On July 27, 1919, a major riot broke out in Chicago, which resulted in the death of dozens and the injury of hundreds of people. Historians estimate that they were the peak in a series of racially motivated clashes known as the "Red Summer."

Slavery and segregation

According to historians, the roots of racial problems in the United States go back to the 17th century. In 1619, black slaves from a Portuguese ship captured by the British were brought to the British colonies in North America for the first time.

Since 1641, regulations governing slavery have been adopted in the North American colonies of Great Britain. Soon, the proportion of black slaves in the population of some regions of North America reached about 40%. In the northern colonies, slaves were more often used as domestic servants, and in the southern ones - as agricultural workers.

Even after the declaration of US independence, the position of slaves did not change at first. Only in 1807 did the United States government ban the buying of slaves in Africa. However, the slaves previously brought to North America and their descendants did not receive freedom.

By 1860, there were about 4 million dark-skinned slaves in the United States. They were brutally exploited, forced to work on plantations and factories, and sold to brothels.

At the end of the 18th century, a gradual abolition of slavery began in some northern states, but in the agrarian south they did not even want to hear about it. The issue of preserving or eliminating slavery acquired an ideological connotation against the background of socio-economic and political confrontation between the North and the South of the United States. In 1861, these contradictions resulted in the Civil War, which ended in the defeat of the southerners. In 1865, slavery was officially abolished throughout the United States.

“After the Civil War, a difficult struggle began between the losing southerners and the victorious northerners. Southerners began to carry out a program of restoration of the south. At the same time, a sluggish process of social revanchism was launched. Its culmination was the adoption of a number of laws that legalized racial segregation, "Vladimir Vasiliev, chief researcher at the Institute of the USA and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said in an interview with RT.

  • Water tanks for colored (left) and whites (right) in Oklahoma, USA
  • © Library of Congress

African Americans, in particular, were denied access to a range of public institutions designed for whites.

“African American communities have become closed, and their areas of residence have become even more impoverished, since they did not receive any investment,” Vasiliev said.

Some African Americans left without a livelihood were angry with their former masters. Attacks on ex-slave owners have become more frequent. The southern veterans, in turn, formed an organization known as the Ku Klux Klan, which brutally persecuted blacks and those who defended their rights. According to some reports, in the second half of the 19th century, it numbered up to 2 million people. Its followers have raided their political opponents and carried out massacres known as "lynching". The victims of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1860s - 1870s were about 130 thousand people.

  • Members of the Ku Klux Klan hold a ceremony in Atlanta, USA
  • AFP

In the 1870s, the Ku Klux Klan was officially banned and went underground, but in 1915 the organization resumed its open activities. About 6 million people joined its ranks. Lynching in the United States continued.

"Red Summer"

“At the beginning of the twentieth century, the First World War caused serious changes in American society. Several hundred thousand African Americans were drafted into the military. And, although the American command tried to use them as support personnel whenever possible, many of them fought with weapons in their hands and even received the highest awards for their bravery from the European allies of the United States, ”said the head of the Department of Political Science and Sociology of the PRUE named after G. IN. Plekhanov Andrey Koshkin.

In addition, he said, the war caused major migrations within the United States. Since the whites were drafted into the army in the first place, the black population of the agrarian south began to move en masse to the industrialized north and fill the vacancies vacated in the factories, while receiving less wages. Thus, the number of African Americans in Philadelphia in the 1910s - 1920s increased 5-6 times, in Chicago - by 148%.

“After the end of the war, military-industrial production in the United States fell. This led to a reduction in the number of jobs. It has become difficult for White returning from the front to compete with African-Americans who have moved from the South, who are willing to work for less wages. The situation was explosive. On the one hand, dark-skinned veterans in uniform and with orders on their chests demanded respect, not recognizing humiliating segregation requirements, on the other hand, many of the white veterans faced unemployment and blamed blacks for everything, ”said Koshkin.

Racial riots began in the United States back in 1917. Light-skinned workers went on strike, demanding an end to hiring African Americans, and lynching became more frequent. In 1918, US President Woodrow Wilson appealed to the people of the United States to abandon the practice of lynching. However, his statements, according to experts, were of a purely political nature and did not lead to any practical consequences. If in 1918 the Ku Klux Klan made 64 lynches in the USA, then in 1919 - already 83.

“The atmosphere in the United States became even more tense due to the fact that the political elite of the United States against the background of the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia became nervous and started whipping up anti-communist sentiments. Many American politicians considered blacks as potential vehicles of leftist ideas, and in this regard, they provoked incitement to hatred of African Americans, ”said Andrey Koshkin.

  • Stoning of an African American during the riots in Chicago, 1919
  • Gettyimages.ru
  • © Chicago History Museum

According to him, a sharp increase in racial violence began in the United States in April - June 1919. Black veterans responded sharply to attacks against them, and this only inflamed the racists. A wave of riots swept through Georgia, South Carolina, Texas, Arizona and Indiana. In July, large-scale riots engulfed Washington and Norfolk, killing dozens of people. To restore order, the authorities had to mobilize the National Guard.

“The genie was released from the bottle. Violence extinguished in one place immediately emerged in another, ”says Koshkin.

On July 27, 1919, a group of young African-Americans, swimming, swam on a designated white beach in Chicago. As a result, stones were thrown at them. After a strong blow to the head, one of the young men drowned. This caused outrage among the nearby dark-skinned. However, the police, instead of calling to account the initiators of the clash, began to arrest African Americans.

Andrey Koshkin recalled that it was the incident on the beach that provoked the clashes in Chicago, which became the peak moment of the racial riots of 1919. According to him, the streets of the city resembled a war zone. In street battles, 38 people (23 blacks and 15 whites) were killed in 13 days, and over 500 were injured. More than a thousand black families were left homeless.

According to experts, in August, racial riots swept Tennessee, in September - Nebraska and Arkansas. According to various estimates, in 1919, between 25 and 40 cases of racially motivated riots occurred in the United States. The exact number of their victims is unknown, but we are talking about at least hundreds of those killed, Koshkin notes. Thousands of people were injured. To get the situation back on track, the authorities had to use the army. It is also worth noting that the courts and law enforcement agencies most often sided with whites during the proceedings. Since the peak of violence occurred in July - August 1919, the riots were unofficially called "Red Summer".

“Lynching and other manifestations of racial violence are indicative of 'progressiveness' in the United States in the early 20th century. Racial problems and segregation have become the basis for strengthening socio-economic inequality in the United States, "said Konstantin Blokhin, an expert at the Center for Security Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in an interview with RT.

  • Soldiers of the US National Guard during the riots question an African American in Chicago, 1919
  • Gettyimages.ru
  • © Chicago History Museum

The expert also drew a parallel between the events of 1919 and the ongoing protests. However, according to him, if at the beginning of the twentieth century political issues, segregation, racism were in the foreground, today the main problem has become the socio-economic inequality they have generated.

“It is easier for political elites to blame everything on racism and to demolish a couple of monuments than to carry out comprehensive reforms,” the expert said.

According to Sergei Sudakov, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Military Sciences, although the situation in American society has changed for the better over a hundred years, many democratic achievements remain purely declarative.

“Now they no longer require African Americans to sit on separate benches. Some black citizens of the United States - rappers, actors, TV stars - have occupied certain niches in society, but in percentage terms, they are still negligible. The poor black population is still perceived as second-class. Inequality as a source of tension has not gone anywhere, ”summed up Sergey Sudakov.