Race Riots and Resistance: The Red Summer of 1919

by Jan Voogd

Race Riots and Resistance uncovers a long-hidden, tragic chapter of American history. Focusing on the «Red Summer» of 1919 in which black communities were targeted by white mobs, the book examines the contexts out of which white racial violence arose. It shows how the riots transcended any particularity of cause, and in doing so calls into question many longstanding beliefs about racial violence. The book goes on to portray the riots as a phenomenon, documenting the number of incidents, describing the events in detail, and analyzing the patterns that emerge from looking at the riots collectively. Finally and significantly, Race Riots and Resistance argues that the response to the riots marked an early stage of what came to be known as the Civil Rights Movement.

234 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2008

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

The events of the Red Summer of 1919 are riveting and it's hard not to find some parallel to today's xenophobic populism. After WWI, black soldiers returned home, competing for jobs with white men, and expecting to be treated equally after fighting for their country. White men saw them as competition not only for jobs but as threats to their pride as men. Across the country tensions rose. Riots broke out east and west, north and south. As Voogd points out, there were myriad reasons for the explosions of violence, but they all came down to whites feeling threatened by blacks. The media on both sides of the racial divide was often inflammatory, often wrongly casting blame, but one thing is apparent: the riots were racially motivated attack by whites against black communities, often accompanied by a lynching. The constitutionality of proposed anti-lynching legislation was debated in congress, but no legislation ever passed. Ultimately, the violence was condemned by most of the public (in some parts of the south solely because they wanted to avoid federal intervention) and the riots subsided. They didn't stop, but they were fewer and farther apart.