Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: billbears
Some other examples of Northern 'tolerance'...

In Springfield, Illinois, during August 1908, a three-day riot took place, initiated by a white woman,s claim of violation by a Negro. Inflamed by newspapers’ sensationalism, crowds of whites gathered around the jail demanding that the Negro, who had been arrested and imprisoned, be lynched. When the sheriff transferred the accused and another Negro to a jail in a nearby town, white mobs headed for the Negro section and attacked homes and businesses. Two Blacks were lynched, others were dragged from their houses and streetcars and beaten. By the time the National Guardsmen reached the scene, six persons were dead—four whites and two Negroes. This riot, in the home town of Abraham Lincoln, shocked white liberals, who met the following year in New York City, with several prominent Blacks, to form the NAACP “to promote equality of rights and eradicate caste or race prejudice...”

The East St. Louis, Illinois riot in 1917 was touched off by the fear of white working men that Negro advances in economic, political and social status were threatening their own status. When the labor force of an aluminum plant went on strike in April, the company hired Negro workers. Although the strike was crushed by a combination of militia, injunctions, and both Black and white strike breakers, the union blamed its defeat on the Blacks. A union meeting in May demanded that “East St. Louis must remain a white man’s town.” A riot followed, sparked by a white man, during which mobs demolished buildings and Blacks were attacked and beaten. Policemen did little more than take the injured to hospitals and disarm Negroes. Harassments and beatings continued through June.

The worst of the post-War race riots took place in Chicago, Illinois. It began late in July 1919 when a young Black “encroached” upon a swimming area that the whites had marked off for themselves, and was stoned until he drowned. By the time the riot ended, thirteen days later, thousands of both races had been involved in a series of frays, fifteen whites and twenty-three Negroes were killed, and 178 whites and 342 Blacks were injured. More than one thousand families, mostly Blacks, were left homeless due to the burnings and general destruction of property.

102 posted on 09/30/2003 2:17:21 PM PDT by TomServo ("Upon further review, the refs find that Cody is dead. The play stands -- Cody is dead.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 95 | View Replies ]


To: TomServo
Some other examples of Northern 'tolerance'...

You of course left out the Evansville, Indiana example in July of 1903, and that of Detroit, in 1967, as I recall, to include but two from the XX Century.

166 posted on 09/30/2003 4:09:33 PM PDT by archy (Keep in mind that the milk of human kindness comes from a beast that is both cannibal and a vampire.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 102 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson