Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

In the summer and fall of 1919, mass rioting broke out in 26 Us cities, including Chicago, Illinois (July 27–August 2), Omaha, Nebraska (september 28), and Longview, Texas (July 10–18). serious rioting also occurred that year in Washington, DC; Norfolk, Virginia; Knoxville, Tennessee; and Elaine, Arkansas. James Weldon Johnson dubbed the violence, which included at least 76 lynchings and 25 race riots, “Red summer” for the blood that was shed by African Americans who were attacked throughout the country. This rioting must be seen in context of the growing tensions brought on by the “Great Migration” of southern blacks to Northern cities, the rising expectations and disappointments of the World War I years, and the birth of the more assertive “New Negro.” During World War I, war industries began hiring on a massive scale, while immigration from Europe slowed to a trickle. The lure of employment, better wages, and an escape from segregation and discrimination led thousands of African Americans to leave the rural south for Northern cities, in what became known as the Great Migration. Between 1916 and 1919 nearly half a million African Americans moved north or west, increasing the black population in Detroit by 611 percent, Cleveland by 308 percent, Chicago by 114 percent, and New York by 66 percent. This meant 65,500 new black residents in Chicago and 61,400 in New York ( Painter 2007 ... log in or subscribe to read full text