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Check out various forms of peaceful protest from around the world with this database.

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Home | Global Nonviolent Action Database

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The Global Nonviolent Action Database provides free access to information about hundreds of cases of nonviolent action, from all continents and most countries, for learning and for citizen action. The database is a project of Swarthmore College. Learn more about the database.

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1964
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference organized a "wade in" to protest the segregation at public pools and beaches across Florida, drawing national attention to "barbaric racism".

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Database Narrative

In a time that many considered the "post-Jim Crow" era, racial segregation of unequal public facilities remained the norm throughout Florida. First expressed in the Fort Lauderdale Daily News in 1927, African American communities were unhappy with being constrained to a single "colored leisure beach"; an uninhabited and inconvenient strip of land that was inferior to the "white beaches". It was not until 1945 that African American leaders in Dade County began to plan action to challenge and draw attention to this injustice.

Under the Urban League of Greater Miami, Negro Service Council members Lawson Thomas and Ira P. Davis came up with the idea to put a spin on the popular civil rights lunch counter sit-ins that had drawn national attention. In order to gain access to swimming facilities, they proposed nonviolent "wade-ins" at Florida white beaches and pools, starting with Baker's Haulover Beach. African Americans would simply enter and enjoy the public waters just as the white beachgoers did. They reasoned that if "waders" were arrested, the issue would be acknowledged by authorities, and they could finally challenge the segregation in court.

In Fort Lauderdale, the Negro Professional and Business Men's League also began its attempt to make the concern over lack of public beaches a recognized issue. On 14 May, 1946, leaders brought a petition requesting "a public bathing beach for colored people" to the Broward County Commission. An integrated beach was desired, but they knew this proposal would be perceived as too radical.The county appointed a committee to work on the issue, but little came of the matter. The City of Fort Lauderdale tried again to address the request in 1949, similarly ending in disappointment.

The first act of support came in 1952 when the Fort Lauderdale Hotel Association publically supported the campaign for an African American recreational beach. The next year, the single existing "colored beach" was bought by developers and turned into the Galt Ocean Mile, leaving African Americans without any beach options. Broward County finally responded by purchasing a strip of land in the Everglades for African American use. To the activists' dismay, there was no road to this isolated beach and people had to take long and unreliable ferry trips just to access it. There were no facilities, tables, shelter, or bathrooms constructed.

On 3 October, 1955, 100 African American Floridians finally responded to the lack of action by piling into cars to Lido Beach to stage wade-ins. The city of Sarasota first responded without violence by placing "no parking" signs to turn around the caravans and by simply closing parks altogether. The county even built a "colored swimming pool" to appeal to waders, but wade-ins continued.

By September of 1960, the wade-ins started gaining attention. Via a NAACP-filed lawsuit, a US federal court reiterated that Miami's black residents should be allowed to use public swimming facilities. However, de facto-segregation persisted as police did not enforce the court order and facility owners continued to discriminate.

In the summer of 1961, local NAACP leaders Dr. Von Mizell and Eula Johnson organized frequent wade-ins on Fort Lauderdale beaches. Participants of all ages were recruited to join the campaign, where they were met at the beaches by a threatening police force, ax-wielding KKK members, and white beach-goers catcalling and holding weapons. Physical violence, however, did not occur.

The city filed a lawsuit against the NAACP, and police arrested black waders for "disturbing the peace" and "inciting chaos." The NAACP sent its best lawyers and advocates, and by 1962, a state judge ruled against white-exclusive beaches.

On 17 June, 1964, the campaign had reached St. Augustine. A successful two-hour long wade-in by 35 people drew attention and garnered some black and white support. On June 24th, however, white beachgoers did not allow waders to reach the water by physically blockading the shore. Due to the court-ordered desegregation, the police had no choice but to protect the black activists from the threat of violence by the white crowd, but they did not aid them in reaching their objective. That night, white groups, such as the National States Rights Party, conducted anti-black speeches, and 300 whites marched to protest integrating the beaches.

The next day, African Americans in St. Augustine famously planned to "beat the heat and segregation" by entering Monson Motor Lodge; an "integration testing ground" for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As black swimmers enjoyed the pool, the hotel manager poured a bottle of acid into the water and an off-duty policeman eventually jumped into the pool to beat the noncooperative swimmers. The swimmers were arrested but photos of the injustice began to circulate around the world, infuriating many as a symbol of "barbaric racism." The local Grand Jury asked Dr. King to leave St. Augustine.

On 22 June, police arrested 22 waders. State Senator Verle Pope offered himself as a mediator to a biracial committee to address the tensions. He was deemed by some an ally to the African American community, and local whites smashed the windows to his office. A Danish photographer who recorded the wade-ins was also brutally beaten.

In the most violent incident on 25 June, whites, including police, attacked 75 people during a wade-in. Later that night, 500 white people attacked demonstrators in St. Augustine, including SCLC leader C.T. Vivian, and hospitalized 19 people, many of whom were in severe condition.

In 1964, the Civil Rights Act was passed largely as a result of the Civil Rights Movement and the many campaigns it encompassed. Attempts to uphold segregation were more seriously criminalized under the Act, so facility owners and police could no longer promote segregation. It became possible for public swimming facilities throughout Florida and the country to finally be utilized fairly by African Americans.

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Florida wade-ins to end racial segregation of public beach and pools (Civil Rights Movement) 1945-1964

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Database Narrative In a time that many considered the "post-Jim Crow" era, racial segregation of unequal public facilities remained the norm throughout Florida. First expressed in the Fort Lauderdale Daily News in 1927, African American communities were unhappy with being constrained to a single "colored leisure beach"; an uninhabited and inconvenient strip of land that was inferior to the "white beaches".

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1957-1961
Black shoppers boycotted White businesses to protest gerrymandering and voting restrictions, causing 100 White businesses to close and invigorating Black businesses in the area.

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Database Narrative

In 1957, in an effort to frustrate increasing black voter registration and the threat of losing a white voter majority, Alabama state senator Sam Engelhardt sponsored Act 140, which proposed to transform the Tuskegee City boundaries from a square into a twenty-eight sided shape resembling a "seahorse" that included every single one of the 600 white voters and excluded all but 5 of the 400 black voters.

Engelhardt, a plantation owner and executive secretary of the Alabama Association of White Citizens Councils, explained, "The folks up there feel like I do. Civil rights legislation is going to pass the United States Senate either this year or the next and we're going to be prepared for it. We couldn't stand seeing a Negro in the Alabama Legislature."

For years, Alabama had quite successfully discouraged and thwarted black voter registration, but with new civil rights legislation threatening to make disenfranchisement more difficult, the Alabama legislature decided to deliver a preemptory assault on black self-determination. Despite appeals by prominent African-American community members to the City Council, the County Commission, the Alabama Legislature's Committee on Local Legislation, and even a direct appeal to the voters in an open letter in the Montgomery Advertiser, on June 14 the Senate unanimously approved the bill, and on June 21 the House followed suit with an 80-0 vote.

In a city where the black population was more than quadruple the white population (5,397 to 1,310), Frank Oalin, a local paint store manager and city council member, insisted "It's a matter of self-preservation; Negroes were about to out-vote us and take over control of the city." Senator Englehardt proudly boasted, "I gerrymandered those niggers right out of town...If that civil rights commission comes down here and forces mass registration of unqualified Negroes, there'll be bloodshed. Why, we'd have niggers in office. Can you imagine being arrested by a nigger sheriff?"

In fact, though, the educational level of Macon County blacks exceeded whites because of the influence of the Tuskegee Institute, and the Chicago Daily Tribune went as far as saying that "Any educational test for voting, no matter how rigorous, if fairly applied, would probably result in the enfranchising of more Negroes than whites in (Macon) County."

According to Charles G. Gomillion, a dean at the Tuskegee Institute and president of the Tuskegee Civic Association (TCA), this was the "straw that broke the camel's back." Already frustrated by the Macon County Board of Registrar's failure to register black voters, Gomillion and several other black leaders decided to initiate a merchant boycott. Just four days after the House vote, 3,000 blacks gathered at Butler Chapel AME Zion Church to join the "Crusade for Citizenship" and listen to Gomillion urge a "Trade with Friends" boycott of local white merchants. He vowed, "We are going to buy goods and services from those who help us, from those who make no effort to hinder us, from those who recognize us as first-class citizens" and not "with those who would seek to devour us."

The next week, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., came to show his support for the boycott by speaking to 2,000 blacks at the Washington Chapel AME Zion Church, stating, "You are not seeking to put the stores out of business but to put justice into business."

"If white citizens here feel Negroes shouldn't vote, then Negro citizens feel their money should not be spent with these folks. We prefer to spend our money with people who might help us, or who at least are in a poorer position to hurt us directly, white people in Montgomery, for instance," Gomillion asserted. Similarly, Dr. E.H. Foster, president of the Tuskegee Institute, judged "Now that they don't want us in the city of Tuskegee, I have no reason to trade there."

Within weeks the boycott had plunged local sales by more than 75% and put the gerrymandering case in the national spotlight, Consequently, Alabama officials began an effort to suppress it. By the end of July, state attorney-general and future governor John Patterson led multiple raids against offices of the Tuskegee Civic Association in an effort to discourage the boycott.

On July 29, Patterson warned blacks against violating Alabama's antiboycott law. By August 16, Patterson succeeded in obtaining an injunction against Gomillion and the TCA, after having secured an injunction banning the NAACP from operating in Alabama the previous year.

Gomillion appreciated the irony: "If we stay away from their churches, schools, and playgrounds, we are wise and understanding Negroes. But if we stay away from their stores, we are criminals...If they did not want our vote, why should they have our money?"

Despite the injunction, the boycott continued. By the end of 1957 over 100 white businesses were forced to close their doors and many other businesses and dealerships were reporting drop-offs of 40, 50, and even 60 percent in sales.

In spite of the economic turmoil caused by the boycott, the Tuskegee City Council unanimously voted to deny a petition signed by over 700 blacks, which requested that the city re-annex the territory removed from its limits by Act 140. In addition, Senator Englehardt continued his self-proclaimed crusade to "split Negro political power" by proposing a constitutional amendment which would enable the legislature to "abolish Macon County," which was 84% black (25,771 blacks to 4,677 whites), in order to dilute the black population amongst the surrounding, predominately white counties.

On December 17, the amendment was approved by Alabamians 58,824-40,710, with the New York Times reporting that "Advocates of the change said it was necessary to prevent Negro control of the county government in view of Federal civil rights legislation to use national authority to guarantee voting rights" while the TCA alleged that the "proposal was a device to 'maintain an undemocratic system of social relationships, a system which cannot be justified morally or politically.'"

As the months wore on, the TCA continued to hold weekly mass meetings of 1,000-2,000 people at various Negro churches in order "to keep up the spirit of resistance." Then, in June 1958, an Alabama judge struck down the injunction against the TCA, noting that Americans have a right to trade with whom they choose and ruling that Attorney General Patterson had failed to substantiate his charges of coercion and intimidation against the organization.

Two months later, on August 4, Gomillion and twelve other disenfranchised black voters filed a federal suit against Tuskegee Mayor Phil Lightfoot and the City Council contending that Act 140 violated black voters' constitutional protections.

By the end of 1959, participation in the boycott had dropped noticeably, but on February 27, 1960, 400 students at the Tuskegee Institute reinvigorated the campaign with a peaceful march in downtown Tuskegee, followed by a meeting two nights later deciding to tighten the boycott to make it "100 per cent effective."

Then, on November 14, 1960, after several lower courts ruled that issues regarding gerrymandering did not fall within the judiciary's purview, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Gomillion v. Lightfoot was entitled to a full trial to determine if the gerrymandering had the effect of disenfranchising black voters. Eight justices found that such an effect violated the Fifteenth Amendment, (Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.), and one, voting in concurrence, found it violated the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause.

On February 17, 1961, Federal Judge Frank M. Johnson ruled that Act 140 did have the effect of disenfranchising black voters and was thus unconstitutional and issued an order prohibiting officials from enforcing the act. Several weeks later, Judge Johnson delivered another sweeping victory for Macon County blacks by ruling that the Board of Registrars was actively and deliberately obstructing black voter registration, and ordered an overhaul of the registrars' operating procedures.

With these victories the four-year boycott on Tuskegee merchants came to an end.

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Black citizens boycott white merchants for U.S. voting rights, Tuskegee, Alabama, 1957-1961

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Database Narrative In 1957, in an effort to frustrate increasing black voter registration and the threat of losing a white voter majority, Alabama state senator Sam Engelhardt sponsored Act 140, which proposed to transform the Tuskegee City boundaries from a square into a twenty-eight sided shape resembling a "seahorse" that included every single one of the 600 white voters and excluded all but 5 of the 400 black voters.

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1966
The "March Against Fear" terminus.

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1966
James Meredith led a march from Memphis TN to Jackson, MS to inspire Black residents to register to vote and to protest segregation and oppression. Despite being shot on the second day, Mr. Meredith recovered and finished the march with hundreds of members of civil rights organizations.

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The Bob Fitch Photography Archive - Spotlight at Stanford

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On June 7th, 1966, James Meredith, who had integrated the University of Mississippi in 1962, began the March Against Fear; an attempt to walk from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi, to promote black voter registration and defy entrenched racism. On the second day of the march Meredith was shot by an unknown gunman. Within hours, the nation's three principal civil rights organizations vowed to continue the march -- The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). The three week march struggled with death threats, arrests, and tear gas, as well as internal tensions including leadership, routing, and use of the slogan "Black Power." James Meredith, sufficiently recovered, was able to rejoin the march by its conclusion in Jackson. SCLC's staff photographer Bob Fitch photographed the march, creating numerous enduring images including the triumphant voter registration of born-in-slavery 106-year-old El Fondren, moments of camaraderie and debate, and Stokely Carmichael's dramatic declaration that would captivate the globe, "Black Power."

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On June 7th, 1966, James Meredith, who had integrated the University of Mississippi in 1962, began the March Against Fear; an attempt to walk from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi, to promote black voter registration and defy entrenched racism. On the second day of the march Meredith was shot by an unknown gunman.

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1805
Enslaved people on the Chatham Plantation successfully staged a revolt against the overseer, who had threatened to cut their Christmas holiday short by ordering them back to work in the fields. Several decades later, enslaved people took up arms against the Confederacy when the Union Army liberated Fredericksburg.

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The winter holidays were a time when slaves often experienced a limited amount of autonomy
NPS Photo

Very few records survive to tell us about the lives and conditions of the enslaved people at Chatham. When William and Ann Fitzhugh ordered the construction of their sumptuous home, they certainly relied on slave labor to accomplish this project. On October 5 th, 1769 the Virginia Gazette advertised that William Hanover, a "good house carpenter and joiner" ran away from the Fitzhugh plantation on September 17 th. The notice speculated that William would seek to rejoin his wife on another plantation and promised a reward for his capture. It is not known if William Hanover was ever captured again.

Enslaved people were tasked with a wide variety of jobs on the plantation at Chatham. They tended the farm fields, ran the house and performed more specialized work like blacksmithing or carpentry. One enslaved man, Gerard, even served as William Fitzhugh's jockey and horse groom. The property included slave quarters for fifty people, as well as a mill, ferry, fishery and quarry. In a later advertisement, Fitzhugh boasted that his slaves were "for the number as likely and as valuable a set of Negroes as any in Virginia."

