1917

On July 2, 1917, white workers and residents of East St. Louis, Illinois attacked Black neighborhoods over two days. White mobs shot Black residents fleeing their burning homes, beat people to death, and hanged bodies from telephone poles. Estimates of Black deaths range from 100 to 200; the official figure was set artificially low. Six thousand Black residents were driven from their homes and entire neighborhoods burned. The attack was triggered by white labor resentment of Black workers recruited from the South by industries during WWI. Congressional investigations documented it as one of the worst massacres in US history.

Following the East St. Louis massacre, the NAACP organized a Silent Protest Parade down Fifth Avenue. Approximately 8,000-10,000 Black men, women, and children marched in silence, carrying signs reading 'Mr. President, Why Not Make America Safe for Democracy?' The march was the largest civil rights demonstration to that date in America.

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.

On August 23, 1917, approximately 150 Black soldiers of the 3rd Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment marched on Houston after enduring months of systematic abuse — Jim Crow streetcars, brutal beatings of soldiers by city police, and the arrest and beating of a soldier who tried to stop police from beating a Black woman. In the night march, 16 civilians and 4 soldiers were killed. The Army held the largest court-martial in US history: 110 soldiers were tried, 19 were hanged, and 63 received life sentences. The 19 hangings, carried out on December 11, 1917 without the sentences being reviewed by the president as regulations required, constituted the largest mass military execution in US history.

The Bureau of Investigation began systematic surveillance of Black civil rights leaders, newspapers, and organizations during WWI, designating anti-lynching advocacy as potentially seditious. Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Du Bois, A. Philip Randolph, and Cyril Briggs were monitored. The Justice Department's Radicalism and Sedition Among the Negroes investigation treated Black demands for civil rights as foreign-influenced radicalism, establishing the federal surveillance framework that would expand into COINTELPRO.

The Bureau of Investigation (precursor to the FBI) began systematic surveillance of Black civil rights leaders, newspapers, and organizations during WWI, designating anti-lynching advocacy and demands for equal rights as potentially seditious. Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Du Bois, A. Philip Randolph, Chandler Owen, and Cyril Briggs were monitored. The Justice Department's Radicalism and Sedition Among the Negroes investigation produced a 1919 report treating Black demands for civil rights as foreign-influenced radicalism. This established the federal surveillance framework that would expand into COINTELPRO.

When the United States entered WWI, the Army conscripted over 370,000 Black men but organized them into segregated units under white officers, denied many service in combat roles, and assigned the majority to labor battalions. The Army distributed a document to French officers asking them not to treat Black soldiers as equals. Despite these restrictions, the 369th Infantry Regiment earned the Croix de Guerre for 191 consecutive days in combat.

When the United States entered WWI, the Army conscripted over 370,000 Black men but organized them into segregated units under white officers, denied many service in combat roles, and assigned the majority to labor battalions digging trenches, loading supplies, and burying the dead. The Army distributed a document to French officers explaining American racial hierarchy and asking them not to treat Black soldiers as equals. Despite these restrictions, the 369th Infantry Regiment (the 'Harlem Hellfighters') fought under French command and earned the Croix de Guerre for 191 consecutive days in combat.

When the Selective Service Act was signed in 1917, approximately 2.3 million Black men registered for the draft, and roughly 370,000-470,000 were inducted — about 13% of all draftees, roughly proportional to the Black share of the population. They were required to fight for a country that denied them the vote, subjected them to mob violence, and legally segregated them from white citizens. The contradiction between fighting for democracy abroad while being denied it at home was explicitly argued in Black newspapers and became the basis for postwar civil rights demands.

Despite experiencing systematic exclusion from American democracy, Black Americans purchased an estimated $250 million in Liberty Bonds during WWI, demonstrating patriotic investment in a nation that denied them basic rights. Black newspapers used this as a rhetorical argument for civil rights — the 'Double V' concept, victory abroad and victory at home, was explicitly articulated. The government accepted this financial support while refusing any civil rights concessions, a pattern of extracting Black contributions while denying Black citizenship that characterized the entire twentieth century.

Despite systematic exclusion from American democracy, Black Americans purchased an estimated $250 million in Liberty Bonds during WWI. Black newspapers used this as a rhetorical argument for civil rights, explicitly articulating the 'Double V' concept of victory abroad and victory at home. The government accepted this financial support while refusing any civil rights concessions, a pattern of extracting Black contributions while denying Black citizenship.

