Hot Town
John Lennon Plastic Ono Band
Patti Smith
The Rascals
Curtis Mayfield
Ray Gomez
It's A Beautiful Day
Humble Pie
The Amplifier Heads
Butch Walker
The Monkees
Fifty Foot Hose
Ronald Shannon Jackson
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel
David Bowie
Foxboro Hot Tubs
Rage Against The Machine
Garland Jeffries
Dennis Brown
Syl Johnson
Sketch Show
" We can't stop now"
*With the end of World War I still in sight, recently returned black veterans
grabbed their guns and stationed themselves on rooftops in black neighborhoods
in Washington D.C., prepared to act as snipers in the case of mob violence in
July of 1919. Others set up blockades around Howard University, a black
intellectual hub, creating a protective ring around residents.
White sailors recently home from the war had been on a days-long drunken
rampage, assaulting, and in some cases lynching, black people on the capitol’s
streets. The relentless onslaught proved contagious, escalating in dozens of
cities across the U.S. in what would become known as the The Red Summer.
“I knew it to be true, but it was almost an impossibility for me to realize as
a truth that men and women of my race were being mobbed, chased, dragged from
street cars, beaten and killed within the shadow of the dome of the Capitol,
at the very front door of the White House,” wrote James Weldon Johnson, who
coined the term “Red Summer,” in Crisis Magazine.
After four days of racist mob violence in Washington D.C., an estimated 40
people were killed and dozens more were injured. The chaos was only quelled
when 2,000 federal troops were deployed onto the city streets at the end of
the month—just in time for the riots to spread to Chicago.
Veterans in Chicago formed militias to defend black homes,
neighborhoods, and families when the police and government refused. One group
of black veterans broke into an armory and stole weapons they then used to
beat back a white mob. “Because many of them have actually seen battlefield
combat, they are willing and capable of using violence for the purpose of
self-defense,” said Mr. Balto. Throughout the summer, black veterans
around the country took inspiration from the actions of their brethren in
Washington D.C.and Chicago and followed suit.
The conclusion of the summer of 1919 would not be the end of mass
violence against black Americans—far from it. Two years later would see one of
the worst instances of racial violence in American history, The Tulsa Race
Massacre, during which at least 36 people were killed, 10 of them white, and
at least 1,256 houses were torched by a white mob.
It did, however, signal a permanent shift in the way black people responded to
white violence in the United States and presaged increasing self-defense
tactics, including when black veterans once again mobilized during the
violence in Tulsa. For many black people, the way veterans responded to the
bloodshed added a sliver of inspiration to the terror of that summer.
Wake Up!
RFW
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