William Fitzhugh decided to sell Chatham in 1797 and advertised the property, and enslaved people along with it. In an effort to liquidate his land assets, Fitzhugh promised slave families to assist a new proprietor in cultivating the land. "The subscriber...offers for sale the following Land and Negroes, at prices so reduced as to claim the attention of persons wishing to invest money in such property...about two hundred and thirty Negroes, of different ages, sizes and description. A sale of them by families will be preferred; to effect this they will be offered at a reduced price." Though it took Fitzhugh nine years to sell Chatham, he moved away to Alexandria, leaving his slaves behind to continue cultivating the land. Enslaved people were gradually sold off over the succeeding years. Fitzhugh remarked in a letter to a friend that the process of liquidating his assets was difficult and strenuous. "At present I am a slave, nay worse than a slave, for I labour with my Body and my mind is continually harass'd..."

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Chatham Slave Revolt - Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park (U.S. National Park Service)

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Very few records survive to tell us about the lives and conditions of the enslaved people at Chatham. When William and Ann Fitzhugh ordered the construction of their sumptuous home, they certainly relied on slave labor to accomplish this project.

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1909
Black leaders and descendants of famous abolitionists formed this organization—which has worked for racial justice and civil rights ever since—on the centennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth.

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The mission of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination.

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Wilma Rudolph, an Olympic gold medalist, refused to participate in a segregated event to celebrate her accomplishments. Her hometown eventually threw a parade and banquet in her honor—the first integrated event in town history.

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When NFL players, coaches, and owners took a knee during the national anthem Sept. 24, it ignited a nationwide discussion about the role of athletes in standing up for racial justice. Since then, teams and players have continued taking a knee during the national anthem. And the Seattle Seahawks have taken the symbolic act one step further by launching the Seahawks Players Equality & Justice for All Action Fund.

But this is hardly the first time the sports and political arenas have become intertwined.

There are many less well-known examples in the history of sports when individuals and groups stood up against racism.

"Sports has always been an important platform in which America's ugly racial history has been challenged and where African-Americans have fought for full recognition and respect," said Dr. Mark Naison, a History and African American Studies professor at Fordham University.

Most people remember Jackie Robinson shattering major league baseball's color barrier and John Carlos and Tommie Smith delivering a Black power salute at the 1968 Olympics. These are often heralded as moments in sports when athletes added a prominent voice to the fight for civil rights and racial justice.

But there are many lesser-known examples in the history of sports when individuals and groups stood up against racism.

Here are four of those moments.

NBA Star Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf Protests the Anthem in 1996

"What Colin Kaepernick is experiencing is nothing new," Naison said. "Anytime you speak out if you're Black, any time you're a pioneer, you're going to catch hell."

That was certainly the case with Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, whose national anthem protests more than 20 years ago received media and professional backlash much like Kaepernick is experiencing today.

Not much has changed since Abdul-Rauf's days as a high-scoring point guard with the NBA's Denver Nuggets. In a recent summer hoops tournament for retired stars, he showed he still possesses his patented quick release and sweet jump-shot. And at that tournament, during the national anthem, Abdul-Rauf stood, palms up, in silent prayer for the oppressed poor and people of color in America, just as he did as a NBA star in 1996.

"My beliefs are more important than anything."

Then, Abdul-Rauf sat while the "Star Spangled Banner" played, causing the NBA to swiftly issue him a two-game suspension and stirring a national debate at that time. Abdul-Rauf said the American flag was a symbol of global "tyranny and oppression" that, therefore, didn't represent his Islamic beliefs.

Abdul-Rauf continued to face enormous backlash when in subsequent games to he chose to stand and pray to Allah during the anthem. But he did not waver.

"My beliefs are more important than anything," said Abdul-Rauf at the time. "If I have to give up basketball, I will." Shortly after being reinstated Abdul-Rauf was traded away from the Denver Nuggets to the Sacramento Kings where he received significantly less playing time and then, unable to secure another playing contract, was effectively blackballed from the NBA.

Black Newspapers: The Unsung Heroes in the Jackie Robinson Story

Today, statues of Jackie Robinson outside baseball fields in Los Angeles and Brooklyn honor the Hall of Fame career of the first African-American to play major league baseball.

But Robinson didn't do it alone. Black newspaper editors helped pave the way for Robinson and the integration of the major leagues.

John Sengstacke, the managing editor at the Chicago Defender in 1943, called the ban against Blacks in organized baseball "neither wise nor practical" during a face to face meeting with the major league commissioner. He went on to criticize the "un-American, undemocratic implications which the gentlemen's agreement imposed upon the face of this country."

And in 1938, Wendell Smith dedicated his column in the Pittsburgh Courier-Journal to chiding Black consumers for upholding the "institution that places a bold 'not welcome' sign over its thriving portal" each time they attended major league games.

According to Naison, a major part of the newspapers' strategies to integrate baseball was to conduct interviews with White players after they played unorganized exhibition games against Black clubs, asking them to assess the talent level of Black players.

In 1935, White MLB star Dizzy Dean told the Courier-Journal that if "big leaguers believed that they were better than the best Negro players they had another thing coming."

"It all began in the mid 1930s with campaigns by these newspapers [...] that finally [succeeded when Robinson broke the barrier] in 1947," Naison said. "Jackie Robinson's entry was after 10 years of agitation."

Serena Williams at Indian Wells

Serena Williams recently won her 23rd Grand Slam at the Australian Open, the most wins of any tennis player ever. It's one reason why ESPN and The New Yorker have called Williams the greatest professional athlete of all time.

But before reaching this height, Williams competed in her first major tournament at Indian Wells, California, in 1999 in front of a hostile White audience.

"I looked up and all I could see was a sea of rich people-mostly older, mostly white-standing and booing lustily, like some kind of genteel lynch mob," recounts Williams in her biography. "I don't mean to use such inflammatory language to describe the scene, but that's really how it seemed."

Williams has faced oppression as a Black woman in a majority White sport.

After her winning match against Steffi Graf at Indian Wells, Williams promised to boycott the tournament, and for 14 years she didn't return.

Since then, Williams has faced oppression as a Black woman in a majority White sport. But she has shrugged off lewd comments about her body shape and her curves with grace, class, and fierce determination.

In 2015, Williams returned to Indian Wells, to the surprise of the tennis world, and she used the event to raise funds and media attention for the Equal Justice Initiative, which works to end racism in the criminal justice system.

"Galvanizing forces around recent police killings [of unarmed Black men and women] likely increased Serena's want to speak out," said Dr. Amira Rose Davis, an assistant professor of history at Pennsylvania State University. "She's outspoken about not remaining silent in those moments."

Olympian Wilma Rudolph Faces Jim Crow America

An African American woman, Wilma Rudolph, overcame childhood diseases including polio and left leg paralysis to become widely known as "the fastest woman in the world." At the 1960 Olympics, Rudolph won the 100- and 200-meter races and helped the U.S. win the 4 x 100-meter relay.

"Because of the Cold War it became very important to show sporting strength in the '50s and '60s, and it gave women like Wilma Rudolph platforms to be seen across the country and the world," Davis said.

Rudolph returned to the United States after her successful Olympic performance as a national heroine and a celebrity. But this did not exempt her from suffering the racism in her segregated hometown of Clarksville, Tennessee. On June 13, 1963, Jet Magazine published the headline, "Hometown Eatery Jerks Welcome Mat from Wilma." Shoney's, a local restaurant, had refused to serve Rudolph.

So Rudolph and members of the Citizens Committee on Local Affairs began a month-long demonstration against the restaurant's segregation.

When Tennessee Gov. Buford Ellington, a devout segregationist, planned Rudolph's welcome home parade, she refused to attend the segregated event. Later, her hometown threw a parade and banquet in her honor. It was the first integrated event to be held in the town.

This article was funded in part by the Surdna Foundation.

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Before the NFL Took a Knee: 4 Lesser-Known Moments of Resistance in Sports History - YES! Magazine

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When NFL players, coaches, and owners took a knee during the national anthem Sept. 24, it ignited a nationwide discussion about the role of athletes in standing up for racial justice. Since then, teams and players have continued taking a knee during the national anthem.

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Serena Williams courageously played in her first tennis tournament in front of a loud, unwelcoming crowd of mostly affluent White people.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
When NFL players, coaches, and owners took a knee during the national anthem Sept. 24, it ignited a nationwide discussion about the role of athletes in standing up for racial justice. Since then, teams and players have continued taking a knee during the national anthem. And the Seattle Seahawks have taken the symbolic act one step further by launching the Seahawks Players Equality & Justice for All Action Fund.

But this is hardly the first time the sports and political arenas have become intertwined.

There are many less well-known examples in the history of sports when individuals and groups stood up against racism.

"Sports has always been an important platform in which America's ugly racial history has been challenged and where African-Americans have fought for full recognition and respect," said Dr. Mark Naison, a History and African American Studies professor at Fordham University.

Most people remember Jackie Robinson shattering major league baseball's color barrier and John Carlos and Tommie Smith delivering a Black power salute at the 1968 Olympics. These are often heralded as moments in sports when athletes added a prominent voice to the fight for civil rights and racial justice.

But there are many lesser-known examples in the history of sports when individuals and groups stood up against racism.

Here are four of those moments.

NBA Star Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf Protests the Anthem in 1996

"What Colin Kaepernick is experiencing is nothing new," Naison said. "Anytime you speak out if you're Black, any time you're a pioneer, you're going to catch hell."

That was certainly the case with Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, whose national anthem protests more than 20 years ago received media and professional backlash much like Kaepernick is experiencing today.

Not much has changed since Abdul-Rauf's days as a high-scoring point guard with the NBA's Denver Nuggets. In a recent summer hoops tournament for retired stars, he showed he still possesses his patented quick release and sweet jump-shot. And at that tournament, during the national anthem, Abdul-Rauf stood, palms up, in silent prayer for the oppressed poor and people of color in America, just as he did as a NBA star in 1996.

"My beliefs are more important than anything."

Then, Abdul-Rauf sat while the "Star Spangled Banner" played, causing the NBA to swiftly issue him a two-game suspension and stirring a national debate at that time. Abdul-Rauf said the American flag was a symbol of global "tyranny and oppression" that, therefore, didn't represent his Islamic beliefs.

Abdul-Rauf continued to face enormous backlash when in subsequent games to he chose to stand and pray to Allah during the anthem. But he did not waver.

"My beliefs are more important than anything," said Abdul-Rauf at the time. "If I have to give up basketball, I will." Shortly after being reinstated Abdul-Rauf was traded away from the Denver Nuggets to the Sacramento Kings where he received significantly less playing time and then, unable to secure another playing contract, was effectively blackballed from the NBA.

Black Newspapers: The Unsung Heroes in the Jackie Robinson Story

Today, statues of Jackie Robinson outside baseball fields in Los Angeles and Brooklyn honor the Hall of Fame career of the first African-American to play major league baseball.

But Robinson didn't do it alone. Black newspaper editors helped pave the way for Robinson and the integration of the major leagues.

John Sengstacke, the managing editor at the Chicago Defender in 1943, called the ban against Blacks in organized baseball "neither wise nor practical" during a face to face meeting with the major league commissioner. He went on to criticize the "un-American, undemocratic implications which the gentlemen's agreement imposed upon the face of this country."

And in 1938, Wendell Smith dedicated his column in the Pittsburgh Courier-Journal to chiding Black consumers for upholding the "institution that places a bold 'not welcome' sign over its thriving portal" each time they attended major league games.

According to Naison, a major part of the newspapers' strategies to integrate baseball was to conduct interviews with White players after they played unorganized exhibition games against Black clubs, asking them to assess the talent level of Black players.

In 1935, White MLB star Dizzy Dean told the Courier-Journal that if "big leaguers believed that they were better than the best Negro players they had another thing coming."

"It all began in the mid 1930s with campaigns by these newspapers [...] that finally [succeeded when Robinson broke the barrier] in 1947," Naison said. "Jackie Robinson's entry was after 10 years of agitation."

Serena Williams at Indian Wells

Serena Williams recently won her 23rd Grand Slam at the Australian Open, the most wins of any tennis player ever. It's one reason why ESPN and The New Yorker have called Williams the greatest professional athlete of all time.

But before reaching this height, Williams competed in her first major tournament at Indian Wells, California, in 1999 in front of a hostile White audience.

"I looked up and all I could see was a sea of rich people-mostly older, mostly white-standing and booing lustily, like some kind of genteel lynch mob," recounts Williams in her biography. "I don't mean to use such inflammatory language to describe the scene, but that's really how it seemed."

Williams has faced oppression as a Black woman in a majority White sport.

After her winning match against Steffi Graf at Indian Wells, Williams promised to boycott the tournament, and for 14 years she didn't return.

Since then, Williams has faced oppression as a Black woman in a majority White sport. But she has shrugged off lewd comments about her body shape and her curves with grace, class, and fierce determination.

In 2015, Williams returned to Indian Wells, to the surprise of the tennis world, and she used the event to raise funds and media attention for the Equal Justice Initiative, which works to end racism in the criminal justice system.

"Galvanizing forces around recent police killings [of unarmed Black men and women] likely increased Serena's want to speak out," said Dr. Amira Rose Davis, an assistant professor of history at Pennsylvania State University. "She's outspoken about not remaining silent in those moments."

Olympian Wilma Rudolph Faces Jim Crow America

An African American woman, Wilma Rudolph, overcame childhood diseases including polio and left leg paralysis to become widely known as "the fastest woman in the world." At the 1960 Olympics, Rudolph won the 100- and 200-meter races and helped the U.S. win the 4 x 100-meter relay.

"Because of the Cold War it became very important to show sporting strength in the '50s and '60s, and it gave women like Wilma Rudolph platforms to be seen across the country and the world," Davis said.

Rudolph returned to the United States after her successful Olympic performance as a national heroine and a celebrity. But this did not exempt her from suffering the racism in her segregated hometown of Clarksville, Tennessee. On June 13, 1963, Jet Magazine published the headline, "Hometown Eatery Jerks Welcome Mat from Wilma." Shoney's, a local restaurant, had refused to serve Rudolph.

So Rudolph and members of the Citizens Committee on Local Affairs began a month-long demonstration against the restaurant's segregation.

When Tennessee Gov. Buford Ellington, a devout segregationist, planned Rudolph's welcome home parade, she refused to attend the segregated event. Later, her hometown threw a parade and banquet in her honor. It was the first integrated event to be held in the town.

This article was funded in part by the Surdna Foundation.

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Before the NFL Took a Knee: 4 Lesser-Known Moments of Resistance in Sports History - YES! Magazine

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When NFL players, coaches, and owners took a knee during the national anthem Sept. 24, it ignited a nationwide discussion about the role of athletes in standing up for racial justice. Since then, teams and players have continued taking a knee during the national anthem.

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1996
Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf refused to stand for the singing of the National Anthem during Denver Nuggets games to protest the American flag—a symbol of "tyranny and oppression".

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When NFL players, coaches, and owners took a knee during the national anthem Sept. 24, it ignited a nationwide discussion about the role of athletes in standing up for racial justice. Since then, teams and players have continued taking a knee during the national anthem. And the Seattle Seahawks have taken the symbolic act one step further by launching the Seahawks Players Equality & Justice for All Action Fund.

But this is hardly the first time the sports and political arenas have become intertwined.

There are many less well-known examples in the history of sports when individuals and groups stood up against racism.

"Sports has always been an important platform in which America's ugly racial history has been challenged and where African-Americans have fought for full recognition and respect," said Dr. Mark Naison, a History and African American Studies professor at Fordham University.

Most people remember Jackie Robinson shattering major league baseball's color barrier and John Carlos and Tommie Smith delivering a Black power salute at the 1968 Olympics. These are often heralded as moments in sports when athletes added a prominent voice to the fight for civil rights and racial justice.

But there are many lesser-known examples in the history of sports when individuals and groups stood up against racism.

Here are four of those moments.

