People, Locations, Episodes

The Great Migration (s) in America, a story

*The American Great Migration is affirmed on this date in 1916. Sometimes referred to as the Great Northward Migration or the Black Migration, this event unfolded in two distinct chapters.  The first Great Migration (1916–1940) saw approximately 1.6 million people move from predominantly rural areas in the South to northern industrial cities. The Second Great […]

Odell Waller, Sharecropper born

*The birth of Odell Waller is celebrated on this date in 1917. He was a Black sharecropper, executed for the fatal shooting of his white landlord. Odell Waller was born in Gretna, Virginia, to Dollie Jones and an unknown father, who died shortly after his birth. Jones gave the boy to her sister Annie Waller and […]

The East Saint Louis Race Riot Occurs

*The East Saint Louis Race Riot occurred on this date in 1917. This bloody outbreak of violence in East St. Louis, Ill., stemmed specifically from the employment of Black workers in a factory holding government contracts. It was the worst of many incidents of American racial hostility during World War I that were directed toward […]

The NAACP Stages a Silent Lynching Protest of America’s ‘Red Summers of Hate’

*On this date 1917, the NAACP staged its first silent protest rally against lynching. Nearly fifteen thousand African Americans marched down Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue demonstrating their support for a government stoppage of lynching, race riots, and the denial of rights.

Black Soldiers Fight Jim Crow in Houston

On this date in 1917 Black soldiers in Houston, TX, retaliated against white racism.

The hostile racial climate in Houston after Reconstruction was a constant reminder to Blacks of their second-class citizenship. When a battalion of the 24th Infantry arrived there, the soldiers resented the racial epithets of whites working on a nearby National Guard camp, the segregation on local streetcar lines, and the violence the police used against them. Many of the older, more steady, noncommissioned black officers had been reassigned elsewhere as the country prepared for World War I.

The First Black West Point Officers Graduate

On this date in 1917, the first Black enlistees from West Point graduated from military duty at Fort Des Moines, Iowa.

Buchanan v. Warley is Ruled

On this date in 1917, the U.S. Supreme Court conceded that states cannot restrict and officially segregate African Americans in residential districts.

The decisions (Buchanan v Warley) struck down a (then) Louisville, Ky., ordinance requiring blacks & whites to live in separate areas.

The Home Guards of Minnesota is Formed

*On this date, 1918, the Minnesota Home Guard was formed. This was formed in St. Paul, Minnesota, in two all-Black Sixteenth Battalion Companies, A and B, and C and D. These Black men, led by Cap Wigington, met at the old state capitol building. Wigington became captain of Company A. Orrington C and gave an address after […]

The Pan-African Congresses, a story

*This date in 1919 marks the start of the Pan-African Congresses, a series of eight meetings from 1919 to 2014 that addressed the issues facing Africa after the Berlin Conference. The Pan-African Congress was a peacemaker. One of the group’s significant demands was to end colonial rule and racial discrimination. It stood against imperialism, and it […]

Issac Woodard Jr., Soldier and Hate Crime Victim born.

*Isaac Woodard Jr. was born on this date in 1919. He was a decorated Black World War II veteran and hate crime victim. Woodard was born in Fairfield County, South Carolina, and grew up in Goldsboro, North Carolina. He attended local segregated schools, often underfunded for Blacks during the Jim Crow years. On October 14, 1942, the 23-year-old Woodard enlisted in the U.S. Army […]

The National Conference on Lynching Convenes

*On this date in 1919, the National Conference on Lynching took place in Carnegie Hall, New York City. The two-day conference aimed to pressure Congress to pass the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill. It was a project of the new NAACP, which released a report, Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889-1918. The Keynote speaker […]

The Longview Race Riot, a story

*The Longview race riot occurred on this date in 1919. This was a weak episode of violent incidents in Longview, Texas. From July 10 to July 17, whites attacked Black areas of town, killed one Black man, and burned down several properties, including the houses of a black teacher and a doctor. It was one […]

The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 Occurs

*On this date in 1919, the Chicago Race Riot occurred.  This was a week-long violent American racial conflict provoked by Whites against Blacks.    It began on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, on August 3, 1919.  During the riot, thirty-eight people died (23 black and 15 white). Over the week, injuries attributed to the episodic confrontations stood at 537, with two-thirds of the injured […]

The Omaha Race Riot Occurs, (image may not be suitable for children)

*The Omaha race riot occurred on this date in 1919. This was a race riot episode in Omaha, Nebraska. It resulted in the lynching of Will Brown, a Black citizen, and the death of two white rioters. Three weeks before the riot, federal investigators had noted that “a clash was imminent owing to ill-feeling between […]

A Race Riot in Elaine, Arkansas Occurs

*On this date in 1919 a Race Riot broke out in Elaine, Arkansas in Phillips County between Blacks and whites.

At the time many African American sharecroppers had not received their share of wages and they wanted to join the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America. Also, the early years of the twentieth century were the time of “Red Summers,” violent years after reconstruction.