After the Espionage Act passed in June 1917, Postmaster General Albert Burleson threatened to revoke mailing privileges from Black newspapers whose content the government deemed harmful to military recruitment or morale. The Messenger, edited by A. Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen, was denied mailing privileges in 1918 for opposing the draft. The Crisis was investigated for its 'Returning Soldiers' editorial. The campaign constituted an attempt to suppress Black civil rights advocacy through wartime legislation.

Colonel Charles Young was the highest-ranking Black officer in the US Army and third Black graduate of West Point. In 1917, with WWI expanding the Army, Young was next in line for promotion to Brigadier General, which would have made him the first Black general officer. The Army's solution: declare him medically unfit for duty due to hypertension. To prove his fitness, Young rode 497 miles on horseback from Ohio to Washington DC. The Army retired him anyway. He was briefly recalled at the end of the war. Young died in 1922 in Nigeria while on a military mission.

Colonel Charles Young, the highest-ranking Black officer in the US Army and third Black West Point graduate, was next in line for promotion to Brigadier General in 1917. The Army declared him medically unfit. To prove his fitness, Young rode 497 miles on horseback from Ohio to Washington DC. The Army retired him anyway, ensuring no Black general officer would serve in WWI.

On July 28, 1917, the NAACP organized a Silent Protest Parade down Fifth Avenue in New York City with 10,000 participants dressed in black and white, protesting the East St. Louis massacre and ongoing lynching. Children carried signs reading 'Thou Shalt Not Kill.' The parade was among the first major civil rights demonstrations in the North and established a model of dignified mass protest. NAACP membership tripled in the months following. The march's discipline and dignity, in deliberate contrast to what white media expected, was a strategic communications choice that influenced future movement tactics.

Following the East St. Louis massacre, Congress launched an investigation that documented the scale of the attack and the failure of state militia to protect Black residents. The investigation produced damning evidence that the governor and local officials had failed to act. The Wilson administration and War Department, however, pressured investigators to minimize findings that might interfere with military mobilization or embarrass the administration. The final report understated deaths, muted criticism of officials, and produced no criminal prosecutions of those responsible for killing over 100 Black Americans.

In Buchanan v. Warley, the Supreme Court unanimously struck down a Louisville, Kentucky ordinance requiring racial residential segregation. The NAACP brought the case, won on a property rights theory — the ordinance violated a white seller's right to sell to Black buyers. While the ruling was an NAACP victory, cities responded by using private racially restrictive deed covenants instead of public law, achieving the same segregation through private means that the courts would not scrutinize until Shelley v. Kraemer in 1948.

Throughout the 1910s, the NAACP organized systematic legal challenges to railroad segregation through carefully chosen test cases, coordinating with Black passengers willing to be arrested for refusing Jim Crow seating. These early cases built legal precedent and exposed the costs of segregation enforcement. While few succeeded before the 1940s, they established the legal strategy that would eventually produce McCabe v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway (1914), where the Supreme Court held that railroads could not provide unequal services to Black and white passengers.

Following the East St. Louis massacre of July 1917, the NAACP rapidly organized petitions to Congress and President Wilson demanding federal intervention and anti-lynching legislation. The petition collected 12,000 signatures and was presented to Wilson alongside a delegation of civil rights leaders. Wilson expressed sympathy but took no action, and no federal prosecution of East St. Louis perpetrators occurred. The petition campaign demonstrated the NAACP's organizational reach while revealing the indifference of the federal executive to Black lives.

Emmett Scott, Booker T. Washington's former secretary, was appointed Special Assistant to the Secretary of War for Black affairs in 1917, the first Black civilian appointed to the War Department. Scott and NAACP leaders negotiated with the military establishment for equal treatment of Black troops, better officer training, and combat roles. They achieved the establishment of Camp Des Moines, Iowa as an officer training camp for Black men — which produced 639 Black commissioned officers. But most of their other demands were rebuffed, and the Army maintained complete segregation throughout the war.

One of the deadliest white-mob attacks of the era kills scores of Black residents.

Thousands march silently down Fifth Avenue to protest lynching and racial violence.

Black soldiers, pushed past endurance by abuse, are court-martialed and executed.