Black DC Residents and Veterans Mount Armed Counterattack During Red Summer

During the Washington DC riots of July 1919, Black residents — many of them veterans just returned from WWI — organized armed resistance, buying out gun store supplies and fighting back against white mobs. The counterattack surprised white attackers and was credited with preventing a larger massacre. Claude McKay later wrote his famous sonnet 'If We Must Die' in direct response to the Red Summer attacks, calling for armed dignity in the face of mob violence.