NBA Star Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf Protests the Anthem in 1996

"What Colin Kaepernick is experiencing is nothing new," Naison said. "Anytime you speak out if you're Black, any time you're a pioneer, you're going to catch hell."

That was certainly the case with Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, whose national anthem protests more than 20 years ago received media and professional backlash much like Kaepernick is experiencing today.

Not much has changed since Abdul-Rauf's days as a high-scoring point guard with the NBA's Denver Nuggets. In a recent summer hoops tournament for retired stars, he showed he still possesses his patented quick release and sweet jump-shot. And at that tournament, during the national anthem, Abdul-Rauf stood, palms up, in silent prayer for the oppressed poor and people of color in America, just as he did as a NBA star in 1996.

"My beliefs are more important than anything."

Then, Abdul-Rauf sat while the "Star Spangled Banner" played, causing the NBA to swiftly issue him a two-game suspension and stirring a national debate at that time. Abdul-Rauf said the American flag was a symbol of global "tyranny and oppression" that, therefore, didn't represent his Islamic beliefs.

Abdul-Rauf continued to face enormous backlash when in subsequent games to he chose to stand and pray to Allah during the anthem. But he did not waver.

"My beliefs are more important than anything," said Abdul-Rauf at the time. "If I have to give up basketball, I will." Shortly after being reinstated Abdul-Rauf was traded away from the Denver Nuggets to the Sacramento Kings where he received significantly less playing time and then, unable to secure another playing contract, was effectively blackballed from the NBA.

Black Newspapers: The Unsung Heroes in the Jackie Robinson Story

Today, statues of Jackie Robinson outside baseball fields in Los Angeles and Brooklyn honor the Hall of Fame career of the first African-American to play major league baseball.

But Robinson didn't do it alone. Black newspaper editors helped pave the way for Robinson and the integration of the major leagues.

John Sengstacke, the managing editor at the Chicago Defender in 1943, called the ban against Blacks in organized baseball "neither wise nor practical" during a face to face meeting with the major league commissioner. He went on to criticize the "un-American, undemocratic implications which the gentlemen's agreement imposed upon the face of this country."

And in 1938, Wendell Smith dedicated his column in the Pittsburgh Courier-Journal to chiding Black consumers for upholding the "institution that places a bold 'not welcome' sign over its thriving portal" each time they attended major league games.

According to Naison, a major part of the newspapers' strategies to integrate baseball was to conduct interviews with White players after they played unorganized exhibition games against Black clubs, asking them to assess the talent level of Black players.

In 1935, White MLB star Dizzy Dean told the Courier-Journal that if "big leaguers believed that they were better than the best Negro players they had another thing coming."

"It all began in the mid 1930s with campaigns by these newspapers [...] that finally [succeeded when Robinson broke the barrier] in 1947," Naison said. "Jackie Robinson's entry was after 10 years of agitation."

Serena Williams at Indian Wells

Serena Williams recently won her 23rd Grand Slam at the Australian Open, the most wins of any tennis player ever. It's one reason why ESPN and The New Yorker have called Williams the greatest professional athlete of all time.

But before reaching this height, Williams competed in her first major tournament at Indian Wells, California, in 1999 in front of a hostile White audience.

"I looked up and all I could see was a sea of rich people-mostly older, mostly white-standing and booing lustily, like some kind of genteel lynch mob," recounts Williams in her biography. "I don't mean to use such inflammatory language to describe the scene, but that's really how it seemed."

Williams has faced oppression as a Black woman in a majority White sport.

After her winning match against Steffi Graf at Indian Wells, Williams promised to boycott the tournament, and for 14 years she didn't return.

Since then, Williams has faced oppression as a Black woman in a majority White sport. But she has shrugged off lewd comments about her body shape and her curves with grace, class, and fierce determination.

In 2015, Williams returned to Indian Wells, to the surprise of the tennis world, and she used the event to raise funds and media attention for the Equal Justice Initiative, which works to end racism in the criminal justice system.

"Galvanizing forces around recent police killings [of unarmed Black men and women] likely increased Serena's want to speak out," said Dr. Amira Rose Davis, an assistant professor of history at Pennsylvania State University. "She's outspoken about not remaining silent in those moments."

Olympian Wilma Rudolph Faces Jim Crow America

An African American woman, Wilma Rudolph, overcame childhood diseases including polio and left leg paralysis to become widely known as "the fastest woman in the world." At the 1960 Olympics, Rudolph won the 100- and 200-meter races and helped the U.S. win the 4 x 100-meter relay.

"Because of the Cold War it became very important to show sporting strength in the '50s and '60s, and it gave women like Wilma Rudolph platforms to be seen across the country and the world," Davis said.

Rudolph returned to the United States after her successful Olympic performance as a national heroine and a celebrity. But this did not exempt her from suffering the racism in her segregated hometown of Clarksville, Tennessee. On June 13, 1963, Jet Magazine published the headline, "Hometown Eatery Jerks Welcome Mat from Wilma." Shoney's, a local restaurant, had refused to serve Rudolph.

So Rudolph and members of the Citizens Committee on Local Affairs began a month-long demonstration against the restaurant's segregation.

When Tennessee Gov. Buford Ellington, a devout segregationist, planned Rudolph's welcome home parade, she refused to attend the segregated event. Later, her hometown threw a parade and banquet in her honor. It was the first integrated event to be held in the town.

This article was funded in part by the Surdna Foundation.

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# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Before the NFL Took a Knee: 4 Lesser-Known Moments of Resistance in Sports History - YES! Magazine

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When NFL players, coaches, and owners took a knee during the national anthem Sept. 24, it ignited a nationwide discussion about the role of athletes in standing up for racial justice. Since then, teams and players have continued taking a knee during the national anthem.

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1963
Hundreds of children faced police dogs and firehoses to peacefully protest segregation. 600 were arrested. This courageous march was part of a larger campaign of civil disobedience to change one of the most segregated cities in America.

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Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly
Clip: 04/25/2013 | 10m 13s

In May 1963, hundreds of children-some as young as six years old-faced police dogs, fire hoses and arrest, to march against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. Managing editor Kim Lawton looks at the march's legacy and interviews some of those who marched as children, including University of Maryland, Baltimore County President Freeman Hrabowski.

Aired: 04/25/13

Rating: NR

Problems Playing Video? Report a Problem |

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Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly | Birmingham and the Children's March | Season 16 | PBS

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Fifty years ago, they braved police dogs and fire hoses to march against segregation.

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Check out the stories and information here. It's a fantastic resource.

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Welcome to BlackPast

This reference center with 8,240 posts is dedicated to providing information to the general public on African American history and the history of more than one billion people of African ancestry around the world. We invite you to explore and use all the resources of BlackPast.

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This reference center with 8,240 posts is dedicated to providing information to the general public on African American history and the history of more than one billion people of African ancestry around the world. We invite you to explore and use all the resources of BlackPast.

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The National Museum of African American History and Culture

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The National Museum of African American History and Culture

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Some information was found on this fantastic website.

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Get the latest information about timed passes and tips for planning your visit

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Thank you to the Decolonial Atlas for the map of Black resistance.

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Thank you to the Zinn Education Project for in-depth information about these American atrocities.

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The Zinn Education Project is my compass in a sea of corporate textbooks, packaged common core curriculum and standardized testing. My entire curriculum is based on lessons that can be found on the Zinn Education Project.

High School Social Studies Teacher, Portland, Ore.

Your support is needed to help more students learn people's history. 100% of Zinn Education Project funding comes from individuals like you. Donate today.

By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca

From voter ID laws to voter-roll purges, gerrymandering to poll closures to the deadly in-person voting conditions during a pandemic, the right to vote is under attack and the stakes are high. It is critical that students learn about the fight for voting rights, past and present.

Oct. 4, 1961: Burglund High School Walkout...

More than McCarthyism: The Attack on Activism Students ...

I can UNDERSTAND pessimism, but I don't BELIEVE in it. It's not simply a matter of faith, but of historical EVIDENCE. Not overwhelming evidence, just enough to give HOPE, because for hope we don't need certainty, only POSSIBILITY.

-Howard Zinn

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Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History

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The Zinn Education Project promotes and supports the teaching of people's history in middle and high school classrooms across the country. Based on the lens of history highlighted in Howard Zinn's best-selling book A People's History of the United States, the website offers free, downloadable lessons and articles organized by theme, time period, and reading level.

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Throughout September, nine courageous Black students attempted to attend the recently-desegregated Central High School, only to be met by state-sanctioned force and mobs of angry White supremacists.

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National Museum of African American History and Culture

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In 1954 the United States Supreme Court ruled that segregated schools were illegal. The case, Brown v. The Board of Education, has become iconic for Americans because it marked the formal beginning of the end of segregation.

But the gears of change grind slowly. It wasn't until September 1957 when nine teens would become symbols, much like the landmark decision we know as Brown v. The Board of Education, of all that was in store for our nation in the years to come.

The "Little Rock Nine," as the nine teens came to be known, were to be the first African American students to enter Little Rock's Central High School. Three years earlier, following the Supreme Court ruling, the Little Rock school board pledged to voluntarily desegregate its schools. This idea was explosive for the community and, like much of the South, it was fraught with anger and bitterness.

On September 2, 1957 the night prior to what was to be the teens' first day in Central High classrooms, Arkansas governor Orval Faubus ordered the state's National Guard to block their entrance. Faubus said it was for the safety of the nine students.

On September 4, just 24 hours after a federal judge ordered the Little Rock Nine to begin attending Central High immediately, a belligerent mob, along with the National Guard, again prevented the teens from entering the school.

Sixteen days later a federal judge ordered the National Guard removed. Once again on September 23, the Little Rock Nine attempted to enter the school. Though escorted by Little Rock police into a side door, another angry crowd gathered and tried to rush into Central High. Fearing for the lives of the nine students, school officials sent the teens home. They did, however, manage to attend classes for about three hours.

Finally, 52 years ago today, on September 25, 1957, following a plea from Little Rock's mayor, Woodrow Mann, President Dwight Eisenhower federalized the National Guard and sent U.S. Army troops to the scene. Personally guarded by soldiers from the National Guard soldiers and the Army's 101st Airborne, the Little Rock Nine began regular class attendance at Central High.

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In 1954 the United States Supreme Court ruled that segregated schools were illegal. The case, Brown v. The Board of Education, has become iconic for Americans because it marked the formal beginning of the end of segregation.

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1969
Black residents, fed up with racist violence throughout the early twentieth century, formed the United Front of Cairo. Its goal was to boycott White businesses to drive the owners out of town and to protect Black Illinoisans.

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Despite its former promise, deep-seated racial tensions would eventually devastate the town of Cairo, Illinois, rendering it nearly abandoned today.

Cairo, Illinois was once a bustling transportation hub situated at the junction of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. Today, however, there is little evidence of that riverside boom town. On street after street in "Historic Downtown Cairo," once grand buildings have slowly grown dilapidated or been swallowed by plants. Hope for Cairo's resurgence is long gone.

Although America is dotted with former boom towns made irrelevant over time, the history of Cairo (pronounced CARE-o) is unusual. Despite its early glory, Illinois' southernmost town is now mostly remembered for its racial strife, which according to some, was instrumental in the town's decline.

The Establishment Of Cairo, Illinois

Before it became Cairo, Illinois, the area was a fort and tannery for some of the first French traders who arrived in 1702, but their operation was cut short after Cherokee Indians slaughtered most of them. A century later, the area at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers became the subject of Lewis and Clark's first scientific study.

Fifteen years after that, John G. Comegys of Baltimore bought 1,800 acres there and named it "Cairo" in honor the historic city of the same name on the Nile Delta in Egypt. Comegys hoped to turn Cairo into one of America's great cities, but he died two years later - before his plans could be realized. The name, however, stuck.

It wouldn't be until 1837 when Darius B. Holbrook entered the town that Cairo really took off. Holbrook more than anyone else was responsible for the town's establishment and early growth.

As president of the Cairo City and Canal Company, he set a few hundred men to work constructing a small settlement including a shipyard, various other industries, a farm, a hotel, and residences. But Cairo's susceptibility to flooding was a major obstacle in establishing a permanent settlement, which faltered at first as the population fell by more than 80 percent.

Holbrook then sought to add Cairo as a station stop along the Illinois Central Railroad. By 1856, Cairo was connected by rail to Galena in northwest Illinois, and levees had been constructed around the town for transportation.

This set Cairo on the path to becoming a boom town within just three years. Cotton, wool, molasses, and sugar was shipped through the port in 1859 and the following year, Cairo became the seat of Alexander County.

Conflict During The Civil War

By the outbreak of the Civil War, Cairo's population was at 2,200 - but that number was about to explode.

The city's location along both a railway and a port was strategically important, and the Union capitalized on this. In 1861, General Ulysses S. Grant established Fort Defiance at the tip of Cairo's peninsula, which operated as an integral naval base and supply depot for his Western Army.

White Union troops stationed at Fort Defiance swelled to 12,000. Unfortunately, this occupation by Union troops meant that much of the town's trade by rail was diverted to Chicago.

Meanwhile, it is suspected that Cairo operated as a safehold along the Underground Railroad. Many African-Americans who escaped the south and made it into the free state of Illinois were then transported to Chicago. By the end of the war, more than 3,000 escaped African-Americans had settled in Cairo.

With burgeoning population and commerce, Cairo was poised to become a major city, with some even suggesting it should become the capital of the United States. But the troops did not like the humid climate made worse by the muddy low-lying land that was so susceptible to flooding. As a result, when the war ended, the soldiers packed up and went home.

Racial Tensions And Lynchings

Despite the post-war population exodus, Cairo's location and natural resources continued to attract breweries, mills, plants, and manufacturing businesses. Cairo also became an important shipping hub for the federal government. By 1890, the town was connected by water and seven railroads to the rest of the country and acted as an important way station of sorts between larger cities.

But during those prosperous years of the 1890s, segregation took root and black residents (making up about 40 percent of the population) were forced to build their own churches, schools, and so on.

Local African-Americans also formed the bulk of the unskilled labor force and these men were highly active in unions, strikes, and protests that campaigned for equal rights in education and employment. Such protests also demanded black representation in local government and the legal system as the black population grew more and more.

Cairo was dealt a hard blow in 1905 when a new railway system opened up the neighboring town of Thebes as a port of trade. The competition was devastating to Cairo and white business owners faced a severe downturn and began taking out their frustration on black business owners, setting the stage for tension and violence.

That violence escalated on Nov. 11, 1909, when a black man named Will "Froggy" James was convicted for the rape and murder of Annie Pelley, a local 24-year-old white shop clerk in a dry goods store. Expecting violence, the sheriff hid James in the woods. This was to no avail.

James was discovered by the mob and returned to the town's center to be publically hung. James was strung up at 8:00 pm, but the rope snapped. The angry mob instead riddled his body with bullets and then dragged him for a mile by a rope before he was torched.

Remnants of his body were taken as souvenirs.

The violence then continued and another prisoner was ripped from his cell, dragged to the town center, lynched, and shot. The mayor and chief of police remained barricaded in their homes. Illinois Governor Charles Deneen was forced to call in 11 companies of the National Guard to thwart the chaos.

Unfortunately, this incident marked just the beginning of racial violence in Cairo, Illinois. The following year, the sheriff's deputy was killed by a mob attempting to lynch a black man for stealing a white woman's purse.

By 1917, Cairo, Illinois had developed a violent reputation as the town with Illinois' highest crime rate, a reputation that stuck even 20 years later. In the depths of the Great Depression, shuttering businesses were forcing residents to leave Cairo for good.

However, the old problem of racism would ultimately be the town's demise.

