Transcripts For CSPAN3 1919 Red Summer Racial Unrest 202407

Followed by a brief q a should there be time for us to do that. I am so pleased tonight to introduce two of our friends and colleagues, the first being dr. Saje mathieu. Dr. Mathieu is an associate professor of history at the university of minnesota. She is just finishing a faculty fellowship at Harvard Universitys center for studies in American History. She earned a joint phd in history and africanamerican studies and specializes in 20th century american and africanAmerican History with an emphasis on immigration, war, race, globalization, social movements and political resistance. She is the author of a number of books, one of which is available outside and i would encourage you to grab a copy while you can. An oncoming book as well, the glory of their deeds a global history of black soldiers in the great war era. And saje was working on that book as part of your work at the warren center. Are we close to publication . I started it when i was five. So it is almost done. Really saje is a great friend of ours and we are so delighted to have you back with us again. Please join me in welcoming dr. Mathieu. [applause] and joining us tonight is a scholar who also has a specialized focus on the red summer of 1919 and the fight of this nation to create a just and equitable society. Cameron mcwhirter is a Staff Reporter for the wall street journal based in atlanta, he covers politics, economics, breaking news and other subjects and he is worked in a variety of countries reporting from bosnia, iraq, costa rica, and other places. For our purposes most significantly, he is the author of a compelling text, red summer the summer of 1919 and the awakening of black america. Please join me in welcoming cameron. [applause] i want to read to you just a portion from Cameron Mcwhirters book. So if you would listen, this really frames our conversation this evening. It just reminds us to silence your devices. So thank you. So reading from camerons book, on june 26, 1919 as many as 10,000 whites gathered in a field in mississippi to watch a bound exhausted and wounded black man named John Hatfield as he was hoisted up the branch of a giant sweet gumtree. Vendors sold flags, trinkets and souvenir photographs. Local politicians delivered speeches. Young boys crowded in the tree to look down at the wild eyed screaming hatfield. It was a country fair, political rally, and public murder rolled into one. After world war i black americans fervently hoped for a new epoch of peace, prosperity and equality. But this civil rights moment was not to be. Instead the euphoria of victory evaporated to be replaced by the worst spate of antiblack violence labeled the red summer, the riots and lynchings would last from april to november 1919 claiming hundreds of lives. Blacks responded by fighting back with an intensity and determination never seen before introducing the first stirrings of the Civil Rights Movement that would change america forever. Friends please welcome our guests this evening, Cameron Mcwhirter and saje mathieu. [applause] dr. Mathieu i would like to begin by thanking you for being here on such a lovely evening. As cameron no doubt recalls, we are almost to the day at the centenary of the worst of the riots, i would say. But they had begun in the United States for at least a couple of months. There are a couple of things that are reminiscent of that summer. For me, it is always the weather. It was an incredibly hot weather summer. One of the things that we historians know is that when there is a spike in the heat, we start smacking each other around. It is no surprise that most of these race riots occurred during heat waves. Cameron i just came here from chicago where me and many other people were marking the centennial of the chicago riot which was certainly the worst urban riot in the u. S. That year. It started because of the heat. There was no air conditioning at that time. Five young teenage africanamerican men snuck through the white neighborhoods of chicago to get to the south side beach and they went swimming. They slam in an area that was sort of near the de facto black beach and the white beach. There was not legal segregation in chicago. The raft that they were on, they were not very good swimmers, drifted into the white beach and that was in this incredibly tense period, that was all that was needed to spark a massive race riot. Dr. Mathieu that is a wonderful place to start. That is because one of the things that i argue about this era at large, not just 1919, but the 1910s and the 1920s and well throughout the 20th century, what we see in this instance of these kids, we cannot forget they are children, playing outdoors is that we are reminded that the very idea of leisure is contested. The very idea of belonging is contested. So these children do not belong on that beach because free time is itself segregated as is the very space where that free time should be spent. So it is not just beaches that are segregated, whether it is officially or by de facto practice, but so too sometimes are parks, golf courses, public swimming pools. And so these social spaces become just as charged as the workplace, neighborhoods, in terms of contested terrain when it comes to belonging for African Americans especially in urban spaces. Cameron i would go further and say that when the situation was so charged, the smallest incident would lead to tremendous violence. Rumor and gossip played a role in all of this. The washington riot which occurs earlier in july of 1919. It occurs when there was a whole frenzy of panic produced by the media unfortunately of the belief that africanamerican men were attacking white women. We dont know exactly what happened. But a white woman was walking down the street and was jostled by two africanamerican men walking the other way. We know that happened. But that became, did you hear about two men raping a white woman and that leads to mayhem. Dr. Mathieu in 1921 just a couple of years later, in the worst of all race riots in American History, the tulsa race riot of 1921, it all begins with people bumping into each other in an elevator. These small spaces where the complicated relationship across race and gender lines become aggravated or amplified. Of course, 1919 also reminds us that violence moves on rumor. Case thato often the we hear that this happened, that that did not happened and before you know it, nobody remembers why we are fighting in the first place. Kind of like a middle school brawl. Cameron as a reporter, i cannot tell you how constant a problem that remains in terms of trying to deal with whether something is true, whether something actually happened, it is a paranoiapure noya fear of journalists. Dr. Mathieu lets take a step back for people who might not remember or know what conditions were like at the end of the summer of or rather, at the end of spring of 1919. We have american soldiers starting to come back. Cameron in massive amounts. Dr. Mathieu sometimes 100,000 per month, from great ships in coastal port cities. They are concerned about a return to normalcy, whatever that would mean. So whether that is a return to their jobs, their families, their social standing, returned to the actual physical place from whence they came and not Everyone Wants to go back from whence they came. About men who are between the ages of 18 to 30, not the most stable part of our citizenry. It is true, right . Absolutely understudied aspect for me is that we did not have a language for what today we call ptsd. But these men had been thrown into the worst of the fighting, the most chaotic of the fighting in the last six months of the war. Even though american soldiers did not see the level of destruction that other european troops had experienced over the course of all four years, nonetheless, you dont have to be in the trenches for four years to know how destabilizing and devastating it is to witness your friends being torn to shreds. And so we get these guys arriving in philly, boston, new york and charleston, and it is like, thanks for coming out, off you go. That does not even include how africanamericans felt about this expectation that after having crossed the atlantic, after having hurriedly established much of the infrastructure that made it possible for the American Army to fight in europe, building the barracks, building the railway lines, feeding people, spending hours loading and unloading ships only to be treated like gum under ones shoe by their own government. Cameron the decommissioning was not as smooth as see you later, sometimes we had to wait around and that led to young men, charleston is a classic example, young men Milling Around looking for booze, which was illegal. That riot against when a bunch of men give five dollars to a guy who says they are going to go get him some illegal liquor peoplee a million other went after him, he takes off and never comes back and the soldiers riot. You are dead on in everything you are saying. It is really important. When i talk to people about 1919, they had the impression victoriousa was this power and everything was great and we are about to head into the jazz age and everything is fantastic. It was a really panicky time for the world and certainly for america. Bolsheviksle, the had taken over russia, and anarchists were sending bombs to politicians, there were a people were having trouble paying their bills soldiers were pouring back into the domestic economy and they could not get the jobs they used to have whites and black. And in that frothy mess, there political cartoon at the time and all these things are flying around his head, that is influenza sweeping the world. It was a very nerveracking time. In all of that, three positive things for africanamericans happened. But because