that essay. We believe that self preservation is the first law of nature. On away this is later. He wrote the new knee grow the time of cringing is over. Thats sums up the red summer, that really captures the message of African American leaders in the press over and over again. But he, i want to point out one other thing. Okay, so there was a journalist, a bloc journalist named roy attlee and he writes a memoir and he as a portion of the red summer he was in chicago. He discusses an African American veteran who just come back from france can. He doesnt name him but he writes about him and the man is on a trolley car and suddenly he doesnt know whats happening, suddenly a mob comes up and it starts attacking him. China cars moved on electrical lines so all you had to do was poor the pull accord off and it was dead. So thats what they do, and he has to run out. Suddenly a man who was coming home from work, he worked at the factory, hes running for his life, he loses his coat, hes terrified and the crowd a screaming, get the nword. A chasing him. And he finally escapes. When he sees command ski park on the south side the baseball stadium he knows hes made it to the south area. The injustice the whole thing overwhelm me. My feelings ran riot. The ten months had a ten month suspended france been in. Vein one of identity is or such treatment. I lay there trying to imagine how an innocent victim of a southern mob must feel. Must an innocent integral always suffer because of his skin . Lets get him those knee words can bring in. I first impulse was to jump on him and beat him up. Hes so angry about what would happen. This is a guy who would be in just fighting to make the world safer democracy and quote. Thats what happened. Its a fight to continues. Its amplified in 1919 but no by no means ends in 1919. All racial problems didnt end in 1919. And that final, wed love to open up the floor to your questions. Were happy to stay. Afterwards if anybody wants to ask us anything. Questions would be great. So we can see very well because of the light. If you are able to come down to other mike, im happy to come to you as well. Already come to michael. Thank you for this great piece of history. Ive got two questions to ask what im owning and ask will not be selfish and trying to figure out which one i want to ask. You mentioned Jay Edgar Hoover fbi and how other organizations with scrutinize and really demonize recently maybe a year or two ago the fbi put out a report about who was either states, the french the british, the canadians, they are all very concerned about the movement of ideas and the movement of black bodies that incorporate these ideas. There is this whole sort of set of paperwork and new language that develops during the war and even more so afterwards. And so, sometimes i feel like the best thing that ever happened to African American newspapers and black intellectuals was Jay Edgar Hoover because he was so obsessed. For historians. Anyways his agents are constantly collecting things as some of that we would not have anymore, so i tell my students that we might well revere muhammad ali and malcolm acts and romanticize about who these men were, but neither of them could get on a plane today if they were alive because they would be considered radicals. So i think that there is still a concern and anxiety about what pete black people think and a need to explain it away, to blame, to have xenophobic kind of concern about them. At the end of the day, refused to believe that they are African Americans own critiques about how democracy failed them in their daily lives. So i hope that answers your question. I dont think it stopped or will anytime soon. I would like to point out a lot of this critique and a lot of these reports ive read early on the fbi was not official but they were starting to create this group under mitchell palmer. Theyre really bad. Their assessments of whats really happening in the streets of chicago during the riot are way off. A lot of the rumors that were spread that African Americans have broken into the armory were stealing 10,000 guns, whites were murdering hundreds of people and dumping them into this creek behind the slaughterhouse, they put those in the reports in that never happened. Neither of those things ever happen. Theres a lot of bad assessment that just wasnt some great surveillance. Work right sometimes its base blatant job protection. Im serious. Especially in the case of france. Theyre like will i have to have a purpose. I spent the war focusing on germans and have to take using what skills i have been using them on a different set of. People are next question comes from the center. You had a map up earlier and it denoted the various different parts of the south were all these riots were taking place. So im gonna make sure im clear, was there anyone definitive incident and all of those locations that triggered it . Or was it just the overall climate that you were talking about in 1919 . Was it just one incident . Excellent question. So i had to speed through what i listed different factors. This is really where canada cameras gonna have wheel house. There is just each place has a different kind of manifestation of its anxieties if you will. In the case support cities, i think we would agree that soldiers and sailors play a particular role. In the case of chicago, maybe omaha, work plays a different role. As a stimulant right . As a catalyst. When in doubt, always say some white girl got some attention because that would never fails. But i start my book in the small town in georgia but of course there were incidents before that but that incident gains the attention of the naacp in new york. Then the naacp has a giant form trying to push against lynching reform in a u. S. Than a start to really gain steam and there are incidences. We had a. Pointer oh good. Super. Fancies its gonna . Work so wow look at me. So charleston is really the first major urban riot. And actually its the best handled ironically. Then the main mayor of the city and the commander the naval commander immediately Work Together to shut it down because the African American community was so vital and important to that city that even in the deep south where the civil war began, they shut it down. But, unfortunately