Cairo's Residents Resist The Civil Rights Movement

By the late 1960s, Cairo was fully segregated and no white business owner would hire a black resident. Cairo banks refused to hire black residents and the state threatened to withdraw its money if these banks did not reverse their policy.

But it was the suspicious death of 19-year-old black soldier Robert Hunt while on leave in Cairo in 1967 that finally did the town in. Black residents did not believe that the soldier had committed suicide in his jail cell after being arrested on disorderly conduct charges, as the coroner had reported. Black protestors faced violent opposition from white vigilante groups and soon the Illinois National Guard was once again called in and was able to stop the violence after a few days of firebombings and shootouts in the streets.

By 1969, a new vigilante group called the White Hats had formed. In response, black residents formed the United Front of Cairo to end segregation. The United Front boycotted white-owned businesses but the white residents refused to give in and one by one, business began to close.

In April of 1969, Cairo's streets resembled a war zone. The White Hats were ordered to disband by the Illinois General Assembly but still, white residents resisted. The town entered the 1970s with less than half of the population it had in the 1920s. With continued shootings and bombings fueled by racial unrest, most businesses closed and those determined to hold on were boycotted.

Cairo, Illinois limped on into the 1980s and remarkably still holds on to this day - in name, at least. The downtown sits abandoned and the signs of its once great economic promise are long gone. The city's violent and racist history has snuffed out any hope for progress. Some new businesses open up but are soon closed, and tourism is not actively promoted. The population sits somewhere under 3,000, less than one-fifth of what it was a century ago.

Today, the abandoned, once-prosperous streets of Cairo, Illinois serve as a sad monument to the destructive forces of racism.
After this look at Cairo, Illinois, view some of the most powerful photos that capture the struggle of the civil rights movement. Then, check out appallingly racist ads from decades past.

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How Race-Fueled Violence Turned Cairo, Illinois From A Boomtown Into A Ghost Town

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Cairo, Illinois was once a bustling transportation hub situated at the junction of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. Today, however, there is little evidence of that riverside boom town. On street after street in "Historic Downtown Cairo," once grand buildings have slowly grown dilapidated or been swallowed by plants.

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Fort Mose Historic State Park, Fort Mose Trail, St. Augustine, FL, USA

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Fort Mose Historic State Park, Fort Mose Trail, St. Augustine, FL, USA

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Fort Mose Historic State Park, Fort Mose Trail, St. Augustine, FL, USA

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1738
Fort Mose became a haven for formerly-enslaved Black families and was the first free Black settlement in what was to become the United States.

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Courtesy State of Florida National Historic Society

Established in 1738, Fort Mose was the first free black settlement in what is now the United States. Located just north of St. Augustine, Florida, Fort Mose played an important role in the development of colonial North America.

As Great Britain, France, Spain and other European nations competed for control of the New World and its wealth they all in varying ways came to rely on African labor to develop their overseas colonial possessions. Exploiting its proximity to plantations in the British colonies in North America and the West Indies, King Charles II of Spain issued the Edict of 1693 which stated that any male slave on an English plantation who escaped to Spanish Florida would be granted freedom provided he joined the Militia and became a Catholic. This edict became one of the New World's earliest emancipation proclamations.

By 1738 there were 100 blacks, mostly runaways from the Carolinas, living in what became Fort Mose. Many were skilled workers, blacksmiths, carpenters, cattlemen, boatmen, and farmers. With accompanying women and children, they created a colony of freed people that ultimately attracted other fugitive slaves.

When war broke out in 1740 between England and Spain, the people of St. Augustine and nearby Fort Mose found themselves involved in a conflict that stretched across three continents. The English sent thousands of soldiers and dozens of ships to destroy St. Augustine and bring back any runaways. They set up a blockade and bombarded the town for 27 consecutive days. Hopelessly outnumbered, the diverse population of blacks, Indians and whites pulled together. Fort Mose was one of the first places attacked. Lead by Captain Francisco Menendez, the men of the Fort Mose Militia briefly lost the Fort but eventually recaptured it, repelling the English invasion force. Florida remained in Spanish hands and for the next 80 years remained a haven for fugitive slaves from the British colonial possessions of North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia and later when these possessions became part of the United States.

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Courtesy State of Florida National Historic Society Established in 1738, Fort Mose was the first free black settlement in what is now the United States. Located just north of St. Augustine, Florida, Fort Mose played an important role in the development of colonial North America.

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1951
Eleventh-grader Barbara Johns led a successful student strike to protest inequitable conditions in public schools. Her case eventually was included in the Brown vs. the Board of Education Supreme Court case and decision.

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Davis v. the School Board of Prince Edward County

Moton High School is just a few miles from Appomattox, Virginia, the site of Robert E. Lee's surrender to Ulysses S. Grant to end the Civil War. In 1951 African American students from the school fought their battle for access to equal education.

Led by Barbara Johns, a determined eleventh-grader, a group of students organized a strike for a better school. The students rallied their fellow classmates, an entire community, and NAACP attorneys to their cause. Their courage and commitment brought their demand for justice before the nation.

Davis v. School Board of Prince Edward County Legal Case Summary
Place: Rural Farmville, Virginia
Grievance: Overcrowded, underfunded segregated schools for African American children
Plaintiffs: Ninth-grader Dorothy Davis and 116 other students and parents of Farmville
Decision: A federal district court ruled against the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs' appeal reached the U.S. Supreme Court

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Farmville, Virginia - Separate Is Not Equal

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Davis v. the School Board of Prince Edward County Moton High School is just a few miles from Appomattox, Virginia, the site of Robert E. Lee's surrender to Ulysses S. Grant to end the Civil War. In 1951 African American students from the school fought their battle for access to equal education.

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1856
Moses Dickson, an abolitionist and minister, formed a secret anti-slavery society called the Knights of Liberty. At its peak, it boasted over 42,000 members across the country who were to participate in a great uprising to end slavery.

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Public domain image

Moses Dickson was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on April 5, 1824. At 16, he began a three year tour of the South which persuaded him to work for the abolition of slavery. On August 12, 1846, Dickson and twelve other men gathered in St. Louis to devise a plan to end slavery in the United States. They formed a secret organization known as the Knights of Liberty which planned to initiate a national insurrection against slavery.

Dickson married widow Mary Elisabeth Butcher Peters at Galena, Illinois on October 5, 1848. They had one daughter, Mamie Augusta, and a year later the family located permanently in St. Louis.

By 1856, according to Dickson and his followers, 47,240 members of the Knights of Liberty throughout the nation stood ready to fight for freedom. In August of that year Dickson created a smaller secret organization, the Order of Twelve, in Galena, Illinois. During the war, the Knights disbanded and many of their members joined the Union Army.

After 1865 Dickson turned his attention to education and economic development among the freedpeople. He joined the A.M.E. church in 1866 and became an ordained minister. In 1871 Dickson became Grand Master of the Prince Hall Masons for the state of Missouri. An early supporter of the "Lincoln Institute" (later Lincoln University) in Jefferson City, Missouri, Dickson also organized the Knights and Daughters of Tabor, an African American self-help organization. The new organization touted African American advancement through "Christian demeanor," the "getting of homes and acquiring of wealth" and "man's responsibility to the Supreme Being."

In 1879-1880 when approximately 16,000 Louisiana and Mississippi African Americans migrated to Kansas in what was called the Exodus Movement, Rev. Dickson served as President of the Refugee Relief Board which provided them aid and support. The Revered Moses Dickson died a decade later on November 28, 1901 and was buried at St. Louis, Missouri.

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Moses Dickson was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on April 5, 1824. At 16, he began a three year tour of the South which persuaded him to work for the abolition of slavery. On August 12, 1846, Dickson and twelve other men gathered in St. Louis ... Read MoreMoses Dickson (1824-1901)

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1817-1858
Enslaved Blacks fled to Florida to seek freedom from the cruelty of plantation life and join the Seminole Tribe. Both Blacks and Native People courageously against three aggressive military campaigns by the United States government.

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Preservation, Education and Publication of Seminole Wars History

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1778
Paul Cuffee and his brother, John, refused to pay taxes. As free Black men they were denied a vote, and therefore—they reasoned—they were taxed without representation. Massachusetts soon thereafter changed its tax laws.

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The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross

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The person who spearheaded "the first, black initiated 'back to Africa' effort in U.S. history," according to the historian Donald R. Wright, was also the first free African American to visit the White House and have an audience with a sitting president. He was Paul Cuffee, a sea captain and an entrepreneur who was perhaps the wealthiest black American of his time.

Cuffee was born on Cuttyhunk Island, off Southern Massachusetts, on Jan. 17, 1759, and died on Sept. 7, 1817. He was one of 10 children of a freed slave, a farmer named Kofi Slocum. ("Kofi" is a Twi word for a boy born on Friday, so we know that he was an Ashanti from Ghana.) Kofi Anglicized his name to "Cuffee."

Paul's mother was Ruth Moses, a Wampanoag Native American. He ended up marrying a member of the Pequot tribe from Martha's Vineyard, Alice Pequit.

In 1766, Kofi purchased a 116-acre farm in Dartmouth, Mass., on Buzzard's Bay, which he left upon his death in 1772 to Paul and his brother, John. When his father died, Paul changed his surname from Slocum to Cuffee, and began what would prove to be an extraordinarily successful life at sea.

Starting as a whaler, then moving into maritime trading, Paul Cuffee eventually "bought and built ships, developing his own maritime enterprise that involved trading the length of the U.S. Atlantic coast, with trips to the Caribbean and Europe," according to Wright. But he was also politically engaged: In 1780, he, his brother and five black men filed a petition protesting their "having No vote on Influence in the Election with those that tax us," because they were "Chiefly of the African Extraction," as his biographer, Lamont Thomas, reports. He was jailed, but got his taxes reduced.

Cuffee's dream was that free African Americans and freed slaves "could establish a prosperous colony in Africa," one based on emigration and trade. Cuffee's visit to the White House happened like this: The U.S. had established an embargo on British goods in 1807, and relations were worsening with Great Britain. On April 19, 1812, U.S. Customs in Westport, Mass., seized Cuffee's ship and its cargo upon its return from Sierra Leone and Great Britain as being in violation of the embargo. When customs refused to release his property, Cuffee sought redress directly from President James Madison.

On May 2, 1812, he went to the White House, where he met with Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin and with Madison himself, who greeted him warmly and ordered that his goods be returned. Madison queried Cuffee about his recent visits to Sierra Leone, and his ideas about African-American colonization of the new British colony.

The British had founded a settlement there for London's Committee of the Black Poor; it was called the Province of Freedom in 1787. Then Freetown was founded as a settlement for freed slaves in 1792, the year when the black Loyalists (including George Washington's former slave, Harry Washington) arrived from Nova Scotia. In 1808, Sierra Leone became a colony.

Cuffee's dream was that free African Americans and freed slaves "could establish a prosperous colony in Africa," one based on emigration and trade. As Wright put it, "Cuffee hoped to send at least one vessel each year to Sierra Leone, transporting African-American settlers and goods to the colony and returning with marketable African products."

Sierra Leone was already populated in part by former American slaves who had received their freedom by running away from their masters and joining the British as black Loyalists in the Revolutionary War. When the British lost to the Americans, many of these black Loyalists were settled in Nova Scotia. And when conditions there proved too harsh, they had petitioned to be relocated in Sierra Leone.

To distinguish his plan from British and American efforts essentially to use colonization as a way of removing the threat that free African Americans posed to the continuation of slavery, in 1811 Cuffee founded the Friendly Society of Sierra Leone, a cooperative black group intended to encourage "the Black Settlers of Sierra Leone, and the Natives of Africa generally, in the Cultivation of their Soil, by the Sale of their Produce." He made two trips to the colony that year.

In 1812, after returning from Sierra Leone, Cuffee traveled to Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York to form an African-American version of the British "black poor" organization. Named the "African Institution," it had self-contained branches in each city, and was charged with mounting a coordinated, black-directed emigration movement.

Cuffee's close friend, the wealthy sailmaker and inventor James Forten, became the secretary of the Philadelphia African Institution, while Prince Saunders, a well-known teacher and secretary of the African Masonic Lodge in Boston, became the secretary of the Boston African Institution. Cuffee's movement seemed to be gaining steam among some of the most powerful and wealthy leaders of the free black community throughout the North.

On Dec. 10, 1815, Cuffee made history by transporting 38 African Americans (including 20 children) ranging in age from 6 months to 60 years from the United States to Sierra Leone on his brig, the Traveller, at a cost of $5,000. When they arrived on Feb. 3, 1816, Cuffee's passengers became the first African Americans who willingly returned to Africa through an African-American initiative.

Cuffee's dream of a wholesale African-American return to the continent, however, soon lost support from the free African-American community, many of whom had initially expressed support for it. As James Forten sadly reported in a letter to Cuffee dated Jan. 25, 1817, a meeting of several thousand black men had occurred at Richard Allen's Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, to discuss the merits of Cuffee's colonization program and the work of the African Institution. The news was devastating: "Three thousand at least attended, and there was not one soul that was in favor of going to Africa. They think that the slaveholders want to get rid of them so as to make their property more secure." And then in August, Forten co-authored a statement that declared that "The plan of colonizing is not asked for by us. We renounce and disclaim any connection with it."

When Paul Cuffee died just a month later, on Sept. 7, 1817, "the dream of a black-led emigration movement," Dorothy Sterling concludes, " ended with him." However, the cause of black emigration would be taken up by a succession of black leaders, including Henry Highland Garnet, Bishop James T. Holly, Martin R. Delany, Bishop Henry McNeal Turner and, of course, Marcus Mosiah Garvey.
Fifty of the 100 Amazing Facts will be published on The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross website. Read all 100 Facts on The Root.

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Paul Cuffee and the First Back-to-Africa Effort | African American History Blog | The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross

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The person who spearheaded "the first, black initiated 'back to Africa' effort in U.S. history," according to the historian Donald R. Wright, was also the first free African American to visit the White House and have an audience with a sitting president.

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1923
After hearing a rumor that a White woman had been sexually assaulted by a Black man, a posse of White terrorists went on the hunt.

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Public domain image detail

On January 1, 1923, a massacre was carried out in the small, predominantly black town of Rosewood in central Florida. The massacre was instigated by the rumor that a white woman, Fanny Taylor, had been sexually assaulted by a black man in her home in a nearby community. A group of white men, believing this rapist to be a recently escaped convict named Jesse Hunter who was hiding in Rosewood, assembled to capture this man.

Prior to this event, a series of incidents had stirred racial tensions within Rosewood. In the winter of 1922, a white school teacher from Perry had been murdered, and on New Years Eve in 1922 ,there was a Ku Klux Klan rally held in Gainesville, located not far away from Rosewood.

In response to the allegation by Taylor, white men began to search for Jesse Hunter along with Aaron Carrier and Sam Carter, who were believed to be accomplices. Carrier was captured and incarcerated while Carter was lynched. The white mob suspected Aaron Carrier's cousin Sylvester, a Rosewood resident, of harboring Jesse Hunter.

On January 4, 1923, a group of twenty-to-thirty white men approached the Carrier home and shot the family dog. When Sylvester's mother Sarah came to the porch to confront the mob, they shot and killed her. Sylvester defended his home, killing two men and wounding four in the ensuing battle before he too was killed. The remaining survivors fled to the swamps for refuge where many of the African American residents of Rosewood had already retreated, hoping to avoid the rising conflict and increasing racial tension.

The next day the white mob burned the Carrier home before joining with a group of 200 men from surrounding towns who had heard erroneously that a black man had killed two white men. As night descended the mob attacked the town, slaughtering animals and burning buildings. An official report claims six blacks and two whites were killed. Other accounts suggest a larger total. At the end of the carnage, only two buildings remained standing, a house and the town general store.

Many of the black residents of Rosewood who fled into the swamps were evacuated on January 6 by two local train conductors, John and William Bryce. Many others were hidden by John Wright, the owner of the general store. Other black residents of Rosewood fled to Gainesville and to northern cities. As a consequence of the massacre, Rosewood became deserted.

The initial report of the Rosewood incident, presented less than a month after the massacre, claimed there was insufficient evidence for prosecution. Thus, no one was charged with any of the Rosewood murders. In 1994, however, as the result of new evidence and renewed interest in the event, the Florida Legislature passed the Rosewood Bill which entitled the nine survivors to $150,000 dollars each in compensation.

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On January 1, 1923, a massacre was carried out in the small, predominantly black town of Rosewood in central Florida. The massacre was instigated by the rumor that a white woman, Fanny Taylor, had been sexually assaulted by a black man in her home in ... Read MoreRosewood Massacre (1923)

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In a daring and ingenious move, Robert Smalls, an enslaved man, successfully boards an iron-clad  ship, slips past Confederate guards, and "surrenders" to the Union army, delivering 17 formerly-enslaved people to safety and freedom.

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The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross

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Just before dawn on May 13, 1862, Robert Smalls and a crew composed of fellow slaves, in the absence of the white captain and his two mates, slipped a cotton steamer off the dock, picked up family members at a rendezvous point, then slowly navigated their way through the harbor. Smalls, doubling as the captain, even donning the captain's wide-brimmed straw hat to help to hide his face, responded with the proper coded signals at two Confederate checkpoints, including at Fort Sumter itself, and other defense positions. Cleared, Smalls sailed into the open seas. Once outside of Confederate waters, he had his crew raise a white flag and surrendered his ship to the blockading Union fleet.

In fewer than four hours, Robert Smalls had done something unimaginable: In the midst of the Civil War, this black male slave had commandeered a heavily armed Confederate ship and delivered its 17 black passengers (nine men, five women and three children) from slavery to freedom.

Sailing From Slavery to Freedom

Our story begins in the second full year of the war. It is May 12, 1862, and the Union Navy has set up a blockade around much of the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. Inside it, the Confederates are dug in defending Charleston, S.C., and its coastal waters, dense with island forts, including Sumter, where the first shots of the Civil War were fired exactly one year, one month, before. Attached to Brig. Gen. Roswell Ripley's command is the C.S.S. Planter, a "first-class coastwise steamer" hewn locally for the cotton trade out of "live oak and red cedar," according to testimony given in a U.S. House Naval Affairs Committee report 20 years later.

After two weeks of supplying various island points, the Planter returns to the Charleston docks by nightfall. It is due to go out again the next morning and so is heavily armed, including approximately 200 rounds of ammunition, a 32-pound pivot gun, a 24-pound howitzer and four other guns, among them one that had been dented in the original attack on Sumter. In between drop-offs, the three white officers on board (Capt. C.J. Relyea, pilot Samuel H. Smith and engineer Zerich Pitcher) make the fateful decision to disembark for the night - either for a party or to visit family - leaving the crew's eight slave members behind. If caught, Capt. Relyea could face court-martial - that's how much he trusts them.

At the top of the list is Robert Smalls, a 22-year-old mulatto slave who's been sailing these waters since he was a teenager: intelligent and resourceful, defiant with compassion, an expert navigator with a family yearning to be free. According to the 1883 Naval Committee report, Smalls serves as the ship's "virtual pilot,"but because only whites can rank, he is slotted as "wheelman." Smalls not only acts the part; he looks it, as well. He is often teased about his resemblance to Capt. Relyea: Is it his skin, his frame or both? The true joke, though, is Smalls' to spring, for what none of the officers know is that he has been planning for this moment for weeks and is willing to use every weapon on board to see it through.

Background

Smalls was born on April 5, 1839, behind his owner's city house at 511 Prince Street in Beaufort, S.C. His mother, Lydia, served in the house but grew up in the fields, where, at the age of nine, she was taken from her own family on the Sea Islands. It is not clear who Smalls' father was. Some say it was his owner, John McKee; others, his son Henry; still others, the plantation manager, Patrick Smalls. What is clear is that the McKee family favored Robert Smalls over the other slave children, so much so that his mother worried he would reach manhood without grasping the horrors of the institution into which he was born. To educate him, she arranged for him to be sent into the fields to work and watch slaves at "the whipping post."

"The result of this lesson led Robert to defiance," wrote great-granddaughter Helen Boulware Moore and historian W. Marvin Dulaney, and he "frequently found himself in the Beaufort jail." If anything, Smalls' mother's plan had worked too well, so that "fear[ing] for her son's safety ... she asked McKee to allow Smalls to go to Charleston to be rented out to work." Again her wish was granted. By the time Smalls turned 19, he had tried his hand at a number of city jobs and was allowed to keep one dollar of his wages a week (his owner took the rest). Far more valuable was the education he received on the water; few knew Charleston harbor better than Robert Smalls.

It's where he earned his job on the Planter. It's also where he met his wife, Hannah, a slave of the Kingman family working at a Charleston hotel. With their owners' permission, the two moved into an apartment together and had two children: Elizabeth and Robert Jr. Well aware this was no guarantee of a permanent union, Smalls asked his wife's owner if he could purchase his family outright; they agreed but at a steep price: $800. Smalls only had $100. "How long would it take [him] to save up another $700?" Moore and Dulaney ask. Unwittingly, Smalls' "look-enough-alike," Captain Rylea, gave him his best backup

To white Confederates, the Union ships blocking their harbors were another example of the North's enslavement of the South; to actual slaves like Robert Smalls, these ships signaled the tantalizing promise of freedom. Under orders from Secretary Gideon Welles in Washington, Navy commanders had been accepting runaways as contraband since the previous September. While Smalls couldn't afford to buy his family on shore, he knew he could win their freedom by sea - and so he told his wife to be ready for whenever opportunity dawned.

The Escape on the Planter

That opportunity is at hand on the night of May 12. Once the white officers are on shore, Smalls confides his plan to the other slaves on board. According to the Naval Committee report, two choose to stay behind. "The design was hazardous in the extreme," it states, and Smalls and his men have no intention of being taken alive; either they will escape or use whatever guns and ammunition they have to fight and, if necessary, sink their ship. "Failure and detection would have been certain death," the Navy report makes plain. "Fearful was the venture, but it was made."

At 2:00 a.m. on May 13, Smalls dons Capt. Rylea's straw hat and orders the Planter's skeleton crew to put up the boiler and hoist the South Carolina and Confederate flags as decoys. Easing out of the dock, in view of Gen. Ripley's headquarters, they pause at the West Atlantic Wharf to pick up Smalls' wife and children, along with four other women, three men and another child.

At 3:25 a.m., the Planter accelerates "her perilous adventure," the Navy report continues (it reads more like a Robert Louis Stevenson novel). From the pilot house, Smalls blows the ship's whistle while passing Confederate Forts Johnson and, at 4:15 a.m., Fort Sumter, "as cooly as if General Ripley was on board." Smalls not only knows all the right Navy signals to flash; he even folds his arms like Capt. Rylea, so that in the shadows of dawn, he passes convincingly for white.

"She was supposed to be the guard boat and allowed to pass without interruption," Confederate Aide-de-Campe F.G. Ravenel explains defensively in a letter to his commander hours later. It is only when the Planterpasses out of Rebel gun range that the alarm is sounded - the Planter is heading for the Union blockade. Approaching it, Smalls orders his crew to replace the Palmetto and Rebel flags with a white bed sheet his wife brought on board. Not seeing it, Acting Volunteer Lt. J. Frederick Nickels of the U.S.S. Onward orders his sailors to "open her ports." It is "sunrise," Nickels writes in a letter the same day, an illuminating fact that may have changed the course of history, at least on board the Planter - for now Nickels could see.

In The Negro's Civil War, the dean of Civil War studies James McPherson quotes the following eyewitness account: "Just as No. 3 port gun was being elevated, someone cried out, 'I see something that looks like a white flag'; and true enough there was something flying on the steamer that would have been white by application of soap and water. As she neared us, we looked in vain for the face of a white man. When they discovered that we would not fire on them, there was a rush of contrabands out on her deck, some dancing, some singing, whistling, jumping; and others stood looking towards Fort Sumter, and muttering all sorts of maledictions against it, and 'de heart of de Souf,' generally. As the steamer came near, and under the stern of the Onward, one of the Colored men stepped forward, and taking off his hat, shouted, 'Good morning, sir! I've brought you some of the old United States guns, sir!' " That man is Robert Smalls, and he and his family and the entire slave crew of the Planter are now free.

After "board[ing] her, haul[ing] down the flag of truce, and hoist[ing] the American ensign" (his words), Lt. Nickels transfers the Planter to his commander, Capt. E.G. Parrott of the U.S.S. Augusta. Parrott then forwards it on to Flag Officer Samuel Francis Du Pont (of the "du Pont" Du Ponts), at Port Royal, Hilton Heads Island, with a letter describing Smalls as "very intelligent contraband." Du Pont is similarly impressed, and the next day writes a letter to the Navy secretary in Washington, stating, "Robert, the intelligent slave and pilot of the boat, who performed this bold feet so skillfully, informed me of [the capture of the Sumter gun], presuming it would be a matter of interest." He "is superior to any who have come into our lines - intelligent as many of them have been." While Du Pont sends the families to Beaufort, he takes care of the Planter's crew personally while having its captured flags mailed to Washington via the Adams Express, the same private carrier that had delivered Box Brown to freedom in 1849.

The Reception

Smalls may not have had the $700 he needed to purchase his family's freedom before the war; now, because of his bravery and his inability to purchase his wife, the U.S. Congress on May 30, 1862, passed a private bill authorizing the Navy to appraise the Planter and award Smalls and his crew half the proceeds for "rescuing her from the enemies of the Government." Smalls received $1,500 personally, enough to purchase his former owner's house in Beaufort off the tax rolls following the war, though according to the later Naval Affairs Committee report, his pay should have been substantially higher.

The Confederates seemed to know this already; after Smalls' escape, biographer Andrew Billingsley notes, they put a $4,000 bounty on his head. Still, those on the scene had a hard time explaining how slaves pulled off such a feat; in the aftermath, Aide-de-Campe Ravenel even intimated to his commander that the night before, "it would appear that ... two white men and a white woman went on board of her, and as they were not seen to return it is supposed that they have also gone with her." Suppose all they wanted - there was no record of any white passengers aboard the Planter the morning of May 13 - Smalls and his crew had acted alone. As his contemporary steamer pilot Mark Twain famously wrote: "Facts are stubborn things."

In the North, Smalls was feted as a hero and personally lobbied the Secretary of War Edwin Stanton to begin enlisting black soldiers. After President Lincoln acted a few months later, Smalls was said to have recruited 5,000 soldiers by himself. In October 1862, he returned to the Planter as pilot as part of Admiral Du Pont's South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. According to the 1883 Naval Affairs Committee report, Smalls was engaged in approximately 17 military actions, including the April 7, 1863, assault on Fort Sumter and the attack at Folly Island Creek, S.C., two months later, where he assumed command of the Planter when, under "very hot fire," its white captain became so "demoralized" he hid in the "coal-bunker." For his valiancy, Smalls was promoted to the rank of captain himself, and from December 1863 on, earned $150 a month, making him one of the highest paid black soldiers of the war. Poetically, when the war ended in April 1865, Smalls was on board the Planter in a ceremony in Charleston Harbor.

Robert Smalls' Postwar Record

Following the war, Smalls continued to push the boundaries of freedom as a first-generation black politician, serving in the South Carolina state assembly and senate, and for five nonconsecutive terms in the U.S. House of Representatives (1874-1886) before watching his state roll back Reconstruction in a revised 1895 constitution that stripped blacks of their voting rights. He died in Beaufort on February 22, 1915, in the same house behind which he had been born a slave and is buried behind a bust at the Tabernacle Baptist Church. In the face of the rise of Jim Crow, Smalls stood firm as an unyielding advocate for the political rights of African Americans: "My race needs no special defense for the past history of them and this country. It proves them to be equal of any people anywhere. All they need is an equal chance in the battle of life."

For those interested in learning more about this daring Civil War hero, Helen Boulware Moore and W. Martin Dulaney, with help from the National Endowment for the Humanities, have curated a traveling exhibit, " The Life and Times of Congressman Robert Smalls." You can also find him on YouTube, including in a South Carolina state educational video; a fourth grader's Black History Month presentation; even a realtor's tour of his former home in Beaufort, most recently listed for $1.2 million.

Imagine what the Planter and its guns and ammunition would fetch in current dollars? One thing I know: Robert Smalls and the purchase of his family's freedom? Priceless.
Fifty of the 100 Amazing Facts will be published on The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross website. Read all 100 Facts on The Root.

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Robert Smalls, from Escaped Slave to House of Representatives | African American History Blog | The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross

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Just before dawn on May 13, 1862, Robert Smalls and a crew composed of fellow slaves, in the absence of the white captain and his two mates, slipped a cotton steamer off the dock, picked up family members at a rendezvous point, then slowly navigated their way through the harbor.

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1972-1973
Black students and their allies protested rituals of their recently-desegregated high school (including flying Confederate flags as football games, playing "Dixie", and using a "Rebel" as a mascot) and won in a U.S. District Court.

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Escambia High School News Submitted by Alumni

Mascot riots 1972 -1977

March 31, 2009 by Terry Kull ( Register to contact)

Mascot riots

The Escambia High School riots were racially motivated nonviolent and violent demonstrations which occurred in varying forms between 1972 and 1977 at the then-newly desegregated Escambia High School. The centerpiece riot, which received the most publicity and was the most violent demonstration, occurred on February 5, 1976.

Formerly an all-white school, Escambia High School was forcibly desegregated in 1969. In the fall of 1972, black students rioted at a home football game for their team, whose mascot was a "Rebel," modeled in appearance after the Colonel Reb of the University of Mississippi. The school band played the official school song, "Dixie," and it was from there that the violence ensued.

Continuing until the end of the 1972-73 academic year, blacks and other students protested the mascot, school song and use of the Confederate Flag, which was flown at school events and games, on the grounds that the imagery the items brought up were insensitive to black people. On July 24, 1973, a United States District Court ruling deemed all of the aforementioned symbols as "racially irritating" and barred their use at the school level (Augustus v. School Board of Escambia County, 361 F. Supp. 383, 1973).

At the beginning of the next school year, the name "Raiders" was picked to be the new name for all of Escambia High's athletic teams. Throughout 1974, the Escambia County School District appealed the decision, and on January 25, 1975, the United States Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the school board, overturning the injunction and decreeing that the school board should be in charge of the matter (Augustus v. School Board of Escambia County, 507 F.2d 152, 1975).

On February 4, 1976, an impromptu school election was held in which students were allowed to vote to either keep the name as "Raiders" or change the name back to "Rebels." The students who preferred "Rebels" failed to secure a supermajority needed to win the ballot, and the next day, a riot ensued over four hours in the school day.

Four students were shot in the violence and twenty-six students were injured by rocks and debris while the calamity involved students smashing windows and trophy cases, as well as fighting with other students.

It was estimated that three-quarters of the 2,523 students who attended Escambia High were involved in the riot. In the aftermath, crosses were burned on many school board members' yards, with one member, who was black, specifically targeted with a gunshot which went through his window. A human relations board member as well as a state legislator also had their homes torched.

After all the retaliatory violence both at the school and in the community, the Florida National Guard was called in to patrol the school until the end of the year.[citation needed] In the fall of 1976, students chose the name "Gators" after a second ballot was deemed necessary.