it happened in this frothy chaos, they were focal points for antiblack violence. Soldiers being the most prominent. Also mathieu there is another ingredient in this mess that you described, and that is over the course of the war, it started before, but it went from trickle to flood, that is africanamericans cast down their buckets and headed north, right . They followed the rirvers and get ailways and we departure of africanamericans from the south to the Northern Industrial cities to replace the workers that had gone off to war. Immigration was cut off, important tois note that this was nonetheless a concrete choice by africanamericans to say that after almost 50 years of farming with control over their wages that this sharecropping system is not working. It is a perpetual cycle of poverty. Hold ontoown and land. What will i do . What is the very fundamental exercise of freedom . To move. Cameron one key addendum to that is northern industry turned to the south, and it was very advantageous for the owners to have africanamericans come work for them. Often their wages were suppressed. Secondly they were inherent union busters. So you had a perfect situation for the factory owner, he would weaken the unions, bring in cheaper labor, but youre right. But generally for africanamericans, it was better situation to get away from jim crow, definitely. Prof. Mathieu it adds to the idea that after the war we have to get those people back into their place, get out of my neighborhood, get out of my workplace. Get out of my army, off my streetcar, off my beach. It is a very physical set of contacts. We might refer to them as micro aggressions. One of the things i enjoy with my students is having them look at newspapers from the period. You get all of these accounts, especially in north carolina, of white women going around and stabbing people with their umbrellas. And some black women are also fighting back. They do this because the sidewalk is a contested space and they want to reclaim that as their entitled place. So black people should walk in the street with the muck that ran through the streets. What we see our africanamericans saying i will not be moved. Blackntioned some intellectuals and other important advancements. Can you tell us a little bit more about that . Cameron the title of this talk fighting, andurn that is a great intellectual writing for the crisis at that time. And he made it loud and clear that the soldiers that had just fought for democracy, and were told repeatedly that you are fighting to save democracy, were going to come back changed and were going to come back demanding a different situation than the one they had left. That, i think, played a key role in formulating peoples views of what they were expecting when they came back. I think the africanamerican soldiers encountered i have numerous examples of these incidents in my book they came back wearing their uniforms because it was the only clothing they had. But when they would get back to the small towns in the south, they would be spit on, yelled at, they would be threatened, in some cases they were killed. These flare ups were happening all the time. I remember in my book there was lots of letters going back and forth in the u. S. Railroad administration. Soldiers would be coming back, sleeping in the Railroad Cars to they wereecause decommissioned. As soon as they crossed the masondixon line, they would say they have to go to the colored car. And then they would say they just fought for us in europe, and there is a huge argument that erupts in the railroad has to try to figure it out and it becomes a tense moment. There is a soldier that i have quoted in the book who recalls people muttering as he walked down the street in his town in arkansas, where he is wearing ,is uniform, he is being uppity he is trying to rise above the station, and he eventually moved to st. Louis and says i felt safer in the trenches than i did in arkansas. This is happening all the time and the intellectuals are capturing this desire to really all, we return fighting. We fight for democracy there, we are going to fight for democracy there. Prof. Mathieu so, can again, we have to take a step back and think about how we imagined an africanamerican in 1913, right . The average american, if youre saying africanamerican, theyre wearing overalls working on a farm. A overwhelming majority are farmers of one type or another. The idea that in just two years in American Intervention in the war, we would move them from overalls to an officers uniform with gleaming metals confirming their valor was absolutely incendiary for a lot of american people, and stood as a greater challenge to getting them, again, back in their place. One thing we heard was the french ruined our negros. There is a lot of concern about americans, especially africanamericans, suffering from a kind of contagion from having seen french democracy and having tasted a life with fewer social and legal barriers. And africanamericans have all of these different ways of communicating their refusal. Cameron its funny you mention taste. When my book came out, i went on a book tour and i was in baltimore and i was on a radio show with a journalist who was fortunate enough to interview the final living world war ii veteran in baltimore, who happened to be africanamerican. The man was very old when he interviewed him, and all the men talked about was eating escargo, wine, bred, and bread, and they were being so kind to him and giving him food all the time. That was the experience. The french people were thrilled that people were coming to fight for them. Prof. Mathieu there are a couple of things here. I have a good friend, he calls me every three months to to ask me how my book is coming. I say we were talking about how the french had ruined the africanamericans. One thing africanamericans do to telegraph their awakening, they start to throw french words into their everyday interactions. As to change the positionalty that they have. You would not say hay, how is it going . You would say hello, cher. The other thing that africanamericans will do and this will drive southerners bat sorry for the language. Cameron that is a medical term. Prof. Mathieu they would name their kids with french names. I realized that all of my great aunts have names like jocelyn or jewel julie. And that transportation is the site of the conflict in the summer of 1919. Cameron in the walking tour we just gave in chicago, we began to talk at a victory monument that for many decades, it was the only monument to the africanamerican soldier in the United States. It is a very rugged soldier with a rifle and bayonet, and he is facing south. I dont think that was unintentional. He is looking right at the south. Prof. Mathieu were very familiar with muhammad alis stance during the vietnam war, and he says they have never done anything to me. He uses different language. 50 years before that africanamericans were saying , the same thing. They were prepared. An africanamerican man from the period was declared by j. Edgar hoover as the most dangerous negro in america. He says im prepared to fight in alabama, but not in france. I have no particular battle there, though i value democracy. What we see after the war is that same vision comes back. Were very familiar with return fighting. Short but powerful jab penned by w. E. B. Dubois. That there is another famous poem poemse period, that last lines, if we must die, let us be with our backs pressed to the wall, dying but fighting back. So transgressive after world war communistis branded a and almost they consider deporting him, etc. , but in world war ii, churchill returns to the very galvanize britain. Language in order to galvanize britain. Cameron the anecdote is important to go into. He is a railroad porter, and he is traveling with his friends, as a lot of young black men at the time, and theyre going from town to town. Every time the door opens they dont know if there is a riot. Rumor and newspapers that were usually a day late is all the information they had. Theyre running to their hotels. He started carrying a gun, he was very terrified and he is so nerveracking by all of this, he goes into the bathroom and scrawls out this sonnet. He reads it to his friends and some of them start crying. He sends it off to a little magazine that publishes it it, and then it is published all over. It never mentions race. But everybody knew what it was about, to the point where there were white senators in the senate saying, this is seditious i think it was included in hoovers reports about sedition, because fighting back was seditious. Prof. Mathieu yes. In fact, a threat to democracy at its core. Lets talk about sedition. Periodmer of 1919 is a where americans are afraid of their own shadows. That is part of that return to normalcy. Or that frenetic need to return to normalcy. We are worried that having exposed ourselves to europeans and their provincial wars, that we will, in fact, bring back that kind of instability in the Harvard Universitys<\/a> center for studies in American History<\/a>. She earned a joint phd in history and africanamerican studies and specializes in 20th century american and africanAmerican History<\/a> with an emphasis on immigration, war, race, globalization, social movements and political resistance. She is the author of a number of books, one of which is available outside and i would encourage you to grab a copy while you can. An oncoming book as well, the glory of their deeds a global history of black soldiers in the great war era. And saje was working on that book as part of your work at the warren center. Are we close to publication . I started it when i was five. So it is almost done. Really saje is a great friend of ours and we are so delighted to have you back with us