.jpg)
The Negro Silent Protest Parade, commonly known as the Silent Parade, was a silent march of about 10,000 African Americans along Fifth Avenue starting at 57th Street in New York City on July 28, 1917. The event was organized by the NAACP, church, and community leaders to protest violence directed towards African Americans, such as recent lynchings in Waco and Memphis. The parade was precipitated by the East St. Louis riots in May and July 1917 where at least 40 black people were killed by white mobs, in part touched off by a labor dispute where blacks were used for strike breaking.
Prior to May 1917, there began a migration of blacks fleeing threats to life and liberty in the South. Tensions in East St. Louis, Illinois, were brewing between white and black workers. Many blacks had found employment in the local industry. In Spring 1917, the mostly white employees of the Aluminum Ore Company voted for a labor strike and the Company recruited hundreds of blacks to replace them. The situation exploded after rumors of black men and white women fraternizing began to circulate.
Thousands of white men descended on East St. Louis and began attacking African Americans. They destroyed buildings and beat people. The rioting died down, only to rise with vigor again several weeks later. After an incident in which a police officer was shot by black residents of the city, thousands of whites marched and rioted in the city again. The Encyclopedia of the Harlem Rennaissance states that Eyewitnesses likened the mob to a manhunt, describing how rioters sought out blacks to beat, mutilate, stab, shoot, hang, and burn.
The brutality of the attacks by mobs of white people and the refusal by the authorities to protect innocent lives contributed to the responsive measures taken by some African Americans in St. Louis and the nation.
In the midst of record heat in New York City on July 28, an estimated 8,000 to 15,000 African Americans marched in silent protest to the lynchings, as in Waco, Memphis, and especially the East St. Louis riots. The march began at 57th Street, down Fifth Avenue, to its end at 23rd Street.
Protesters carried signs that highlighted their discontent. Some signs and banners appealed directly to President Woodrow Wilson. A mounted police escort led the parade. Women and children were next, dressed in white. They were followed by the men, dressed in black. People of all races looked on from both sides of Fifth Avenue. The New York Age estimated that fully fifteen thousand Negroes, who should have taken an active part, looked on."
Black boy scouts handed out fliers describing why they were marching. During the parade, white people stopped to listen to black people explain the reasons for the march and other white bystanders expressed support and sympathy. Some of the messages written on fliers were:
-We march because by the Grace of God and the force of truth, the dangerous, hampering walls of prejudice and inhuman injustices must fall.
-We march because we deem it a crime to be silent in the face of such barbaric acts.
-We march because we want our children to live a better life and enjoy fairer conditions than have fallen to our lot.
The parade was the very first protest of its kind in New York, and the second instance of African Americans publicly demonstrating for civil rights.
The Silent Parade evoked empathy by Jewish people who remembered pogroms against them and also inspired the media to express support of African Americans in their struggle against lynching and oppression.
More information: Beinecke Library
equal rights for blacks, without including whites.
Because equal rights, fair play, justice, are all like the air:
we all have it, or none of us has it. That is the truth of it.
Maya Angelou
No comments:
Post a Comment