On July 26, 1977, the Ku Klux Klan held a rally on the school grounds with regards to the issue, which necessitated a reorganization of the school board. The name "Gators" has been used for Escambia High's athletic teams since, without incident.

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Escambia High School News Submitted by Alumni March 31, 2009 by Terry Kull ( Register to contact) Mascot riots The Escambia High School riots were racially motivated nonviolent and violent demonstrations which occurred in varying forms between 1972 and 1977 at the then-newly desegregated Escambia High School.

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1876
White supremacists used a misunderstanding with an all-Black militia to arm themselves, terrorize Black Americans, and keep them away from the polls.

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On July 4, 1876, (in the midst of a heated Reconstruction era local election season) a Black militia was engaged in military exercises when two white farmers attempted to drive through. Although the farmers got through the military formation after an initial argument, this event provided the excuse sought by whites to suppress Black voting through violence.

On July 6, in a courtroom, the farmers charged the militia with obstructing the road.

The case was postponed to July 8, by which time more than 100 white men from local counties had gathered in town, armed with weapons. The African Americans attempted to flee, but 25 men were captured and six were murdered.

Read more about the Hamburg Massacre at BlackPast.org. Also, read an extraordinary story by the South Carolina Citizen History about the historic markers for the Hamburg Massacre and about Senator Ben Tillman who led the mob attack.

Another massacre in this time of terror during the 1876 gubernatorial campaign was the Ellenton Riot, when armed groups of white supremacists rampaged, with the excuse of rumors of Black-on-white crime, in Ellenton, South Carolina. No African Americans were safe, and accounts indicate that field crews, families at home, evening political meetings, and even church gatherings were targets of white assailants. The human cost was high: at least two whites were dead, with three wounded, while estimates of the death toll among African Americans ranged from thirty to more than one hundred. Among the dead was Black state legislator Simon Coker, who was shot in the head while praying for mercy. One of the leaders present at Coker's murder became South Carolina's governor and a longtime U.S. senator. His name was Benjamin Tillman. Only the intervention of the U.S. Army ended the killing spree. [Excerpted and adapted from the South Carolina Encyclopedia]

Note that the plaque, pictured on this page, identifies political parties. For further context regarding the party realignment that occurred in the 20th Century, leading the vast majority of African Americans to change party identification from Republican to Democrat, visit the History, Art & Archives of the US House of Representatives.

Read about more massacres in U.S. history.

Learn more in the Zinn Education Project national report, " Erasing the Black Freedom Struggle: How State Standards Fail to Teach the Truth About Reconstruction, " and find teaching resources on Reconstruction below.

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July 8, 1876: Hamburg Massacre - Zinn Education Project

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On July 4, 1876, (in the midst of a heated Reconstruction era local election season) a Black militia was engaged in military exercises when two white farmers attempted to drive through. Although the farmers got through the military formation after an initial argument, this event provided the excuse sought by whites to suppress Black voting through violence.

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1961
Intended "Freedom Rides" terminus.

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1961
James Farmer and his group of activists boarded two buses bound for New Orleans. Their courageous journey was to test newly-passed laws banning segregated interstate travel. Televised coverage of the violence the protestors endured spurred the Interstate Commerce Commission to impose harsh fines for those who ignored the law. It inspired other Black activists and their allies to engage in civil disobedience in the years to come.

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Courtesy Birmingham Civil Rights Institute

Following the momentum of student-led sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina and Nashville, Tennesssee in early 1960, an interracial group of activists, led by Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) Executive Director James Farmer, decided to continue to challenge Jim Crow segregation in the South by organizing "freedom rides" through the region. They used as their model CORE's 1946 "Journey of Reconciliation" where an interracial group rode interstate buses to test the enforcement of the Supreme Court's decision in Morgan v. the Commonwealth of Virginia which outlawed segregation in interstate travel. White southern segregationists resisted CORE's efforts. When most of the demonstrators were arrested in North Carolina, the police effectively aborted the Journey of Reconciliation.

Recalling that failed effort 15 years earlier, James Farmer organized a new generation of black and white activists to travel on interstate buses to test the 1960 United States Supreme Court decision in Boynton v. Virginia which reiterated the earlier ruling prohibiting racial segregation in interstate transportation.

This time CORE organized a dozen activists who were paired into two interracial sets of Freedom Riders who would travel on Greyhound and Trailways buses, respectively, from Washington, D.C. to New Orleans, Louisiana. The Freedom Riders left Washington on May 4, 1961 and traveled without incident across Virginia and North Carolina. They encountered violence for the first time at the bus terminal in Rock Hill, South Carolina when several young white males beat black riders who attempted to use a "whites only" restroom.

The Freedom Riders continued, however, and crossed Georgia without incident. When the activists reached Alabama on May 14 the attacks intensified. The Greyhound riders were met in Anniston by a mob whose members threw rocks and slashed the bus's tires. The driver managed to drive the bus a few miles out of town. When he stopped to repair the tires, white supremacists firebombed the vehicle. For that group the Freedom Ride had ended.

The riders in the Trailways bus were also assaulted by Anniston whites. They managed to get to Birmingham where they encountered a larger mob who beat them with baseball bats, lead pipes and bicycle chains.

Infuriated by the news of the vicious assaults, Diane Nash, a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), organized a new contingent of Freedom Riders in Nashville. The second group departed from Nashville on May 14 to reinforce the beleaguered CORE Riders in Alabama.

Upon their arrival in Birmingham on May 17, Public Safety Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Conner ordered his police officers to place the activists in protective custody. The following morning law officials transported the riders back to the Tennessee state line, leaving them on the side of the highway. Instead of abandoning the campaign, Nash led the resilient activists 100 miles back to Nashville to regroup.

On May 20, the Nashville riders were back in Birmingham where there were no incidents. Then all of the Freedom Riders traveled on to Montgomery where a mob of men, women and children carrying baseball bats, tire irons and bricks met them at the terminal. As the riders departed from the bus, the angry gang swarmed, beating the passengers. They attacked SNCC activists John Lewis and Jim Zwerg, who both sustained severe injuries. When White House observer John Seigenthaler attempted to protect two of the Freedom Riders, Susan Wilbur and Susan Hermann, an attacker knocked him unconscious.

The nationally televised attack strengthened the resolve of the Freedom Riders. James Farmer arrived to personally lead the rest of the group to Jackson, Mississippi. Law enforcement officials protected them as they traveled across the state. Once in the bus terminal in the Mississippi capital, Jackson city police arrested all of the demonstrators for violating a recently passed breach of the peace statute. They were convicted and fined $200 each. When the riders refused to pay, the judge sentenced them to 90 days in jail.

In an effort to intimidate the marchers, Mississippi officials transferred the now nearly one hundred men and women freedom riders to the state penitentiary at Parchman where they were subject to beatings and inedible food and repeatedly strip searched. Prison officials confiscated the blankets and mattresses of all of the activists. When other demonstrators arrived in Jackson they were also arrested and sent to Parchman where they faced similar conditions. By the end of the summer over 300 women and men were incarcerated there.

The Freedom Riders failed to reach New Orleans, Louisiana. However the international attention their efforts received forced Attorney General Robert Kennedy to petition the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to outlaw segregation in interstate travel. Unlike the earlier Supreme Court rulings which segregationists largely ignored, the ICC immediately imposed sanctions and penalties for the violation of its order. On November 1, 1961, the new order went into effect across the nation.

The Freedom Rides illuminated the courage of black and white youth and highlighted the leadership of Diane Nash. The Freedom Rides also inspired rural southern blacks to embrace civil disobedience as a strategy for regaining their civil rights. That inspiration would be seen in subsequent campaigns such as Mississippi's Freedom Summer in 1964 and the Selma Movement in 1965 as well as in dozens of much less heralded efforts to register to vote or to integrate the region's public schools.

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Following the momentum of student-led sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina and Nashville, Tennesssee in early 1960, an interracial group of activists, led by Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) Executive Director James Farmer, decided to continue to challenge Jim Crow segregation in the South by organizing ... Read MoreFreedom Rides (1961)

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1863
Years before Rosa Parks, Black San Franciscans successfully lobbied to desegregate the city's street cars.

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Months after San Francisco's horse-powered street car companies during the Civil War dispatched their street cars - with orders to only accept white passengers - African American citizens began to directly challenge this discrimination.

On April 17, 1863, Charlotte Brown, a young African American woman from a prominent family, boarded a street car and was forced off. Determined to assert her rights, Brown boarded street cars twice more and twice more was ejected by the year's end. Each time she began a legal suit against the company. Read a detailed description in the KQED Rebel Girls from the Bay Area series. Here is an excerpt:

Charlotte was not one to go quietly however, thanks in large part to the way her tenacious parents had raised her. Her father, James E. Brown was a co-founder of the Bay Area's first African-American newspaper, Mirror of the Times, and an outspoken abolitionist.

Charlotte and her father decided to take action by bringing a lawsuit against Omnibus Railroad, an extraordinarily brave movie, given that it had only been a matter of months since African Americans in California had gained the right to testify against white people in court. During the case, Omnibus defended its racist policies, arguing that people of color should not be permitted to ride streetcars in case they made white women and children feel "fearful or repulsed."

While Charlotte ultimately won the case and was awarded $25 and costs, appeals by Omnibus kept her tied up in court for months. The end result saw her award sum reduced to just five cents, the cost of Charlotte's original ticket. What's more, the case did not change Omnibus policy. Just days after the first case was finally over, Charlotte was removed from another Omnibus streetcar.

Charlotte and her father went straight back to court, this time finding themselves arguing in front of a very sympathetic judge. Judge Orville C. Pratt of the 12th District Court deemed segregation "barbaric" and awarded Charlotte $500.

In May 1863, William Bowen was stopped from boarding a street car because he was an African American. He brought a civil suit and a criminal assault suit. Their legal actions came after the African American community's successful campaign to remove the state's ban on court testimony by African Americans. Lifting this ban opened the legal system to challenges by African Americans in the state.

Mary Ellen Pleasant was a longtime foe of segregation, a conductor on the Underground Railroad, and leading financial supporter of abolitionist John Brown. She brought suit against San Francisco street car companies when she was ejected in 1866.

After two years of court battles, the lines were desegregated.

Find many more stories in the online collection Transportation Protests: 1841 to 1992.

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April 17, 1863: Charlotte Brown Forced Off Streetcar | Zinn Education Project

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Months after San Francisco's horse-powered street car companies during the Civil War dispatched their street cars - with orders to only accept white passengers - African American citizens began to directly challenge this discrimination. On April 17, 1863, Charlotte Brown, a young African American woman from a prominent family, boarded a street car and was forced off.

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1919
(Warning: Graphic photos in the article above.)
As one of the many lynch mobs of the "Red Summer" of 1919, a group of angry Whites attacked Blacks after a White woman accused a man of assaulting her and two newspapers carried the story based on the rumor.

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That evening, the police took a suspect to the Loebeck home. Agnes and her boyfriend Milton Hoffman (they were later married) identified a black packinghouse worker named Will Brown as the assailant. Brown was 41 years old and suffered from acute rheumatism.

Before the police could leave the Loebeck house, a mob gathered outside and threatened to seize Brown. After an hour's confrontation, police reinforcements arrived and Brown was transferred to the Douglas County Courthouse. Several police officers were ordered to report at once to police headquarters in case of further trouble, and 46 policemen and a detective were kept on duty well into the night.

After the confrontation outside the Loebeck home, rumors began to fly that a mob would try to seize Brown again. On Sunday, September 28, a group of youths gathered in south Omaha and began a march to the Douglas County courthouse. Eventually, thousands of angry people gathered at the courthouse and by evening, the Omaha police and city officials inside the courthouse were virtual prisoners. The size of the crowd was estimated as between 5,000 and 15,000 people. By 8:00 p.m. the mob had begun firing on the courthouse with guns they looted from nearby stores. In that exchange of gunfire, one 16-year-old leader of the mob, and a 34-year-old businessman a block away were killed. By 8:30 the mob had set fire to the building and prevented fire fighters from extinguishing the flames. Inside, Will Brown moaned to Sheriff Mike Clark, "I am innocent, I never did it, my God I am innocent."

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That evening, the police took a suspect to the Loebeck home. Agnes and her boyfriend Milton Hoffman (they were later married) identified a black packinghouse worker named Will Brown as the assailant. Brown was 41 years old and suffered from acute rheumatism.

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1830-1860
It is estimated that nearly 9,000 enslaved people were escorted to safety through this busy Underground Railroad depot.

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National Museum of African American History and Culture

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The Underground Railroad is one of the most well-known aspects of the anti-slavery movement in the 19th century. Although white abolitionists, including Quakers, were an essential part of the runaway system, their roles have been overemphasized in history. Before the Civil War, the Underground Railroad was primarily run, maintained, and funded by African Americans. Wealthier and educated blacks, such as Philadelphians Robert Purvis and William Whipper, offered leadership and legal assistance. Black working class men and women collected money, food, clothing, and provided shelter.

Although the Underground Railroad's effectiveness varied by time and place, there were a large number of successful networks along the east coast. Pennsylvania and New York were the most organized networks, often centered in local churches. By one estimate, nearly 9,000 fugitive slaves passed through Philadelphia between 1830 and 1860. William Still, also based in Philadelphia, helped to finance Harriet Tubman's group escapes. In Washington, DC, one of the most organized Underground Railroad stations was located close to the U.S. Capitol. It was run by free blacks from Washington, DC and Baltimore who rescued slaves from plantations in Maryland and Virginia.

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The Underground Railroad is one of the most well-known aspects of the anti-slavery movement in the 19th century. Although white abolitionists, including Quakers, were an essential part of the runaway system, their roles have been overemphasized in history. Before the Civil War, the Underground Railroad was primarily run, maintained, and funded by African Americans.

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1811
A group of over 500 enslaved people took up arms and marched toward New Orleans in an attempt to form their own Black State along the banks of the Mississippi.

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Two hundred and five years ago, on the night of January 8, 1811, more than 500 enslaved people took up arms in one of the largest slave rebellions in U.S. history. They carried cane knives (used to harvest sugar cane), hoes, clubs and some guns as they marched toward New Orleans chanting "Freedom or Death," writes Leon A. Waters for the Zinn Education Project.

The uprising began on the grounds of a plantation owned by Manuel Andry on the east side of the Mississippi, in a region called the German Coast of Louisiana. There, a slave driver named Charles Deslondes of Haitian decscent, led a small band of slaves into the mansion of the plantation owners, where they wounded Andry and killed his son Gilbert. The group then armed themselves with muskets and ammunition from the plantation's basement. Some donned Andry's militia uniforms.

"Charles knew that the uniforms would lend the revolt authority, wedding their struggle with the imagery of the Haitian Revolution, whose leaders had famously adopted European military garb," reports historian Daniel Rasmussen in his book American Uprising: The Untold Story of America's Largest Slave Revolt, excerpted by NPR. Charles was inspired by the Haitian Revolution, which had succeeded less than a decade before and brought encouragement to those revolting in Louisiana that night.

After the attack on the Andry mansion, the group of revolutionaries started a two day march down River Road to New Orleans. Along the way they burned other plantations. The plan was to join with other revolutionaries in the city.

Official accounts at the time spun the fiction that the revolt was nearly a band of "'brigands' out to pillage and plunder," writes Wendell Hassan Marsh for The Root. But this was the story of the victors- Rasmussen found through the course of his research, not the story of what happened. In reality, the revolt was carefully organized and it threatened to destabilize the institution of slavery in Louisiana.

