BHM - African Americans in Times of War:
African Americans were indeed
forced to fight, quite literally, for their survival following the war. James
Weldon Johnson characterized the bloody summer of 1919 as the Red Summer. Fears
of labor unrest, "bolshevism" stemming from the Russian Revolution of
1917, and the return of black soldiers spawned a nationwide surge in violence,
much of it directed at African Americans. Race riots erupted in several cities,
the most significant occurring in Washington, D.C., and Chicago. In October
1919, whites in Elaine, Arkansas, massacred hundreds of black people in
response to the efforts of sharecroppers to organize themselves. In the South,
the number of reported lynchings swelled from sixty-four in 1918 to
eighty-three in 1919. At least eleven of these victims were returned soldiers.
For African Americans, the end of the war brought anything but peace.
How African Americans responded to the postwar resurgence of
white supremacy reflected the depths to which the aspirations of the war and
expectations for democracy shaped their racial and political consciousness. The
war radicalized many African Americans and deepened a commitment to combat
white racial violence. At the same time, the contributions of the soldiers, as
well as peoples of African descent more broadly, to the war effort swelled
racial pride. Marcus Garvey tapped into this social, political, and cultural
milieu. A native of Jamaica, Garvey brought his new organization, the Universal
Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), to New York and soon attracted thousands
of followers. The UNIA, predicated upon the principles of Black Nationalism and
African diasporic unity, quickly became the most dominant mass movement of the
postwar era. A host of other radical organizations and newspapers complemented
the UNIA and signaled the arrival of the "New Negro." World War I
represents a turning point in African American history, one that shaped the
course of the black experience in the twentieth century.
#BlackHistoryMonthHHC #Sheshereforit
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