NAACP Organizes Silent Protest Parade Down Fifth Avenue Against Lynching

Following the East St. Louis massacre, the NAACP organized a Silent Protest Parade down Fifth Avenue in New York City. Approximately 8,000 to 10,000 Black men, women, and children marched in total silence, accompanied only by muffled drums, carrying signs that read 'Mr. President, Why Not Make America Safe for Democracy?' The march was the largest civil rights demonstration to that date in America. W.E.B. Du Bois and James Weldon Johnson organized it. It directly challenged the hypocrisy of Wilson's WWI democracy rhetoric.