To uncover the real story, Rasmussen pored through court records and plantation ledgers. "I realized that the revolt had been much larger-and come much closer to succeeding-than the planters and American officials let on," he tells Littice Bacon-Blood of the Times-Picayune. "Contrary to their letters, which are the basis for most accounts of the revolt, the slave army posed an existential threat to white control over the city of New Orleans."

Many rebels had copies of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man hidden in slave quarters and rebels had led smaller attacks in the region for years leading up to the revolt, Marsh writes for The Root. Among the ranks of the revolters included those with experience fighting in civil wars in Ghana and Angola. The plan was to establish a black state along the banks of the Mississippi. But as the marching group's numbers swelled to more than 500 strong, U.S. federal troops and the slave owners' militia responded quickly.

On January 10, at Jacques Fortier's plantation, near what is now River Town in Kenner, federal troops forced the revolt to turn back, Bacon-Blood reports for The Times-Picayune. With the militia blocking the revolutionaries' retreat, that spelled the end of the revolt.

"It was really brutally put down," Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, an author and historian at Michigan State University, tells Bacon-Blood. "It was incredibly bloodthirsty in the way the elite put it down, cutting people into little pieces, displaying body parts." The brief battle killed dozens of the fighting slaves. The surviving leaders were rounded up to face a tribunal on January 13 and many were sentenced to death by firing squad.

"Their heads were cut off and placed on poles along the river in order to frighten and intimidate the other slaves," writes Waters for the Zinn Project. "This display of heads placed on spikes stretched over 60 miles."

The suppression of the extent of the rebellion kept the uprising from historical attention for decades. Hall calls it a kind of "historical amnesia" in the Times-Picayune piece. However on the 200th anniversary of the revolt, area museums and historical sites in Louisiana organized a year-long commemoration of the event. In time, the uprising may gain the recognition it deserves, thanks to the efforts of historians willing to sort the fiction from the reality.

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How a Nearly Successful Slave Revolt Was Intentionally Lost to History

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Two hundred and five years ago, on the night of January 8, 1811, more than 500 enslaved people took up arms in one of the largest slave rebellions in U.S. history. They carried cane knives (used to harvest sugar cane), hoes, clubs and some guns as they marched toward New Orleans chanting "Freedom or Death," writes Leon A.

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1848
In the single largest recorded escape attempt by enslaved people in American history, 77 Blacks boarded "The Pearl" and attempted to sail to New Jersey to freedom. The daring feat led to the abolition of slavery in Washington, D. C. and inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe to write "Uncle Tom's Cabin".

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Public domain image

The Pearl Incident in 1848 was the single largest recorded escape attempt by enslaved people in United States history. On April 15, 1848, 77 slaves attempted to flee Washington, D.C. by sailing away on a schooner called The Pearl. They planned to sail south along Potomac River and then north up the Chesapeake Bay, cross overland to the Delaware River and then to the free state of New Jersey, a distance of nearly 225 miles.

The mass escape attempt was organized by both black and white abolitionists in Washington, D.C. Free blacks Paul Jennings, the former slave of President James Madison, and Paul Edmonson, whose wife and 14 children were still enslaved, were the initiators of the escape. They enlisted the help of William Chaplin, a Washington, D.C. white abolitionist who in turn contacted Philadelphia abolitionist Daniel Drayton, Captain and owner of The Pearl, and pilot Edward Sayres. Wealthy abolitionist Gerrit Smith of New York provided financial backing for the escape.

With the help of numerous members of Washington's free black community, 77 enslaved men, women, and children from across the city and surrounding areas slipped away from their places of work or residence on the evening of April 15 and made their way to The Pearl at a wharf on the Potomac. They boarded the ship which set sail down the Potomac River and then turned north into Chesapeake Bay. The wind was against the schooner, however, forcing it to anchor for the night. The next morning, numerous Washington, D.C. slaveholders, realizing their slaves and The Pearl were missing, sent out an armed posse of 35 men on the steamboat Salem. The posse caught up with The Pearl near Point Lookout, Maryland, boarded the vessel, and took the slaves and the ship back to Washington.

Supporters of slavery were outraged at the attempted escape. An angry mob formed and for the next three days lashed out at suspected white abolitionists and the entire free black community of Washington in what would be known as the first Washington Riot. The mob focused much of its wrath on Gamaliel Bailey and his antislavery newspaper The New Era. Convinced that Bailey had helped plan the mass escape (he had not), the mob broke several windows of the newspaper's office, but were held off by the police from harming Bailey.

Once the Washington Riot ended, the slaveowners sold the attempted escapees to slave traders from Georgia and Louisiana, who promptly took them to New Orleans, Louisiana. Two of the Edmonson children, Mary and Emily, were purchased and freed with funds raised by Henry Ward Beecher's Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn, New York. Drayton, Sayres, and Chester English, the ship's cook, were arrested and indicted for helping the slaves escape. They hired noted education reformer and Massachusetts Congressman Horace Mann as their main attorney. Drayton and Sayres were charged with 77 counts each of aiding a slave to escape and illegally transporting a slave.

A jury convicted both Drayton and Sayres but freed English believing he played no role in the attempted escape. The captain and pilot were given prison sentences because neither could pay their fines and court costs which totaled roughly $10,000. After the men had served four years of their prison sentence, Massachusetts Senator and prominent abolitionist Charles Sumner petitioned President Millard Fillmore for their release. The President pardoned Drayton and Sayres.

The Pearl escape attempt had unexpected consequences. A provision of the Compromise of 1850 enacted by Congress ended the slave trade in the District of Columbia although it did not abolish slavery there. The Pearl incident is also said to have inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe in her writing of Uncle Tom's Cabin which was published in 1852.

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The Pearl Incident in 1848 was the single largest recorded escape attempt by enslaved people in United States history. On April 15, 1848, 77 slaves attempted to flee Washington, D.C. by sailing away on a schooner called The Pearl. They planned to sail south along ...

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February 13-May 10, 1960
Large numbers of Black students targeted restaurants in an attempt to desegregate lunch counters. Their successful protests were some of the first recorded sit-ins and served as a model for future protests.

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Courtesy U.S. Library of Congress (00651469)

The Nashville Sit-Ins were among the earliest non-violent direct action campaigns that targeted Southern racial segregation in the 1960s. The sit-ins, which lasted from February 13 to May 10, 1960, sought to desegregate downtown lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee. The protests were coordinated by the Nashville Student Movement and the Nashville Christian Leadership Council (NCLC), primarily consisting of students from Fisk University, Baptist Theological Seminary, and Tennessee State University. Diane Nash and John Lewis, who were both students at Fisk University, emerged as the major leaders of the local movement.

On February 13, 1960, twelve days after the Greensboro, North Carolina sit-ins began, Nashville college students entered Kress (now K-Mart), Woolworth's, and McClellan stores at 12:40 p.m. After making their purchases, the students sat down at the lunch counters. Store owners initially refused to serve the students and closed the counters, claiming it was their "moral right" to determine whom they would or would not serve. The students continued the sit-ins over the next three months, expanding their targets to include lunch counters at the Greyhound and Trailways bus terminals, Grant's Variety Store, Walgreens Drugstore, and major Nashville department stores, Cain-Sloan and Harvey.

The first violent response to the protests came on February 27, which James Lawson, Jr., another protest leader called "big Saturday." The protesters that day were attacked by a white group opposing desegregation. The police arrested eighty-one protesters but none of the attackers. Those arrested were found guilty of disorderly conduct. They all decided to serve time in jail rather than pay fines.

As racial tension grew in Nashville, Mayor Ben West appointed a biracial committee to investigate segregation in the city. Despite the committee's numerous attempts at a compromise, the students declared that they would accept nothing less than the acknowledgement of their rights to sit at the store lunch counters along with white customers. On April 5, the committee suggested that the counters be divided into black and white sections. The NCLC and the Nashville Student Movement rejected the proposal, arguing that segregation of the counters was no better than black exclusion from them.

On April 19, a bomb destroyed the home of Z. Alexander Lobby, the defense attorney representing many of the protesters. The bombing of Lobby's home triggered a mass march to city hall where 2,500 protesters demanded answers from Mayor West. Diane Nash pointedly asked Mayor West if it was wrong for a citizen of Nashville to discriminate against his fellow citizens because of his race or skin color. The mayor admitted that it was wrong, giving the students an important symbolic victory in their campaign. Nash then asked the mayor if the lunch counters in Nashville should be desegregated. They mayor said they should.

After weeks of secret negotiations between merchants and protest leaders, an agreement was finally reached during the first week of May. On May 10, six downtown stores opened their lunch counters to black customers for the first time; the customers arrived in groups of two or three during the afternoon and were served without incident. With that agreement, Nashville became the first major southern city to begin desegregating public facilities. The Nashville campaign became a model for other civil rights protests in the 1960s and 1970s.

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Courtesy U.S. Library of Congress (00651469) The Nashville Sit-Ins were among the earliest non-violent direct action campaigns that targeted Southern racial segregation in the 1960s. The sit-ins, which lasted from February 13 to May 10, 1960, sought to desegregate downtown lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee.

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2017
The city council voted to remove a statue of Confederate General "Stonewall" Jackson and relocate another statue of Confederate commander Robert E. Lee.

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The City Council in Charlottesville, Virginia, voted Tuesday night to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson from a park after a public hearing punctuated by protests and chants of "Let her speak."

By voice vote, the council voted after 11 p.m. ET to ask a design firm to redesign Emancipation Park, where the Jackson statue stands - effectively ordering its removal once all court cases are resolved.

The vote would also expedite the relocation of a statue of another Confederate general, Robert E. Lee, that was at the center of a white nationalist demonstration in mid-August that led to the death of a woman after a car plowed into a group of anti-protesters.

The vote proceeded without incident - a sharp contrast from the public hearing earlier in the evening, when the council cut off a woman who was seeking to speak about the resolution during other business.

Much of the first two hours of the meeting was dotted with further interruptions from audience members seeking to return to the topic of the Aug. 12 protests, in which 19 other people were also injured.

The City Council last month agreed to consider a resolution to remove and relocate the Jackson statue and the one honoring Lee, which was at the center of the Aug. 12 protests.

The resolution wasn't due to come up until late in the evening, after discussion and public comment on other topics. It calls for removal of the Jackson statue "pending court decisions and/or changes in the Virginia Code," which includes a provision prohibiting removing certain war memorials.

As offered by Vice Mayor Wes Bellamy, the resolution noted that the monuments were erected several decades after the Civil War ended, calling them "20th Century testaments to a fictionalized, glorified narrative of the rightness of the Southern cause in that war, when the actual cause was an insurrection against the United States of America promoting the right of southern states to perpetuate the institution of slavery."

The City Council voted 3-2 in February to take down the Lee statue in Lee Park, but the city was sued in March to prevent the removal.
PHOTOS: Confederate Conflict: A Look at the Statues Sparking Heated Debate
Bob Fenwick, a City Council member who voted for the motion, said the Jackson and Lee monuments "should be in a museum."

"If people stop and think, we have no statues, that I know of, to George Washington in Charlottesville, and yet none of us have forgotten his history," Fenwick told NBC affiliate WVIR. "So this argument that we have to keep it to preserve history, to me, is irrelevant."

Both statues were covered in black tarpaulins last month as a symbol of mourning for Heather Heyer, the woman who was killed at the Aug. 12 rally.

Heyer was among the group of counter-protesters at that demonstration where white supremacists, white nationalists and other members of the far right convened to protest the decision to remove the Lee statue.
Tuesday night's vote comes as Confederate statues and other monuments are being taken down across the country in response to the events in Charlottesville.
President Donald Trump was criticized by both political parties for his response, which blamed "two sides" for the deadly violence.

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Charlottesville Council votes to remove Confederate statue after tense hearing

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The City Council in Charlottesville, Virginia, voted Tuesday night to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson from a park after a public hearing punctuated by protests and chants of "Let her speak." By voice vote, the council voted after 11 p.m.

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1963
When the Chicago School Board refused to cooperate with Black parents, 200,000 Black school children walked out of class to protest crowded classrooms and inadequate supplies. The demonstration was known as "Freedom Day". Eventually, the School Board allowed some students to transfer to less-crowded, traditionally White schools.

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On Oct. 22, 1963, a coalition of civil rights groups staged Freedom Day, a mass boycott and demonstration against segregated schools and inadequate resources for African American students in Chicago.

In the aftermath of the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling, Chicago's schools were overcrowded and underfunded, and the Chicago Board of Education refused to allow Black students to transfer to white schools.

The Chicago Board disregarded the Brown ruling to integrate schools by claiming they were following a neighborhood schools policy that required students to attend a school if it was within walking distance of their home.

63 Boycott Teaser from Kartemquin Films on Vimeo.

In response to overcrowding, the Board of Education brought in mobile classrooms, which community members referred to as "Willis Wagons," after the head of the Board of Education, Benjamin C. Willis. The board claimed these were temporary solutions, but for many of Chicago's Black residents, they were endemic of the racial inequality in schooling.

The movement against segregation and inequality in schools had been going on for years, but climaxed on October 22, 1963, when over 200,000 Chicago students boycotted school as part of "Freedom Day."

Additionally, at least 10,000 students, parents, and community members protested outside the headquarters of the Chicago Board of Education. Some signs read "Willis Must Go," or "No Willis Wagons," while others demanded integrated schools.

While there wasn't a clear-cut victory, the Board of Education felt the pressure and agreed to increase the number of black students who could transfer to white schools. Community members kept organizing after the successful 1963 boycott, even organizing another school boycott in 1965 in which 100,000 students boycotted classes.

For more information, see Facing Freedom at the Chicago History Museum and the documentary project '63 Boycott. Also, read " On the 50th Anniversary of the 1963 Chicago Public Schools Boycott, Segregation and Unfair Resourcing Endures " by Rachel Dickson.

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Oct. 22, 1963: Chicago School Boycott | Zinn Education Project

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On Oct. 22, 1963, a coalition of civil rights groups staged Freedom Day, a mass boycott and demonstration against segregated schools and inadequate resources for African American students in Chicago. In the aftermath of the Brown v.

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1908
When the sheriff denied the release of a couple of incarcerated Black men to a White mob, the crowd went on a murderous pogrom, destroying Black-owned businesses and killing innocent civilians. These events—in Abraham Lincoln's hometown, nonetheless—shocked the nation and eventually led to the formation of the NAACP.

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Courtesy Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library

In mid-August 1908, the white population of Springfield, Illinois hastily reacted to reports that a white woman has been assaulted in her home by a black man. Soon afterwards another instance of an assault by a black man on a white woman was reported. These incidents, coming within hours of each other, inflamed a gathering mob.

Springfield Police took into custody an African American vagrant, Joe James, for one of the assaults. Another man, George Richardson, a local factory worker was arrested for the second assault. A mob which had been forming since the news of the assaults was first announced now quickly assembled at the Sangamon County Courthouse to lynch the two men in custody.

Unable to get the accused men whom the Sheriff announced had been moved to an undisclosed location, the mob turned its wrath of two other black men, Scott Burton and William Donegan, who were in the area. They were quickly lynched.

The mob then vented its fury on the homes of black families in Springfield. After rampaging through the city they extended their violence into small communities outside the city limits. The mob targeted stores which had guns and ammunition. Mob leaders carefully directed the participants to destroy only homes and businesses either owned by blacks or which served black patrons, thus leaving nearby white homes and businesses untouched.

Some Springfield blacks fought back in self-defense. They shot back when fired upon, and the first victim of the lynch mob, Scott Burton, used his shotgun in an attempt to save his life and home. The second victim lynched was an 84-year-old cobbler named William Donegan, whose reputation had been tainted in the eyes of the mob by the fact that he had been married to a white woman for over 30 years. When the carnage finally ended six black people were shot and killed, two were lynched and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of property destroyed. About two thousand black people were driven out of the city of Springfield as a result of the riot.