again. Please join me in welcoming dr. Mathieu. [applause] and joining us tonight is a scholar who also has a specialized focus on the red summer of 1919 and the fight of this nation to create a just and equitable society. Cameron mcwhirter is a Staff Reporter<\/a> for the wall street journal based in atlanta, he covers politics, economics, breaking news and other subjects and he is worked in a variety of countries reporting from bosnia, iraq, costa rica, and other places. For our purposes most significantly, he is the author of a compelling text, red summer the summer of 1919 and the awakening of black america. Please join me in welcoming cameron. [applause] i want to read to you just a portion from Cameron Mcwhirter<\/a>s book. So if you would listen, this really frames our conversation this evening. It just reminds us to silence your devices. So thank you. So reading from camerons book, on june 26, 1919 as many as 10,000 whites gathered in a field in mississippi to watch a bound exhausted and wounded black man named John Hatfield<\/a> as he was hoisted up the branch of a giant sweet gumtree. Vendors sold flags, trinkets and souvenir photographs. Local politicians delivered speeches. Young boys crowded in the tree to look down at the wild eyed screaming hatfield. It was a country fair, political rally, and public murder rolled into one. After world war i black americans fervently hoped for a new epoch of peace, prosperity and equality. But this civil rights moment was not to be. Instead the euphoria of victory evaporated to be replaced by the worst spate of antiblack violence labeled the red summer, the riots and lynchings would last from april to november 1919 claiming hundreds of lives. Blacks responded by fighting back with an intensity and determination never seen before introducing the first stirrings of the Civil Rights Movement<\/a> that would change america forever. Friends please welcome our guests this evening, Cameron Mcwhirter<\/a> and saje mathieu. [applause] dr. Mathieu i would like to begin by thanking you for being here on such a lovely evening. As cameron no doubt recalls, we are almost to the day at the centenary of the worst of the riots, i would say. But they had begun in the United States<\/a> for at least a couple of months. There are a couple of things that are reminiscent of that summer. For me, it is always the weather. It was an incredibly hot weather summer. One of the things that we historians know is that when there is a spike in the heat, we start smacking each other around. It is no surprise that most of these race riots occurred during heat waves. Cameron i just came here from chicago where me and many other people were marking the centennial of the chicago riot which was certainly the worst urban riot in the u. S. That year. It started because of the heat. There was no air conditioning at that time. Five young teenage africanamerican men snuck through the white neighborhoods of chicago to get to the south side beach and they went swimming. They slam in an area that was sort of near the de facto black beach and the white beach. There was not legal segregation in chicago. The raft that they were on, they were not very good swimmers, drifted into the white beach and that was in this incredibly tense period, that was all that was needed to spark a massive race riot. Dr. Mathieu that is a wonderful place to start. That is because one of the things that i argue about this era at large, not just 1919, but the 1910s and the 1920s and well throughout the 20th century, what we see in this instance of these kids, we cannot forget they are children, playing outdoors is that we are reminded that the very idea of leisure is contested. The very idea of belonging is contested. So these children do not belong on that beach because free time is itself segregated as is the very space where that free time should be spent. So it is not just beaches that are segregated, whether it is officially or by de facto practice, but so too sometimes are parks, golf courses, public swimming pools. And so these social spaces become just as charged as the workplace, neighborhoods, in terms of contested terrain when it comes to belonging for African Americans<\/a> especially in urban spaces. Cameron i would go further and say that when the situation was so charged, the smallest incident would lead to tremendous violence. Rumor and gossip played a role in all of this. The washington riot which occurs earlier in july of 1919. It occurs when there was a whole frenzy of panic produced by the media unfortunately of the belief that africanamerican men were attacking white women. We dont know exactly what happened. But a white woman was walking down the street and was jostled by two africanamerican men walking the other way. We know that happened. But that became, did you hear about two men raping a white woman and that leads to mayhem. Dr. Mathieu in 1921 just a couple of years later, in the worst of all race riots in American History<\/a>, the tulsa race riot of 1921, it all begins with people bumping into each other in an elevator. These small spaces where the complicated relationship across race and gender lines become aggravated or amplified. Of course, 1919 also reminds us that violence moves on rumor. Case thato often the we hear that this happened, that that did not happened and before you know it, nobody remembers why we are fighting in the first place. Kind of like a middle school brawl. Cameron as a reporter, i cannot tell you how constant a problem that remains in terms of trying to deal with whether something is true, whether something actually happened, it is a paranoiapure noya fear of journalists. Dr. Mathieu lets take a step back for people who might not remember or know what conditions were like at the end of the summer of or rather, at the end of spring of 1919. We have american soldiers starting to come back. Cameron in massive amounts. Dr. Mathieu sometimes 100,000 per month, from great ships in coastal port cities. They are concerned about a return to normalcy, whatever that would mean. So whether that is a return to their jobs, their families, their social standing, returned to the actual physical place from whence they came and not Everyone Wants<\/a> to go back from whence they came. About men who are between the ages of 18 to 30, not the most stable part of our citizenry. It is true, right . Absolutely understudied aspect for me is that we did not have a language for what today we call ptsd. But these men had been thrown into the worst of the fighting, the most chaotic of the fighting in the last six months of the war. Even though american soldiers did not see the level of destruction that other european troops had experienced over the course of all four years, nonetheless, you dont have to be in the trenches for four years to know how destabilizing and devastating it is to witness your friends being torn to shreds. And so we get these guys arriving in philly, boston, new york and charleston, and it is like, thanks for coming out, off you go. That does not even include how africanamericans felt about this expectation that after having crossed the atlantic, after having hurriedly established much of the infrastructure that made it possible for the American Army<\/a> to fight in europe, building the barracks, building the railway lines, feeding people, spending hours loading and unloading ships only to be treated like gum under ones shoe by their own government. Cameron the decommissioning was not as smooth as see you later, sometimes we had to wait around and that led to young men, charleston is a classic example, young men Milling Around<\/a> looking for booze, which was illegal. That riot against when a bunch of men give five dollars to a guy who says they are going to go get him some illegal liquor peoplee a million other went after him, he takes off and never comes back and the soldiers riot. You are dead on in everything you are saying. It is really important. When i talk to people about 1919, they had the impression victoriousa was this power and everything was great and we are about to head into the jazz age and everything is fantastic. It was a really panicky time for the world and certainly for america. Bolsheviksle, the had taken over russia, and anarchists were sending bombs to politicians, there were a people were having trouble paying their bills soldiers were pouring back into the domestic economy and they could not get the jobs they used to have whites and black. And in that frothy mess, there political cartoon at the time and all these things are flying around his head, that is influenza sweeping the world. It was a very nerveracking time. In all of that, three positive things for africanamericans happened. But because it happened in this frothy chaos, they were focal points for antiblack violence. Soldiers being the most prominent. Also mathieu there is another ingredient in this mess that you described, and that is over the course of the war, it started before, but it went from trickle to flood, that is africanamericans cast down their buckets and headed north, right . They followed the rirvers and get ailways and we departure of africanamericans from the south to the Northern Industrial<\/a> cities to replace the workers that had gone off to war. Immigration was cut off, important tois note that this was nonetheless a concrete choice by africanamericans to say that after almost 50 years of farming with control over their wages that this sharecropping system is not working. It is a perpetual cycle of poverty. Hold ontoown and land. What will i do . What is the very fundamental exercise of freedom . To move. Cameron one key addendum to that is northern industry turned to the south, and it was very advantageous for the owners to have africanamericans come work for them. Often their