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Silent Protest Parade: The start of the civil rights movement

DANIEL A. COTTER
Law Bulletin columnist

Published: August 17, 2017

In early 1917, thousands arrived each week in St. Louis as part of the Great Migration of African-Americans from the South to find employment in the North. Many found work at the Aluminum Ore Co. and the American Steel Co. in East St. Louis, but tensions soon developed with whites fearing loss of their jobs, culminating in the East St. Louis riots in May and July 1917.

On July 28, 1917, approximately 10,000 African-Americans marched in New York City to protest racial violence against blacks in what became known as the Silent Protest Parade.

East St. Louis riots

On May 28, 1917, a labor meeting was held in East St. Louis that resulted in escalated tensions between whites and blacks. For example, after that meeting, thousands of white men destroyed buildings and attacked blacks in the streets of downtown East St. Louis. Illinois Gov. Frank O. Lowden called in the National Guard to stop the rioting.

Tensions continued to escalate and on July 2, a group of white males drove their car through the black neighborhood of East St. Louis and fired shots into a group of people. Shortly thereafter, a different group, including two police officers, drove through the same neighborhood and was shot at.

Both police officers were killed. Thousands of white spectators marched into the black neighborhood and burned sections of the city and shot residents. Several blacks were lynched and the death toll was estimated from between 40 to more than 200.

The Silent Protest Parade

In response to the East St. Louis riots and lynchings as well as to the violence blacks were experiencing in many other parts of the United States, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and W.E.B. DuBois organized a march in New York City.

The Silent Protest Parade was the first known mass African-American demonstration of its kind. The 10,000 participants marched in silence down Fifth Avenue to Madison Square and another 20,000 were estimated to have attended and watched the parade.

The women and children marched up front, wearing white to show the innocence of African-Americans, followed by the men wearing black to symbolize mourning. Many marchers carried signs that read “Your hands are full of blood” or “Mothers, do lynchers go to heaven?”

In addition to the violence and lynchings that occurred in East St. Louis, blacks experienced harsh treatment and lynchings in many other places throughout the nation. For example, on May 22, 1917, Ell Persons, a black living in Memphis, Tenn., was lynched as 5,000 whites witnessed his murder. It is estimated that between 1907 and 1917, more than 600 African-Americans were lynched.

A congressional response

In 1918, U.S. Rep. Leonidas C. Dyer, a Republican from St. Louis, introduced the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which would have made lynching a federal crime and allowed the United States to prosecute offenders. President Warren G. Harding announced his support for the bill and it easily passed the House.

However, it was never passed by the Senate due to a bloc of Southern senators that opposed the bill. Although the bill was reintroduced several times, no anti-lynching bill ever became law due to this bloc of Southern senators.

On June 13, 2005, Sens. Mary Landrieu and George Allen sponsored a resolution apologizing for the Senate’s failure to pass any anti-lynching bills, including the Dyer bill, “when action was most needed.” Seventy-eight other senators signed the resolution.

Conclusion

The Silent Protest Parade is a little known event that was a precursor to the civil rights movement and the marches and protests that took place years later.

At the time, the Silent Protest Parade brought attention to the plight of African-Americans, but had very little immediate effect. While lynchings did decrease in subsequent years, with 410 lynchings of African-Americans occurring between 1918 to 1928, many more years would pass before African-Americans were treated better.

Daniel A. Cotter is a partner at Butler Rubin Saltarelli & Boyd LLP and an adjunct professor at The John Marshall Law School, where he teaches SCOTUS Judicial Biographies. The article contains his opinions and is not to be attributed to anyone else. He can be reached at dcotter@butlerrubin.com.


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