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.