wages were suppressed. Secondly they were inherent union busters. So you had a perfect situation for the factory owner, he would weaken the unions, bring in cheaper labor, but youre right. But generally for africanamericans, it was better situation to get away from jim crow, definitely. Prof. Mathieu it adds to the idea that after the war we have to get those people back into their place, get out of my neighborhood, get out of my workplace. Get out of my army, off my streetcar, off my beach. It is a very physical set of contacts. We might refer to them as micro aggressions. One of the things i enjoy with my students is having them look at newspapers from the period. You get all of these accounts, especially in north carolina, of white women going around and stabbing people with their umbrellas. And some black women are also fighting back. They do this because the sidewalk is a contested space and they want to reclaim that as their entitled place. So black people should walk in the street with the muck that ran through the streets. What we see our africanamericans saying i will not be moved. Blackntioned some intellectuals and other important advancements. Can you tell us a little bit more about that . Cameron the title of this talk fighting, andurn that is a great intellectual writing for the crisis at that time. And he made it loud and clear that the soldiers that had just fought for democracy, and were told repeatedly that you are fighting to save democracy, were going to come back changed and were going to come back demanding a different situation than the one they had left. That, i think, played a key role in formulating peoples views of what they were expecting when they came back. I think the africanamerican soldiers encountered i have numerous examples of these incidents in my book they came back wearing their uniforms because it was the only clothing they had. But when they would get back to the small towns in the south, they would be spit on, yelled at, they would be threatened, in some cases they were killed. These flare ups were happening all the time. I remember in my book there was lots of letters going back and forth in the u. S. Railroad administration. Soldiers would be coming back, sleeping in the Railroad Cars<\/a> to they wereecause decommissioned. As soon as they crossed the masondixon line, they would say they have to go to the colored car. And then they would say they just fought for us in europe, and there is a huge argument that erupts in the railroad has to try to figure it out and it becomes a tense moment. There is a soldier that i have quoted in the book who recalls people muttering as he walked down the street in his town in arkansas, where he is wearing ,is uniform, he is being uppity he is trying to rise above the station, and he eventually moved to st. Louis and says i felt safer in the trenches than i did in arkansas. This is happening all the time and the intellectuals are capturing this desire to really all, we return fighting. We fight for democracy there, we are going to fight for democracy there. Prof. Mathieu so, can again, we have to take a step back and think about how we imagined an africanamerican in 1913, right . The average american, if youre saying africanamerican, theyre wearing overalls working on a farm. A overwhelming majority are farmers of one type or another. The idea that in just two years in American Intervention<\/a> in the war, we would move them from overalls to an officers uniform with gleaming metals confirming their valor was absolutely incendiary for a lot of american people, and stood as a greater challenge to getting them, again, back in their place. One thing we heard was the french ruined our negros. There is a lot of concern about americans, especially africanamericans, suffering from a kind of contagion from having seen french democracy and having tasted a life with fewer social and legal barriers. And africanamericans have all of these different ways of communicating their refusal. Cameron its funny you mention taste. When my book came out, i went on a book tour and i was in baltimore and i was on a radio show with a journalist who was fortunate enough to interview the final living world war ii veteran in baltimore, who happened to be africanamerican. The man was very old when he interviewed him, and all the men talked about was eating escargo, wine, bred, and bread, and they were being so kind to him and giving him food all the time. That was the experience. The french people were thrilled that people were coming to fight for them. Prof. Mathieu there are a couple of things here. I have a good friend, he calls me every three months to to ask me how my book is coming. I say we were talking about how the french had ruined the africanamericans. One thing africanamericans do to telegraph their awakening, they start to throw french words into their everyday interactions. As to change the positionalty that they have. You would not say hay, how is it going . You would say hello, cher. The other thing that africanamericans will do and this will drive southerners bat sorry for the language. Cameron that is a medical term. Prof. Mathieu they would name their kids with french names. I realized that all of my great aunts have names like jocelyn or jewel julie. And that transportation is the site of the conflict in the summer of 1919. Cameron in the walking tour we just gave in chicago, we began to talk at a victory monument that for many decades, it was the only monument to the africanamerican soldier in the United States<\/a>. It is a very rugged soldier with a rifle and bayonet, and he is facing south. I dont think that was unintentional. He is looking right at the south. Prof. Mathieu were very familiar with muhammad alis stance during the vietnam war, and he says they have never done anything to me. He uses different language. 50 years before that africanamericans were saying , the same thing. They were prepared. An africanamerican man from the period was declared by j. Edgar hoover as the most dangerous negro in america. He says im prepared to fight in alabama, but not in france. I have no particular battle there, though i value democracy. What we see after the war is that same vision comes back. Were very familiar with return fighting. Short but powerful jab penned by w. E. B. Dubois. That there is another famous poem poemse period, that last lines, if we must die, let us be with our backs pressed to the wall, dying but fighting back. So transgressive after world war communistis branded a and almost they consider deporting him, etc. , but in world war ii, churchill returns to the very galvanize britain. Language in order to galvanize britain. Cameron the anecdote is important to go into. He is a railroad porter, and he is traveling with his friends, as a lot of young black men at the time, and theyre going from town to town. Every time the door opens they dont know if there is a riot. Rumor and newspapers that were usually a day late is all the information they had. Theyre running to their hotels. He started carrying a gun, he was very terrified and he is so nerveracking by all of this, he goes into the bathroom and scrawls out this sonnet. He reads it to his friends and some of them start crying. He sends it off to a little magazine that publishes it it, and then it is published all over. It never mentions race. But everybody knew what it was about, to the point where there were white senators in the senate saying, this is seditious i think it was included in hoovers reports about sedition, because fighting back was seditious. Prof. Mathieu yes. In fact, a threat to democracy at its core. Lets talk about sedition. Periodmer of 1919 is a where americans are afraid of their own shadows. That is part of that return to normalcy. Or that frenetic need to return to normalcy. We are worried that having exposed ourselves to europeans and their provincial wars, that we will, in fact, bring back that kind of instability in the United States<\/a>. All of a sudden, everyone is a potential communist. It becomes suspicious behavior to read a german newspaper or speak german in public. In iowa, they try to pass a law saying english is the official language of the state when it is not, the country has no official language. People become very worried about how those people would get into the minds of otherwise naive africanamericans. Roleon that plays a throughout 1919 over and over again as the riots erupt. At times coverage is very, very poor. Many of the rumors and up in print. One of them is there are communist operating among the negros and they are causing problems. There is very little evidence that was the case at all. The leading organization of that naacp, which come up position was pretty simple, which was we are american citizens and we deserve the same rights as every other american citizen and we are going to fight to do that in the courts, how we vote, where we live, what jobs we have, what our Educational Opportunities<\/a> are. Open violence against africanamericans. We are going to fight on those fronts and that was considered seditious to the point where texas shut down the naacp. Head at the time came to visit austin to try to unravel this mess, a white man he was beaten in broad daytime , into a bloody pulp by a mob that included a judge and other law officials. Read eally, if you there was a big report that hoover for the attorney general produce that year and it has tons of communist material in the first portion of it, a lot of anarchist quotes and then it switches very awkwardly into just publication, africanamerican quotes from africanamerican publications that are, i mean, we would read them today and think that they should have equal rights. It is very jarring and weird, but at the time it was really contested. Red summer means that we are literally seeing red as they suggested for the blood running through the streets, and also because of all of the red scare, the communists were everywhere, and this idea that they would, in particular, target africanamericans and infect them with these notions that challenge the core of an american racial hierarchy that worked let us not forget as well for the north as it did for the south. I will put him on the screen. Developed, as i was researching the book, i developed a man crush for this guy, he is an awesome dude. He is one of those people you start reading about, you almost dont believe it. He spoke fluent spanish, he was a diplomat, he was a lawyer, he wrote lift every voice and considered the africanamerican national anthem. He wrote poetry, a novel, he wrote amazing essays. He is doing amazing work and he was tapped and he says i want you to come to the naacp with me at work. That organization had been founded after a riot in springfield, illinois, and it was dominated by white do gooders in the new york area. It was not an africanamerican Led Organization<\/a> at that time. Weldon johnson said i might do it, but it might hurt my writing of the time. He does joint and it completely hurts his writing. He cant produce anything. 1919, that guy was all over the country, giving speeches after speeches. He is recruiting all over the south, a place to did not have a lot of members print you can read his speeches and think, this is malcolm x, you read another speech, this is Martin Luther<\/a> king. He tackles a lot of the issues that later become what the Civil Rights Movement<\/a> has to deal with in the 1950s and 1960s. Prof. Mathieu we have other people whose voices are very important. Munro trotter, he is a journalist from boston. He is very active in denouncing birth of a nation and the kind of violence it is advocating in the United States<\/a>. B. Th ight is w. E dubois, though far more insufferable. Brieflylked about this what is meant by the red summer, bombings, fires, people being set on fire, rage, these are all very worry some daily andrrences for americans, seemed to indicate that the war has crossed the pond, right . Warring mood in europe may have reached the United States<\/a>. It is very important to remember that race riots did not occur just in the United States<\/a>, but in fact they had started in europe as early as 1915. They began, in my research, and european medical hospitals. What an obvious place to see. When molded, whose life has greater value the white soldier or the black soldier . Do we segregate or not . The british, the french, the germans, they all had stances on this. As a result, we see a lot of fighting and racialized violence. We also get violence in european port cities, where colonial soldiers and africanamerican soldiers and white soldiers are pouring in at alarming rates and with a great sense of urgency. So in 1718, we start to get race riots namely in western france. Them immediately after the war in welsh and British Military<\/a> camps, chiefly in liverpool but as far as glasgow, where allied troops and american troops are stockpiled and waiting for the ships that could carry them home. With ports frozen, the ships cant go as quickly as possible. With influenza striking so many soldiers, we are very concerned about putting 10,000 soldiers on one ship and having so many die at sea or so many get sick on the way, which certainly happened. This concern about american contact, and to another extent, South African<\/a> content. A lot of White South Africans<\/a> and white southerners who are in europe start these riots and in the European Press<\/a> we get accounts of soldiers saying things like well, you europeans thought you were so great, and incapable of racial strife, but when you have no rules you have people that dont know their place and, hence, we have to get involved and have these riots. It is very interesting reading. And then we have all of this fighting that occurs on the very ships bringing back these veterans. In the case of canada and its black soldiers, theyre so concerned about this fiery mood that they have their black soldiers remove their uniforms while at sea. I want to say one last thing about uniforms. One of the reasons theyre encouraged to keep their uniforms for 30 to 90 days after returning is so that a grateful nation can bestow its gifts and thanks, right . And those thanks can be anything from food to sex. Words. Oze to so when we require that soldiers take away, or we rip off their uniforms, its in part to say we owe you no thanks. We want to move quickly because we want to hear your questions. It is a fight over labor, housing spaces, racial equality and civil rights. Who gets to define this democracy . And of course the time honored tradition because it works so well interracial sex, a , universal paranoia, because it also requires us to think about sexualomen and their choices, right . If she is with someone who are is not you, that means she chose, hopefully, that someone that is not you and that alone could be a contested moment. This is just a quick list, and not even a full one of the various locations where we see hawaii,in 1919 mexico, honduras. Mon factors in my research heat and migration and housing crunches. Labor union communists, something that cameron just touched, and the creation of transnational black alliances. The naacp is international. One thing i would point out, you mentioned sharecroppers. Sharecroppers are the quintessentially downtrodden class in American History<\/a>, and point where the wein is writing, why cant recruit more black people in the south to join our cause . In 1919, they would be ripped off at the cotton gins. That year, cotton prices were through the roof. They were doing fairly well, relatively. You see a lot more sharecropper families buying land, you see a lot more sharecroppers buying cars. Contention,nes of flashpoints. Do you see that black guy driving on the street in a brandnew car . I begin my book with a small riot in the middle of not even a town, just a small black church in a part of georgia, very rural to this day, and when the mob riots, they burn the the church down, they kill several people, car,hey destroy the mans it is a very important deal for them. Prof. Mathieu cars, then, like now, are the second largest expenditure that anyone will make. It is one ofclineing value. Cameron when the white mobs riot and destroy the them in thedestroy street, because they are expressions of wealth. Prof. Mathieu it is why they burn down churches. It is weather talk about bombing caravans. White people would drive through black neighborhoods, throwing bombs around, or oil and setting things ablaze. This is a map of some, just some of the places that witnessed a level of violence that warranted that ultimately made it onto the pages of local newspapers. It is estimated between 34 and 37 outright riots occurred in 1919 alone and these sites do not account for the daily micro aggressions fueled by the same kind of ire. Cameron there were a lot of lynchings that took place in the south that we will never know about. Prof. Mathieu even during the war itself. Lynchings, this is a map of lynchings lynchings, you know, just in the south, but important to remember they did not occur just in the south. Allron and they were not africanamericans. The majority was, but they were not all. Prof. Mathieu they were oftentimes jewish italian labor activities, hispanic, homosexuals, they were women, which we forget. Lynching is not the only way that people that it is made clear for a people that their lives are in danger. Banishment from downtown, etc. We have to remember that between 1917 and 1927, africanamericans are on the run for a different set of reasons. This is a short, but by no means complete, list of some of the key race riots that we get in the immediate years after the war. To august 3, this is when chicago is aflame over these race riots. Here is just an example of the chicago defenders front page. Interestingly, they could not publish the paper because they off t cameron the owner of the defender has to drive to indiana where they would publish it. Prof. Mathieu if you look at the newspaper and the dates i showed, you would get a sense that Nothing Happened<\/a>. You have to look in the middle of august to find the retelling of this rash of riots. This was international not just chicago news. This is another chicago newspaper. One of the things that i write about is how the summer of 1919 really changed the military presence in africanamerican communities. When we had a race riot in omaha, tanks and machine guns are brought in. Tanks are the emblem of world war i. Tanks are the things we associate with noman plant in france, not downtown omaha, right . I find this photo absolutely delicious and its potential. What is happening between these two guys, right . And then there is the child on the side that is like, this is juicy. He is probably a little kid selling newspapers. But nonetheless, there is the lunch room, that we know in the 1960s will become a site of civil rights protest. And who stands down . Who stands down . Here, you want to talk about chicago . Cameron i think it is the chicago riot, the Africanamerican Community<\/a> desperately wanted the militia to come in because they were bush ease besieged. Providence hospital, the leading africanamerican hospital there, was overwhelmed, and the nurses and staff were exhausted. They needed people to bring supplies and. Prof. Mathieu and it is 100 degrees. Cameron it is boiling hot. There are white gangs moving up and down the primary mentor perimeter and black gangs within it, looking for white victims. It becomes this chaotic place where they just want order restored. When the militia finally shows up, they do exactly that. They