July 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 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.

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.

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 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.

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.