that is not repeated. So then you have instances start to pop up all over. Some in knoxville is a terrible one. Buffalo soldiers are brought to a 4th of july parade and it becomes a shoe that when they go out drinking and arizona. White men dont like that theyre coming into their bars. But really, when you start to have washington d. C. In mid july and in chicago the week after, thats when everyone in the country is saying what the heck is going on with our country . And washington is really important internationally because i found german and japanese newspaper articles where theyre saying, this is the leading democracy in the United States in the world i mean . What is happening . This country is having a riot right outside the white house. I found a german paper that actually said this is insane whats happening over there and someday they might even have a black president. laughs its horrific. So it starts roiling the entire country. Newspaper after newspaper headline, batter headlines every day panicked everyone. So thats an important place to add to more things here. That is as the riots move westward i see an uptick in the kind of violent violence that we see as well. Hand lane arkansas is the worst. Its increasingly referred to as a pogrom, the kind of violence that were seeing with jews in southern russia and ukraine. That happens in september that happens its a timer or i did it. I fixed it elaine arkansas is really basically a massacre. I dont think he can call anything else. Quite plainly. Quiet weather reasons there is that application is people are saying oh do you see what happened in washington d. C. A little thing happens in chicago. Everybody has to get involved. With each race riot means a greater response to it and more people in the streets. There are accounts of people especially women, fighting each other off with pots and pans. What i tell my students . This not only describes the frenzied kind of violence in the street, but it means a grandmas taken in the street. We know when grandma gets involved, its about to get messy right . Again, this doesnt even capture the full extent of that summer. I hope that answer your question. Thank you will take our next question on the right. The map doesnt show anything happening in missouri or kansas, is up because nothing happen, or because its just very lowkey . I think its safe to say there was probably tension here but there were not massive race riots. Kansas city had a very vocal and interesting African American press which i used for my book but they did not have an incident like you had in omaha. Why . Pure luck. But also, by the by 1919, certainly by the fall of 1919, we start to realize that these rises are messy. Theyre easy fodder for our enemies so the europeans who could barely suffer wilson to begin with, theyre saying well, well, well if it isnt mister democracy. Kind of with amanda. One cant even handle his own mess. So thats not good. And secondly this idea that we need to shut them down quickly and if that means bringing in the military we will. If it means increasing our police force, we will. Because we cant return to business. So if we look only for these little fabulous orange explosions, then we miss all the other ways, like women stabbing each other and stab locks, peoples homes being bought, on the small scale exercises of violence that again were fueled by the same kind of commitment. Ill come back here and ill give a four hour lecture on why Woodrow Wilson is a terrible president if you want. But just two sentences more than two. He was throughout this mess as this world across the country, hes focused on the league of nations and this is embarrassing. But you have African American leaders and others writing, and pleading with him, you gotta Say Something here, you have to interject. I only found one speech were makes a pass passing reference to these troubles are messy, we really shouldnt do that. While hes on the stump for the league of nations. He would not take any serious action. Yes. Our next question is coming from the back. I was also really interested in this map and the list of riots what im interested in is really the language of it. When i hear the word riot, its not clear who the good guys magazine but i was one of the examples you give cut to select more like white terrorism as opposed to a black riot or any group. Which was language used at the time of the. Way so i was just kind of wondering what was the nature of all . Those with a really bad peoples on that size, or was it just terrorism and a defense uprising kind of thing. . The overwhelming amount of violence that summer that was anti black violence initiated. There were many instances were blocks far back. There were no instances where i can think of or blocks initiated the violence. I think people tend to so people tend to think they are different you bring up a good. Point but i think people get hung up on the terminology a lot. I was thinking about this is i flew in here, because this is something thats been bugging me sitting in a fire off a little bit about it. People want to see history often as its hitler versus gandhi. Everybody involved in all of these things was a human being and a fury human being and people are marching down the street breaking windows, you might pick up a brick. There were people who were in chicago who fought back and they were black gangs, because three blocks over there were white gangs. When all the trouble started, they started causing violence to. If you are on the wrong side of the line, you were gonna get it. But at the same time, elaine arkansas was as i said a massacre. And the lynching ineligible, mississippi was horrific. I would say that its even more specific. I think we miss allot when we look miami is a white black binary. In the case of a st. Louis which happens a little bit earlier, but also we see in chicago, white women are just as involved and they are just as violent and they are just as engaged in making their stamp in this white black battle. If you look at these riots through the lens of gender, my students get very uncomfortable. Thats not very ladylike, i thought these ladies were all in jazz clubs getting lit up. Now they are involved. Women are very, very powerful in the clam