restore order quickly. At the whitends mobs and they vanish. Cameron here is a tract prof. Mathieu here is a truck delivering milk and bread in chicago and it has to be with armed guards. Cannot forget that even if that is a good military aesence, a safeguard, in broader, National Political<\/a> that sees africanamericans as a criminalized population, we forget that these weapons are not there to keep africanamericans in place but rather to protect them. These become images that represent a higher level of violence needed to put africanamericans where they belong. Cameron lets take chicago as a classic example, but it reshapes the city of chicago politics today, i would argue, but you have disheartening of neighborhoods. This is my neighborhood. This is your neighborhood. Prof. Mathieu it is balkanized. Cameron exactly, and it really hardens. That he strong belief is definitely a member of one of the gangs, but the mayor of the city of chicago, richard daley, was in the riots, participating. If anybody knows of chicago, that would not be too surprising. [laughter] prof. Mathieu so what are we as center your inner white midwesterner for a moment or any american, maybe even more so, what are we afraid of . This is what we are afraid of. This is what we are afraid of, right . Young, healthy, africanamericans we decided did not know how to use weapons before they went to europe and came back knowing, which of course they did. On other whites with the intent to kill and told them they were doing it for democracy. We are very worried that especially with bolsheviks whispering in their ears, they could quickly turned against us. That is the anxiety and rumor stone. This, a paradeke celebrating the soldiers returning in chicago, you will note the great griffins or cameron lyons. Lions. Prof. Mathieu lyons at the library, so they could take over the south. Meant to encourage africanamerican enlistment during the war. Africanamericans pointing their bayonets at white people who are afraid. This is exactly what we have to erase in the black memory. Cameron we should go to questions. I am going to read a quote from chester franklin, who was an editor at a call against the city at the time, and he wrote an article called the new negro in capital letters and wrote, we believe selfpreservation is the first law of nature this was later. Cringingthe time of is over. That really sums up the red the messageaptures of africanamerican leaders in the press over and over again, but i want to point out one other thing. Ok, so there was a black , and hest named roy writes a memoir and includes a portion of the red summer in chicago. Africanamerican who just came back from france. He does not name him, but he writes about him, and the man is on a trolley cart and he does not know about what is happening. Suddenly, a mob comes up and attacks him. And trolley cars moved on electrical lines, so all you had to do was pull the cord off, and it was dead. That is what they do. He has to run out, and a man who was coming home from work. He worked at the factory, but he is running for his life. He loses his coat and is terrified, and the crowd is word. Ing get the n and he finally escapes when he sees Kaminski Park<\/a> on the south side of the baseball stadium. He knows he has made it to the same area, and he says, that injustice of the whole thing overwhelmed me. I spent inmonths france been all in vain . What did i do to deserve such treatment . I lay there wondering what an innocent victim of a mob must feel. Those words kept ringing in my ears, and he later sees a white man in his neighborhood and he says my first impulse was to jump and beat him up because he was so angry about what had happened. Again, this was a guy who was just fighting to make the world safe for democracy. It is a fight that continues. In 1919, but by no means ends in 1919. Cameron all racial problems ended at that point. Prof. Mathieu it is all over. On that fine note, we would love to open up the floor to your questions. We are happy to stay. Cameron and afterward, if anybody wants to ask us anything, but any questions would be great. Prof. Mathieu we cannot see very well, but camille has the microphone. If you are able to come down to either microphone, or i am happy to come to you, as well. Im coming to you, michael. Thank you for this great piece of history. I have two questions, but im going to ask going out to be selfish, and im figuring out which one i would like to ask. You mentioned j. Edgar hoover, fbi, and how our organizations were scrutinized and demonized 100 years ago. Recently, it may be a year or two ago, the fbi put out a report about either black extremists, black identity politics or Something Like<\/a> that. As a historian, do you think that the black community is still being looked at that way by our government . Prof. Mathieu are you asking me . Both of you. Either. Well, sometimes you have to develop a sense of humor when you work on war and genocide as i do. Atetimes when i am looking the surveillance records, and they are not just in the United States<\/a>, the french, the british, the jamaicans, they are all very, very concerned about the movement of ideas and black bodies that incorporate these ideas, right . There is a whole set of paper work, and new language that develops in the war and even more so afterwards. Sometimes i feel like the best thing that happened to africanamerican newspapers was jay edgar hoover. Because he is so obsessed that he keeps everything that he hears. Cameron for stories anyway. Prof. Mathieu yes. His agents are constantly collecting papers and some we would not have anymore but for inir preference presence the surveillance records. I tell my students that we may well revere muhammad ali, whoolm x and romanticize these men were, but neither of them could get on a plane today if they were alive because they would be considered muslim radicals. So i think there is still a concerned and an anxiety about what black people think. And a need to explain it away, to blame, you know, to have a zenophobic concern about them. At the end of the day refuse to believe that they are africanamericans own critiques about how democracy fails them in their daily lives. I dont think that, i hope that answers your question. I dont think it is stopped or will any time soon. Cameron i would point out, also, a lot of critique in reports that i read, early on. The fbi was not official, but they were starting to create a butp under mitchell palmer, they are really bad. Their assessments in what is really happening in the streets of chicago are way off. A lot of rumors that were spread that africanamericans broke into the armory, and they had stolen 10,000 guns, and whites were murdering hundreds of people and dumping them into a creek behind the slaughterhouse, they put that into the reports and that never happened. Neither of those things happened. There is a lot of bad assessment that was not some great surveillance work. Prof. Mathieu right, sometimes it is blatant job protection. I am serious. Especially in the case of france because theyre like, i have to have a purpose. I spent the war focusing on germans and now i will take what skills i have and use them to demonize another set of people. Our next question comes from the center. You had a map up earlier, and it denoted the various parts of the south where the riots were taking place. I want to make sure that im clear. Was there any one definitive incident in all of those locations that triggered it, or was it just the overall climate that you were talking about . From 1919 . Was it just one incident . Prof. Mathieu excellent question. So i had to speed through it, and this is really where it is cams wheel house. Each place has a different kind of manifestation of its its its anxiety, if you will. Important cities, soldiers and sailors play a particular role. In the case of chicago, maybe omaha work plays a different role as a catalyst or stimulant. When in doubt, always say some white girl got some attention, because that one never fails. But anyway cameron i would say, i start my book in a small town in georgia, but, of course, there were incidents before that, but that incident gains the attention of the naacp in new york. Naacp has a giant forum on trying to push for federal lynching legislation in new york. Then in charleston, there was a big riot caused by sailors, and then again 16. Prof. Mathieu we have a pointer. Cameron oh my god. Super fancy. Prof. Mathieu hightech. Cameron is this going to work . Wow. Look at me. Charleston is really the first major urban riot. Ironically, it is the best handled. Because the naval commander and the mayor of the city immediately Work Together<\/a> to shut it down. Because the Africanamerican Community<\/a> was so vital to that city that even in the deep south, where the civil war began, they shut it down. Unfortunately, that is not repeated. So then you have incidents start to popup all over. Knoxville is a terrible one. Bisbee, arizona, is very interesting, where Buffalo Soldiers<\/a> are brought to a fourth of july parade and it becomes a shoot out when they go out drinking, and white men do not like that they are coming into their bars. To havehen you start washington, d. C. , in midjuly and chicago a week after, that is when everyone in the country is saying what the hell is going on with our country . Washington is really important internationally because you have i found german and japanese newspaper articles where they are same, this is the leading democracy in the United States<\/a>, i mean in the world . What country is having a riot outside of the white house . I found a german paper that actually said this is insane what is happening over there. And someday, they might even have a black president. It is horrific. It starts