The red summer of 1919: a silent centennial (op-ed)

In 2016 a shooting took place at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.  Forty-nine people were killed, fifty-three were wounded, and the media announced it was the deadliest mass shooting in American history. 

A hostile segment of the black community challenged this fact.   

On social media old newspaper clippings surfaced about whites massacring blacks during the first decades of the 20^th century.  The most popular message attached to the newspaper clippings said, “Before we begin spreading the lies of the deadliest mass terrorist shooting in US history let’s not forget.”

1).  East St. Louis Massacre of 1917

2). Arkansas Massacre of 1919

3). Tulsa Massacre 1921

4). Rosewood Massacre 1923

       

History refers to these massacres as race riots, which can’t be compared to the gay nightclub shooting, but those involved in sharing the old newspaper clips promoted a conspiracy.  They claimed “terror attack” was narrowly defined, and the emphasis on lone gunmen prevented comparisons with other horrific events in U.S. history linked to fear, discrimination, and intolerance. 

       

I thought the comparison was false and the conspiracy theory masked their real motives, and I wrote an article in response called: Bigotry Beneath Black History

           

I reminded the readers: In 2007 when the NY Times announced the 32 victims at Virginia Tech was the “deadliest shooting rampage in American history” no comparisons were made.  Why not, if the purpose of comparison was to keep a proper historical context?  No comparison was made because the victims at Virginia Tech were students, and students are not a rival “minority” group.  These black massacres were used to maintain minority group supremacy in historical suffering and to keep the rival gay group from topping the massacre charts.  This type of comparison is the byproduct of believing black lives matter instead of all life.  It’s absent of human decency.  It turns all the victims into contestants for suffering contest and the bigotry behind this competition is beneath black history.”

      

Now, the second massacre on the “never forget” list after the Orlando gay nightclub shooting, took place during October, 1919, in Arkansas.  Whites used mob violence to end efforts by blacks to organize labor.  The white mob attacked random black people for over two days.  It’s estimated over 100 black people were killed.    

This Arkansas massacre was the final incident of what historians named The Red Summer of 1919.   The first racial attack actually started in February, there was another one in March, two in April, six in May, and three in June.  

Then it escalated to the red summer.  In July there were nineteen racial attacks, five more in August, two in September (one lasted an entire week) and it finally ended in October. 

The violence, rooted in post war economic competition between black and white workers, was nationwide, and occurred in eighteen different states.  The red summer resulted in hundreds of deaths of black people. 

Now, it’s 2019, black history month just ended, but I didn’t hear one mention of the Red Summer centennial.  This was the proper time to bring up the list of massacres without making immoral comparisons.  Today’s national narrative insists that racial tension is at an all-time high, but if the Red summer was commemorated it would have revealed how insignificant present-day racial tensions are when compared to the past, and that’s why we study history, to measure progress.

Bigotry is still beneath black history, unfortunately, so are priorities.

First published in the New Pittsburgh Courier 3/13/19