Knoxville Tennessee Red Summer Riot Destroys Black Neighborhood

During the Red Summer of 1919, white mobs attacked Black residents of Knoxville, Tennessee over two days following the arrest of a Black man accused of killing a white woman. Two people were killed and the National Guard deployed. White soldiers and civilians ransacked Black businesses and homes in the Vine Hill neighborhood. The riot fit the pattern of Red Summer violence: war veterans, racial anxieties, labor competition, and inflammatory newspaper coverage combining to produce mass anti-Black violence.