roiling the entire country, and as we point out in the beginning, newspaper after newspaper headline, banner headlines, every day, panic for everyone. Prof. Mathieu that is an important place to add two more things here. Moveds, as the riots westward, i see an uptick in the violence we see, as well. And elaine, arkansas is the worst. It is increasingly referred to kind ofrom, the violence we were seeing with jews and southern russia, and ukraine. Cameron that is in september now i did it. Prof. Mathieu too much tech. Cameron i fixed it. A lane, arkansas is really basically a massacre. Prof. Mathieu yes. Quite plainly. And part of the reason why there is that amplification is because, oh, my god, did you hear what happened in d. C. . And when a little thing happened in chicago, everybody had to get involved. Each race riot means a greater response to it, and more people in the streets. And there are accounts of people, especially here, women fighting each other off with pots and pans, right . And what do i tell my students, this not only describes a frenzied violence on the streets, but it means that grandma has taken to the street. And we know that when grandma gets involved, it is about to get messy, right . [laughter] again, this does not even really capture the full extent of that summer. I hope that answers your question, thank you. Well take our next question on the right. The map does not show anything in missouri and kansas. Is that because Nothing Happened<\/a> or because it was lowkey . Cameron i think it is safe to say there was probably tension, but there were no major race riots. Kansas city had a vocal and interesting africanamerican book, which i used for my but they did not have an. Ncident like you had in omaha why . Luck. Also, byhieu but 1919, by the fall of 1919, we start to realize that these riots are messy. They are easy fodder for our enemies, so the europeans, who could barely suffer wilson to begin with, were like, well, well, well, if it isnt mr. Democracy. Cameron kind of with them on that one, but, yeah. Prof. Mathieu cant even handle his own mess, so that is not good. We need, this idea that to shut them down quickly, and if that means bringing in the military, we will. If it means increasing the police force, we will. Because we cannot return to business. So if we look only for these little fabulous orange explosions, we miss all of the other ways of women stabbing each other on sidewalks, right . And peoples homes being bombed, ofse smallscale exercises violence fueled by the same kind of commitment. Cameron i will come back here and give a four hour lecture on why Woodrow Wilson<\/a> is a terrible president , if you want. But just two sentences. Well, more than two. He was dropped this mess across the country and he is focused on the league of nations. And this is embarrassing. But you have africanamerican leaders and others writing to him and pleading with him, you have to Say Something<\/a> and interject. I only found one speech where he makes a passing reference to these troubles that are messy and we really should not do that. While he is on the stump for league of nations, but he would not take any serious action. Our next question comes from the back. Prof. Mathieu ok. I was also really interested in this map and the list of riots. What im interested in is the language of it. When you hear the word riot, it is not clear who the good guys and bad guys are, but i was wondering, with the examples you give it sounds more like white terrorism. As opposed to a black riot or any group. Prof. Mathieu which was language used at the time, by the way. I was just kind of wondering, what really was the nature . On bothe bad people sides, or is there a terrorism or defense or uprising kind of thing . Cameron overwhelming amount of violence that summer that was antiblack violence initiated. There were many instances where blacks fought back and fought. There were no instances, that i can think of where blacks initiated violence. I think people tend to be, and then, so people tend to think of, they are different. And you bring up a good point, i think people get hung up on the terminology a lot. Well, you know, this is, i was thinking about this as i flew in here. This has been bugging me so im going to fire off a little bit about it. People want to see history often as it is hitler versus ghandi, and thats not, everybody involved in all of these things was a human being. And if youre a human being and people are marching down your street breaking windows, you might pick up brick. There were people who were in chicago who fought back. There was black gangs because you know why . Three blocks over there was white gangs, so when the trouble started, they started causing violence, too. If you are on the wrong side of that color line, you are going to get it, but at the same time, a lane arkansas was, elaine, arkansas, was, as i said, a massacre, and the lynching in mississippi was horrific. Prof. Mathieu i would say that it is even more specific. I think we miss a lot when we white and black binary. In st. Louis, it happens a little earlier, but also we see it in chicago. White women are just as involved and theyre just as violent. And theyre just as engaged in making their, leaving their stamp in this whiteblack battle. So if we look at these riots through the lens of gender, my students get very uncomfortable. That is not ladylike, i thought ladies were in the jazz clubs getting lit. But, no, they are involved. Women are very powerful in the which gets its resurgence at this time. The klan is not even the worst at this point. My favorite is the National Association<\/a> for the advancement of white people. Which is a real thing. It comes later, but it is a real thing. So women and children are involved in this fighting. Older people are involved. It is a neighborhood brawl. Often times literally in chicago. Cameron if you are gathering a mob in vicksburg, mississippi, it is going to be very different from a white mob than what you would gather in chicago. In my book i mentioned this, but they did a really precise drill down investigation of what happened in chicago unlike these other places. That theseto see gangs would include a jewish kid, an irish kid, a german kid, and they could all become white. Prof. Mathieu it was a way to integrate. Sometimes it is soldiers. Its not just one factor. And that is part of what makes these battles so complicated and at the same time so telling. Cameron but the vast majority antiblack initiated. This will be our second to last question. Prof. Mathieu ok. Andou mentioned arkansas mississippi, and some terrible things happened. I really want to know what those things were. What happened in arkansas and mississippi . Was, youwell, arkansas know, i was talking about sharecroppers and how they did relatively well that year. So the price of cotton was through the roof. So a lot of sharecroppers in various parts of the south tried to organize to create a collective where they would go to the cotton gins and say this is our price. They started to have meetings, and they would hold the meeting in arkansas in a not even real town, and white police show up and the shooting starts. And some white officers are killed. That sets off a white posse roaming the county, killing people for days. They then rounded up a bunch of africanamerican sharecroppers, beat them bloody, and had them confess to a grand conspiracy that was never really defined that they were that there was a plot to kill every white person in the county. That was challenged by the legaland others in a long suit that led to the supreme court. And those men, who were on death row after trials that lasted literally minutes, were all exonerated and let go. Prof. Mathieu who here has had the great pleasure of raising a teenager . [laughter] ok. Im in the trenches. There is nothing more cocky than a teenager who gets their first paycheck, right . Because now they think you dont have the same power over them. Because they dont need your wallet. Whether you like it or not it changes how you respond to that said teenager. , and myuseful way students who are themselves teenagers, think about how worrisome this would have been. This is when africanamericans are not allowed to challenge a white person in court. Never mind in court, in public. The fact that they were trying to gain control over the value of their labor, how bolshevik, [laughter] right . By saying, not only has cotton gone up, but we know it cant continue to go up because we no longer need cotton for uniforms and tents and cotton, et cetera, for bandages, et cetera. So we want to make money now. And what we start to see, especially in these small rural areas, i mean the Land Ownership<\/a> is real and huge but not so gigantic that it would destabilize the south economy but it doesnt take a lot to seem like it is an idea that might catch on. Im sorry, one second. In elaine, what we get is not just the africanamericans organizing as cotton farmers but they also have money. And having access to cash is very hard in the southern economy at this time. And we see that there is a success among africanamericans in the forms of buildings that when you build your church, when you add an attachment to your home and you get that other car. And what we get with just as much ferocity after world war i is an urge to erase, right, burn to the ground, these tropes of success, again squeezeing back into your place. And i tell my students pick a date and an africanamerican newspaper and there is a church going up in flames. Why . Because after you build your own house, you have money left over to give to the preacher to build a church, so we need that church to go. And why the church . Because it is where meetings were held. And often times in small towns, it is where the guns were stashed. 