which gets its resurgence at this time another white supremacist organizations at this time. The clam wasnt really the worst at the time. My favorite is a National Association for the advancement of white people. Thats the real thing. Comes later but its the real thing. Children are involved in this fighting, older people are involved in this fighting. Its a neighborhood brawl. And if youre riding or gary gathering a mob in mississippi, its gonna be a very different white mob anita gather in chicago. My book and mention this but they did a real precise that they did a real drill down what happened in chicago alike in some of these other places. You really get to see that these gangs would include a jewish kid, and i were scared, adjournment kid and they could all then become white. It was their way to assimilate. So its not just one factor. Thats part of what makes these battles so complicated and at the same time so tallinn. Vast majority anti black. This will be our second last question. You mention arkansas and mississippi and some terrible things happened. I really want to know what those things were. What happened in arkansas . What happened in mississippi . Arkansas was, i was talking about sharecroppers in how they did relatively well the year. The price of cotton was through the roof. So a lot of sharecroppers in various parts of the south started to try to organize, to create a collective where they would go to the cottage and say this is our price. They started to have meetings and theyre holding a meeting hoop spur, arkansas which is in a real town at a little building there and white police show up and the shooting starts. Some white officers are killed. Well that sets off a white policies roaming the county killing people for days. They then rounded up a bunch of African American sharecroppers, beat them bloody and had them confessed to a grand conspiracy that was never really very well defined, that there was a plot to kill every white person in the county. That was challenged by the naacp and others and a very long led to the Supreme Court and those people who were on death row after trials that lasted literally minutes were all exonerated let go. Who here has had the great pleasure of raising a teenager . I am in the trenches. There is nothing more khaki than a teenager who gets the first paycheck. Right . Because now they think that you dont have the same power over them they cause they dont need your wallet. Whether you like it or not, it changes how you respond to that said teenager. And so, its a useful way that i have my students who earn themselves teenagers think about how worrisome this would be wouldve been. This is when African Americans are not allowed to challenge a white person in court. Never mind, court in public. So the fact that they were trying to gain control over the volume of their labor, ill bolsheviks. By saying not only has cotton gone up, but we know that it can continue to go up, because we know you need all of this uniform a cotton for uniforms, for bandages, pretense so we want to make money now. So what we start to see and specially in the small rural areas, the Land Ownership is real and its huge, but its not so guy gigantic that it wouldve destabilize the southern economy. But it doesnt take a lot to make it seem like its an idea that might catch on. Im sorry one second. In a lane, what we get are not just these African Americans who try to organize its cotton farmers but they also try they also have money. They have access to cash is very hard in the southern economy at this time. We see that there is a success among African Americans in the forms of buildings. When you build a church, we add an attachment to your home, when you get a car. What we get with just as much ferocity after world war one is in urged to erase, burned to the ground these tropes of success, against squeezing back into their place. So tell my students, pick a date, pick an African American newspaper and theres a church going up in flames. Why . Because after you build your own house, you have money left to give to the preacher take to get to the church. What we need that church to go. And why the church . Because its where meetings were held. And oftentimes in small towns its where the guns were stashed. So again, in 63 1964, birmingham other locations were attacking black churches because they had already been sites of protests for 50 years over 50 years. I just didnt want to miss your question regarding mississippi. So i wont a long story but it thats a refix but a man was, its important and i focus on i give a full chapter two because there are many lynchings the take place that year. But that lynching was particularly horrific, all lynchings are horrific of course but a man was accused of sexually assaulting a white woman, i dont know if youve ever heard of that, its a constant accusation that they made. Well never know if it was true or not because he ran away because they were gonna kill him. Posse found him shot and fatally, but then they brought a doctor and kept him alive for 24 hours so that they could luncheon and let everyone know to come to the party. That was that was very common. This was published in the newspaper. Not there was a lynching today. There will be a lynching tomorrow, come to the lynching. To the point where the naacp sent emergency telegrams to the governor of mississippi saying you have to stop this, this is an expeditionary killing, this man was an even accused of a crime. The governors response was, well if you can a rape white woman what he gonna do . Forgetting the fact that the there was no trial, but wasnt even an accusation that was formally made in court and they proceeded to then shoot him to bits and soul pieces of his bodies. There were postcards made of the event, people gave speeches as we heard in the beginning. So it was really sort of this horrific public display. Our last question is on the right. I mean i dont mind taking both its up to you. We will end with this question. And then sage incamera will be available in the lobby for additional questions. Doctor matt ill, how do you see the Cultural Climate of the red summer impacting the suffrage of African American women . Thats a great kid, you repeat the question for the audience please . And that all stall. How do you see the Cultural Climate of red summer impacting suffrage of African American women . Super. Thank you for that. I think that its important for us to remember that African American women and the one who comes immediately to mind his ida b. Wells were also journalists, they were also sounding the alarm. In fact walsh was at the forefront in terms of warning African Americans and the country at large of lynching and the ways in which we legitimize it or try to by saying that these were necessary responses because of sexual aggression against white women. And so African American women are during the war lynched, often four times defending their husbands. There is a great, great newspaper piece from i believe its atlanta where on the one head, a woman whose name im forgetting her right now, 18 years old is lynch very violently. And its on the same day they were praising African American soldier named Henry Johnson for having fought off these german trench attack,. And so again this idea that you could be perfectly safe against the worst army at the time, the image of the worlds most transgressive worst army. But not safe at home trying to defend your own husband. Like African American who had already been very involved in the black church, we are already in understood the import of suffrage, its not like they come around at the end to that women need a voice have a quality. They too had been fighting for that voice, they too have been building organizations and networks and alliances that allowed them to articulate their political concerns. African american women are very involved with prohibition. W. E. B. Du bois is it teetotaller. That is a teetotaller. Im absolutely hypocritical mediator if theres no boom bone im all in there, but if theres a bomb. But anyway, there were all these other ways that black women have been rallying for the lives of their loved ones and understanding that the ballot box is as important. Theres an author i enjoyed greatly davids a zelensky and he writes about a chap named Abraham Galloway who is this fabulous character. Anyway, Abraham Galloway talks about how we learn about civil rights from his grandmother who as a father went marching down to the voting booth in charleston and she would pack a gun in her purse to let him know that you let need you need you need to fight to protect your rights, the right to vote is an Important Pillar of reconstruction ideology for African Americans but it works handinhand with the gun, with education, with the church. And so armed resistance, is always talked about with African Americans as a kind of point to which a point where African Americans get angry in the sixties and burning stuff down right. But in actuality, while we have to have so much discussion about nonviolence as a legitimate option is because armed resistance was a perfectly viable option in 1919 you see this. With these veterans coming back in making a claim for themselves a citizen soldiers who are prepared to defend not only their immediate lives but those of their communities. So in chicago, in washington d. C. , in omaha, we get reports, sometimes exaggerated, but oftentimes true of African American soldiers setting up a perimeter on the roofs of buildings to defend their communities no differently than they wouldve have done in their burden or and if the other points along the western front. Sort of to your point, there was so that weve talked about a lot of horrific things that have happened but the ultimate answer was African Americans were not going to be stuff back into that space. In the rural south, and the certainly not inch to cities like chicago in washington. It did not work. For men and women African American men and women things had forever changed and so right after her comes the harlem renaissance which women participated in. You just see this theyre not going back into their station, theyre not going back. I had one last thing and really i will be done. That is that we forget that African American women were the ones who rode into African American newspapers, these columns. So when you look at black newspapers, theyre always like local news. They are the ones who were reporting what they were seeing from the window. They are the ones who saying a lost my good path and ahead of on the head of this kid thought he burned on my. So its their voices that we see through these newspapers and true organizations even if tenth surprised there looked oh as women as intellectual and organizational muscle in various post for organizations. But it could not have worked madam c. J. Walker is as much of her fortune to support precisely that kind of work included suffered that you asked about. So thank you again for being here with us this evening. clapping if you look American History tv keep up with us own twitter or facebook and you to. Learn about what happened this day in history a sea preview clips of upcoming programs. Follow us at cspan history. Each week American History tv is real america brings you archival films that provide context for todays america issues. According to the muslims, the white man is the devil the source of all evil. He hates black man a black man should hate him in return. Those are the basic turbans of muhammad the muslim profit. He also teaches his followers about 75,000 all toll, a christiana tea has followed blackmon. The American Government has fought failed blackmon. The muslim solution, a separate block state. Right after world war one, a leader called marcus derby organized an illfated Campaign Based on the same principle. One of many men who oppose that movement, philip brand off, hundreds of thousands of new girls to join they had come out of the wall war where they had fought and died income into the southern communities where they met a violent racial discrimination. Many soldiers who are the victims of police brutality. Some were lynched and therefore there was rye widespread frustration and discording discontent among regrows. Car became along with his doctrine of block the painting blowing pictures of what knee grows could do where they to migrate, how they could build things of that sort. This cultivated interest and imagination of the niagara. Many of them flocked into the garvey movement. The