NAACP Mounts First Major National Response to Race Massacre in East St. Louis

Following the East St. Louis massacre of July 1917, in which white mobs killed between 100 and 200 Black residents and drove 6,000 from their homes, the NAACP mounted its first major national investigative and advocacy response to a race massacre. W.E.B. Du Bois and Martha Gruening published a landmark investigative report, and the organization lobbied Congress for federal intervention, establishing the NAACP as the primary national voice against racial violence.