The “Silent Protest Parade” was the first mass demonstration of its kind and marked a pivotal moment in civil rights history.
The only sounds were those of muffled drums, the shuffling of feet, and the gentle sobs of some of the estimated 20,000 onlookers. The women and children wore all white. The men dressed in black.
On the afternoon of Saturday, July 28, 1917, nearly 10,000 African Americans marched down Fifth Avenue, in silence, to protest racial violence and white supremacy in the United States.
New York City, and the nation, had never before witnessed such a remarkable scene.
The “Silent Protest Parade,” as it came to be known, was the first mass African American demonstration of its kind and marked a watershed moment in the history of the civil rights movement. As I have written in my book Torchbearers of Democracy, African Americans during the World War I era challenged racism both abroad and at home. In taking to the streets to dramatize the brutal treatment of black people, the participants of the “Silent Protest Parade” indicted the United States as an unjust nation.
This charge remains true today.
One hundred years later, as black people continue to insist that “Black Lives Matter,” the Silent Protest Parade offers a vivid reminder about the power of courageous leadership, grassroots mobilization, direct action, and their collective necessity in the fight to end racial oppression in our current troubled times.
Racial violence and the East St. Louis Riot
One of the great accomplishments of the Black Lives Matter movement has been to demonstrate the continuum of racist violence against black people throughout American history and also the history of resistance against it. But as we continue to grapple with the hyper-visibility of black death, it is perhaps easy to forget just how truly horrific racial violence against black people was a century ago.
Prior to the Silent Protest Parade, mob violence and the lynching of African Americans had grown even more gruesome. In Waco, Texas, a mob of 10,000 whites attended the May 15, 1916, lynching of a black farmer, Jesse Washington. One year later, on May 22, 1917, a black woodcutter, Ell Persons, died at the hands of over 5,000 vengeance-seeking whites in Memphis, Tennessee. Both men were burned and mutilated, their charred body parts distributed and displayed as souvenirs.
Even by these grisly standards, East St. Louis later that same summer was shocking. Simmering labor tensions between white and black workers exploded on the evening of July 2, 1917.
For 24 hours, white mobs indiscriminately stabbed, shot, and lynched anyone with black skin. Men, women, children, the elderly, the disabled—no one was spared. Homes were torched and occupants shot down as they attempted to flee. White militia men stood idly by as the carnage unfolded. Some actively participated. The death toll likely ran as high as 200 people.
The city’s surviving 6,000 black residents became refugees.
Please continue this article here: http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/100-years-ago-black-people-marched-down-5th-avenue-to-declare-that-black-lives-matter-20170728
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