1963, 1964,n birmingham and other locations were attacking black churches because they had been sites of protest for over 50 years. A place for africanamericans. Cameron i did not want to miss your question regarding mississippi. I wont go into a long story but it is horrific. A man was, and i give a full chapter to it because there are many lynchings that take place that year, but that lynching was particularly horrific. All lynchings are horrific, of course, but a man was accused of sexually assaulting a white women i dont know if you have ever heard of that. That is a constant accusation that they would make, right. Well never know if it was true or not. Because he ran away as they were going to kill him, but the posse found him, shot him fatally, but then they brought a doctor in, kept him alive for 24 hours so they could lynch him and let everyone know to come to the party. And that was now in prof. Mathieu very common. Thaton but it was unique this was published in the newspaper, not there was a lynching yesterday but there will be a lynching tomorrow. Come to the lynching. To the point where the naacp sent emergency telegrams to the governor of mississippi saying you have to stop this. This is an extrajudicial killing. This man has not even been accused of a crime. And the governors response was, if you are going to rape a white woman, what are you going to do. There was no trial, let alone an accusation that was formally made in court that and they proceeded to shoot him to bits and sold pieces of his body. There were postcards made of the event. People gave speeches as we heard from the beginning. So it was really sort of this horrific public display. Our last question is on the right. Prof. Mathieu i dont mind taking both. Its up to you. We will end with this question and then you all will be available in the lobby for additional questions. Dr. Mathieu, how do you see the Cultural Climate<\/a> of the red summer impacting suffrage of africanamerican women . Prof. Mathieu prof mathieu could you repeat your question for the audience, please . Ill stall. How do you see the Cultural Climate<\/a> of the red summer impacting suffrage of africanamerican women . Prof mathieu super. Thank you for that. I think it is important for us to remember that africanamerican women, and the one who immediately comes to mind is ida b wells, were also journalists, were also sounding the alarms terms of warning africanamericans and the country about lynching and the ways in which we legitimized it or tried to by saying these were necessary responses to acts of sexual aggression against white women. Africanamerican women are during the war lynched oftentimes for defending their husbands. Great newspaper piece from, i believe, atlanta where on the one hand a woman is lynched violently, and its on the same day we were praising an africanamerican soldier Henry Johnson<\/a> for having fought off a german trench impact. The image of the worst, most violent, transgressive army, but not safe in your home trying to defend her husband. Africanamerican women who were already involved in the black church, who already understood the import of suffrage, its not like they come around at the end to the idea that women need a voice in the polity. They too had been fighting for that voice. They had been Building Networks<\/a> and alliances that allowed them to articulate their political concerns. Africanamerican women are involved in prohibition. Dubois is a teetotaler. Had a drink every once in a while. Prof mathieu that is a teetotaler. [laughter] i am absolutely a hypocritical meat eater. If there is no bone, i am in there. If theres a bone, im like, ah. There were all these ways black women had been rallying for the lives of their loved ones, and understanding the ballot box is as important a space. Zezn author, i enjoy david elsky. He writes a chapter about Abraham Galloway<\/a>, who is this fabulous character, but Abraham Galloway<\/a> talks about how he learned civil rights from his black grandmother who as a child would march him down to the voting booth in charleston, and she would pack a gun in her purse to let him know you need to fight for your right to protect your rights. The right to vote is an Important Pillar<\/a> of reconstruction ideology for africanamericans, but it works hand in hand with the gun, with education, with the church. Armed resistance is always talked about with africanamericans as a kind of point where africanamericans get angry in the 1960s and start burning shit down. In actuality, why we need to have discussion about nonviolence as a legitimate option is because armed resistance was a perfectly in 1919, wen, and see this with these veterans coming back and making a claim for themselves as citizen soldiers who are prepared not only to defend their immediate lives, but also those of their communities. D. C. , in omaha, we get these reports, sometimes exaggerated, but oftentimes true of africanamerican soldiers setting up a perimeter on the roofs of buildings to defend their communities, no differently from where they would have needed to along any point on the western front. Mr. Mcwhirter sort of tear point, we talked about a lot of horrific things that happened, but the ultimate answer was africanamericans werent going to be stuffed back into that south,in the rural certainly not in the cities of chicago and washington. It didnt work. For men and women, africanamerican men and women, things had a forever changed. Right after, here comes the harlem renaissance, which women youicipated in, and unit see they are not going back to their station. Prof mathieu we forget that africanamerican women were the ones who rode wrote in to African American<\/a> newspapers. When you look at black newspapers, they are always like local news, so they are the ones reporting what they are seeing from the window. They are the one saying, i lost my good pan on the head of this kid who thought he could burn my house. It is the voices we see through these newspapers and even if they are overlooked as women. They could not have worked. Madam cj walker uses much of her fortune to support precisely the kind of work, including suffrage, that you asked about. Thank you for being with us this evening. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National<\/a> cable satellite corp. 2017] this is American History<\/a> tv on cspan3 where each weekend we feature 48 hours of programs exploring our nations past. Watch the full program this sunday at 6 00 p. M. Eastern, 3 00 p. M. Pacific here on American History<\/a> tv. Over here, we have the recognition of eisenhower as supreme allied commander. By asculpture is inspired famous photo that was taken on the people of dday. Thenhower is speaking to 101st airborne. He chose that group to speak to because it was anticipated they could have a 70 or higher casualty rate. He went out there. He found some of the 101st airborne. The story goes he wanted to know if anyone was from kansas. Soldiers these soldiers do not represent any particular people, but some of the original soldiers in the group say he is holding his hand that way because he was talking about flyfishing. It may be true. It might not be true, but that is the story. You will notice these paratroopers, all the gear they have with them when they jumped had to be strapped to their bodies, so you will see straps going around, and some of them hold ammunition. Some of them hold the things they need to survive because they were being dropped behind the lines. There is eisenhower with the very famous eisenhower jacket, which was that shorter cut off at the waist. The other thing i want you to look at is how young some of these soldiers are. The two on the outside of this grouping of four look very young, and its a reminder that these soldiers that were going on the invasion the next day, a lot of them were just kids, so that is reflected here in this sculpture. Our history is told in many different ways in america, and one of the ways it is told is through memorials and monuments, particularly in washington, d. C. We have an Educational Program<\/a> that will be on the National Park<\/a> service website, that will be hosted by the Eisenhower Foundation<\/a> in kansas. We will have a lot of teaching resources. If you look over here, you say, who are those guys, and what is that giant stainless steel thing . You come over here and listen to the audio tours, and you go away and you learn about a guy that came from abilene, kansas. His family wasnt well known. His family wasnt rich. He figured out how to get a College Education<\/a> by going to west point and went on to serve his country for the rest of his life until he retired after he retired from the presidency in 1960. Its a great story. Its an american story. This sunday on american artifacts, we see the new frank kerry designed park and memorial to the 34th president dwight david eisenhower, which occupies a location near the u. S. Capitol and the smithsonians air and space museum. Heres a preview. F. Kennan, george best known for his strategy towards the soviet union during the cold war, kept journals covering 88 years. And on American History<\/a> tv, historian historian Frank Costigliola<\/a> talks about his book the kennan diaries. Mr","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"archive.org","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","width":"800","height":"600","url":"\/\/ia803202.us.archive.org\/16\/items\/CSPAN3_20200912_171500_1919_Red_Summer__Racial_Unrest\/CSPAN3_20200912_171500_1919_Red_Summer__Racial_Unrest.thumbs\/CSPAN3_20200912_171500_1919_Red_Summer__Racial_Unrest_000001.jpg"}},"autauthor":{"@type":"Organization"},"author":{"sameAs":"archive.org","name":"archive.org"}}],"coverageEndTime":"20240716T12:35:10+00:00"}