About 150 suspected mob participants were arrested. Threats from other mob participants restrained people from testifying against those suspected of the violence. Later it was revealed that George Richardson, who was initially charged with assault, had been wrongly identified and the indictment was dismissed.

The Springfield Riot made the capital of Illinois and the home of Abraham Lincoln the center of national attention especially since this was the first race riot in the North in over half a century. Perhaps the most lasting consequence of the riot was its impetus in getting white reformers such as Jane Addams and black civil rights activists such as W.E.B. DuBois to create the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), one year later following an interracial conference in upstate New York.

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Image Ownership: Public Domain In mid-August 1908, the white population of Springfield, Illinois hastily reacted to reports that a white woman has been assaulted in her home by a black man. Soon afterwards another instance of an assault by a black man on a ... Read MoreSpringfield Race Riot, 1908

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1917
Thousands of Black families moved to St. Louis to work in factories during WWI. As their political power grew, so did racial unrest and tension. After two police officers were killed on July 1, White citizens took to the streets indiscriminantly killing Black men, women, and children and destroying Black property.

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The city of East St. Louis, Illinois was the scene of one of the bloodiest race riots in the 20th century. Racial tensions began to increase in February, 1917 when 470 African American workers were hired to replace white workers who had gone on strike against the Aluminum Ore Company.

The violence started on May 28th, 1917, shortly after a city council meeting was called. Angry white workers lodged formal complaints against black migrations to the Mayor of East St. Louis. After the meeting had ended, news of an attempted robbery of a white man by an armed black man began to circulate through the city. As a result of this news, white mobs formed and rampaged through downtown, beating all African Americans who were found. The mobs also stopped trolleys and streetcars, pulling black passengers out and beating them on the streets and sidewalks. Illinois Governor Frank O. Lowden eventually called in the National Guard to quell the violence, and the mobs slowly dispersed. The May 28th disturbances were only a prelude to the violence that erupted on July 2, 1917.

After the May 28th riots, little was done to prevent any further problems. No precautions were taken to ensure white job security or to grant union recognition. This further increased the already-high level of hostilities towards African Americans. No reforms were made in police force which did little to quell the violence in May. Governor Lowden ordered the National Guard out of the city on June 10th, leaving residents of East St. Louis in an uneasy state of high racial tension.

On July 2, 1917, the violence resumed. Men, women, and children were beaten and shot to death. Around six o' clock that evening, white mobs began to set fire to the homes of black residents. Residents had to choose between burning alive in their homes, or run out of the burning houses, only to be met by gunfire. In other parts of the city, white mobs began to lynch African Americans against the backdrop of burning buildings. As darkness came and the National Guard returned, the violence began to wane, but did not come to a complete stop.

In response to the rioting, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) sent W.E.B. DuBois and Martha Gruening to investigate the incident. They compiled a report entitled "Massacre at East St. Louis," which was published in the NAACP's magazine, . The NAACP also staged a silent protest march in New York City in response to the violence. Thousands of well-dressed African Americans marched down Fifth Avenue, showing their concern about the events in East St. Louis.

The Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) also responded to the violence. On July 8th, 1917, the UNIA's President, Marcus Garvey said "This is a crime against the laws of humanity; it is a crime against the laws of the nation, it is a crime against Nature, and a crime against the God of all mankind." He also believed that the entire riot was part of a larger conspiracy against African Americans who migrated North in search of a better life: "The whole thing, my friends, is a bloody farce, and that the police and soldiers did nothing to stem the murder thirst of the mob is a conspiracy on the part of the civil authorities to condone the acts of the white mob against Negroes."

A year after the riot, a Special Committee formed by the United States House of Representatives launched an investigation into police actions during the East St. Louis Riot. Investigators found that the National Guard and also the East St. Louis police force had not acted adequately during the riots, revealing that the police often fled from the scenes of murder and arson. Some even fled from stationhouses and refused to answer calls for help. The investigation resulted in the indictment of several members of the East St. Louis police force.

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The city of East St. Louis, Illinois was the scene of one of the bloodiest race riots in the 20th century. Racial tensions began to increase in February, 1917 when 470 African American workers were hired to replace white workers who had gone on strike ... Read MoreEast St.

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1943
When 12 Black workers were promoted to welders at the Alabama Dry Dock and Shipping Company, 4,000 armed White supremacists attacked any Black worker they could find. The company eventually created segregated work areas after some Whites refused to work with the skilled Black laborers.

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On May 25, 1943, a riot broke out at the Alabama Dry Dock Shipping Company after 12 African Americans were promoted to "highly powered" positions.

The Alabama Dry Dock and Shipping Company built and maintained U.S. Navy Ships during World War I and World War II. During World War II, the company was the largest employer in Mobile. In 1941, the company began hiring African American men in unskilled positions. By 1943, Mobile shipyards employed 50,000 workers and African American men and women held 7,000 of those jobs. Though small, this increase in Black employees did not please white workers.

In the spring of 1943, in response to President Roosevelt's Fair Employment Practices Committee issuing directives to elevate African Americans to skilled positions, as well as years of pressure from local Black leaders and the NAACP, the Alabama Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Company reluctantly agreed to promote 12 Black workers to the role of welder-a position previously reserved for white employees.

Shortly after the new welders finished their first shift, an estimated 4,000 white shipyard workers and community members armed with pipes, clubs, and other dangerous weapons attacked any Black employee they could find. Two Black men were thrown into the Mobile River by the mobs, while others jumped in to escape serious injury. The National Guard was called to restore order; although no one was killed, more than 50 people were seriously injured, and several weeks passed before African American workers could safely return to work.

Even after the attack, many white employees remained defiant and refused to return to work unless they received a guarantee that African Americans would no longer be hired. When the federal government intervened, the company created four segregated shipways where African Americans could hold any position with the exception of foreman. African Americans working on the rest of the shipyard were relegated to the low-paying, unskilled tasks they had historically performed.

To learn more about the Alabama Dry Dock riots, watch this video by PBS.

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May 25, 1943 | White Workers Riot After Black Workers Promoted in Mobile, Alabama

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On May 25, 1943, a riot broke out at the Alabama Dry Dock Shipping Company after 12 African Americans were promoted to "highly powered" positions. The Alabama Dry Dock and Shipping Company built and maintained U.S. Navy Ships during World War I and World War II.

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1874
White domestic terrorists used violence to suppress voting and murder local citizens, signaling an end to Reconstruction efforts. Despite the phrasing on the historical marker seen above, the "riot" was actually a state-sanctioned pogrom against Black Americans.

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On Nov. 3, 1874, deadly election "riots" took place in Barbour County, Alabama.

The White League, (a paramilitary group affiliated with the Democratic party) attacked African-American voters at the polls in Eufaula and Spring Hill. Seven African-Americans were killed and 70 others wounded.

More than 1,000 African-Americans were driven away from the polls due to the violence of the white supremacist group.

As explained on the Encyclopedia of Alabama website,

On Election Day eve, there may have been as many as 1,000 or more Black men from Barbour County camping out on the outskirts of Eufaula; accounts citing figures vary. In addition, persistent but false rumors of an "invasion" of the city circulated within the white community.

Republican politicians and officials were thrown out of office, the league didn't count the votes cast for Republican candidates, and the Democrats were declared as winners of the 1874 elections.

Similar events took place in Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

These riots, state sanctioned violence, voter suppression, and Democratic party controlled government signaled an end to the Reconstruction era.

For more information about this event, read Election Riots of 1874.

There is a historical marker. However, as noted by Clio,

This historical marker was erected by the Historic Chattahoochee Commission in 1979 and offers a disturbing interpretation of the violence perpetrated by white supremacists who launched a violent coup that allowed them to seize power through force rather than allow all voters to participate in the elections in 1874.

We encourage students and teachers in the area to advocate for a new, truthful marker as part of the Make Reconstruction History Visible student project.

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Nov. 3, 1874: White League Attacks Black Voters | Zinn Education Project

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On Nov. 3, 1874, deadly election "riots" took place in Barbour County, Alabama. The White League, (a paramilitary group affiliated with the Democratic party) attacked African-American voters at the polls in Eufaula and Spring Hill. Seven African-Americans were killed and 70 others wounded.

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1868
When the state legislature expelled elected bi-racial members, one of the representatives organized a march to protest. Black protesters were ambushed and killed as they attempted to join a political rally.

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The Camilla Massacre took place on September 19, 1868 near Albany, Georgia. The massacre was one of many acts of repression carried out by white supremacists during the Reconstruction era to roll back advances in civic, economic, and human rights for African Americans.

Here is a description from the Georgia Encyclopedia.

In early September, the Georgia state legislature expelled twenty-eight newly elected members because they were at least one-eighth black. Among those removed was southwest Georgia representative Philip Joiner.

On September 19, Joiner, along with northerners Francis F. Putney and William P. Pierce, led a twenty-five-mile march of several hundred Blacks and a few whites from Albany to Camilla, the Mitchell County seat, to attend a Republican political rally.

Mitchell County whites, however, were determined that no Republican rally would occur. As marchers entered the courthouse square in Camilla, whites stationed in various storefronts opened fire, killing about a dozen and wounding possibly thirty others.

As marchers returned to Albany, hostile whites assaulted them for several miles.

Read more at " Camilla, GA: Political Rally and Massacre" in Black and Education. Find an extensive collection of primary documents about Camilla at the Digital Library of Georgia. Read about more massacres in U.S. history.

Teachers and students in the area of Camilla (near Albany), Georgia: Please consider adding this site to the Make Reconstruction History Visible map and advocating for a marker for the Camilla Massacre. As of this posting (9/19/2020), most major "on this day in history" series do not include this anniversary. Students can help ensure this event is not hidden in history.

Find resources for teaching about the Reconstruction era on the Teach Reconstruction campaign page.

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Sept. 19, 1868: Camilla Massacre | Zinn Education Project

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The Camilla Massacre took place on September 19, 1868 near Albany, Georgia. The massacre was one of many acts of repression carried out by white supremacists during the Reconstruction era to roll back advances in civic, economic, and human rights for African Americans. Here is a description from the Georgia Encyclopedia.

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1906
A rapidly growing Black population, job scarcity, reports of attacks against women, and political activism contributed to White anxiety and eventually led to a White mob wandering the city, destroying Black businesses and killing Black men.

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The Atlanta Race Riot or Atlanta Riot of 1906 was the first race riot to take place in the capital city of Georgia. The riot lasted from September 22 to September 24 and was the culmination of a number of factors, including lingering tensions from reconstruction, job competition, black voting rights, and increasing desire of African Americans to secure their civil rights.

By 1900 the population of Atlanta had more than doubled to 89,872 from its 1880 level. The black population nearly quadrupled during that period. Job competition became intense and white politicians responded by implementing and expanding Jim Crow laws. The laws maintained separate black and white neighborhoods, segregated public transportation, and segregated schools. Despite these hurdles, a small number of black families achieved a significant measure of success. Black men voted during Reconstruction and continued to do so after their counterparts were pushed off the rolls throughout the rest of the South. Consequently there was considerable African American political activism in the city. The growing black middle class made many white citizens uncomfortable but they were also wary of rising crime rates and the perceived threat of black men against white women.

The 1906 gubernatorial campaign added fuel to the racial fire, as both Democratic candidates, Hoke Smith and Clark Howell, advocated disenfranchisement of all black voters in their respective newspapers. On September 22, after four alleged sexual attacks on white women by black men were reported in the local white press, a mob of approximately 10,000 white men formed downtown. The mob surged through black Atlanta neighborhoods destroying businesses and assaulting hundreds of black men. The violence became so dangerous that the state militia was called in to take control of the city. Still, some white groups persisted in attacking black neighborhoods, and black men organized to defend their homes and families.

Prior to the 1906 riot, Atlanta was viewed as one of the few Southern American cities where blacks and whites could live in harmony. In an effort to end the violence, some white leaders reached out to the black elite, but in the aftermath of the violence the city became increasingly socially and racially stratified. Though not known for sure, the estimated number of blacks killed was between 25 and 40 while two white Americans were killed. Hundreds more people were injured or saw businesses and homes destroyed. Black residential neighborhoods became increasingly racially isolated following the riot, and many African Americans turned away from the previously popular accommodationist philosophies of Booker T. Washington in favor of more aggressive approaches to civil rights.

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The Atlanta Race Riot or Atlanta Riot of 1906 was the first race riot to take place in the capital city of Georgia. The riot lasted from September 22 to September 24 and was the culmination of a number of factors, including lingering tensions from ...

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1943
A fistfight exploded into a 24-hour period of looting, arson, and violence which was halted by 6,000 Federal troops.

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The Detroit Riot of 1943 lasted only about 24 hours from 10:30 on June 20 to 11:00 p.m. on June 21; nonetheless it was considered one of the worst riots during the World War II era. Several contributing factors revolved around police brutality, and the sudden influx of black migrants from the south into the city, lured by the promise of jobs in defense plants. The migrants faced an acute housing shortage which many thought would be reduced by the construction of public housing. However the construction of public housing for blacks in predominately white neighborhoods often created racial tension.

The Sojourner Truth Homes Riot in 1942, for example, began when whites were enraged by the opening of that project in their neighborhood. Mobs attempted to keep the black residents from moving into their new homes. That confrontation laid the foundation for the much larger riot one year later.

On June 20, a warm Saturday evening, a fist fight broke out between a black man and a white man at the sprawling Belle Isle Amusement Park in the Detroit River. The brawl eventually grew into a confrontation between groups of blacks and whites, and then spilled into the city. Stores were looted, and buildings were burned in the riot, most of which were located in a black neighborhood. The riot took place in an area of roughly two miles in and around Paradise Valley, one of the oldest and poorest neighborhoods in Detroit, Michigan.

As the violence escalated, both blacks and whites engaged in violence. Blacks dragged whites out of cars and looted white-owned stores in Paradise Valley while whites overturned and burned black-owned vehicles and attacked African Americans on streetcars along Woodward Avenue and other major streets. The Detroit police did little in the rioting, often siding with the white rioters in the violence.

The violence ended only after President Franklin Roosevelt, at the request of Detroit Mayor Edward Jeffries, Jr., ordered 6,000 federal troops into the city. Twenty-five blacks and nine whites were killed in the violence. Of the 25 African Americans who died, 17 were killed by the police. The police claimed that these shootings were justified since the victims were engaged in looting stores on Hastings Street. Of the nine whites who died, none were killed by the police. The city suffered an estimated $2 million in property damages.

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The Detroit Riot of 1943 lasted only about 24 hours from 10:30 on June 20 to 11:00 p.m. on June 21; nonetheless it was considered one of the worst riots during the World War II era. Several contributing factors revolved around police brutality, and the ...

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1910
When rumors of an armed Black rebellion circulated among White residents, White supremacists roamed the countryside in groups, killing Blacks and seizing their property as they fled. Newspapers only inflamed tension as they spread misinformation about the events.

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The Slocum Massacre occurred on July 29, 1910 in Slocum, Texas, an unincorporated community in southeast Anderson County. The city used to be home to a thriving African American community with several businesses and farms owned by black residents. Leading up to the massacre, a … Read MoreThe Slocum…

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1919
When a rumor of a Black man assaulting a White woman started to spread, White soldiers started attacking Black soldiers and civilians. Black Washingtonians armed themselves and fought back.

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July 19, 1919: White Mobs in Uniform Attack African Americans — Who Fight Back — in Washington, D.C. - Zinn Education Project

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White mobs, incited by the media, attacked the African American community in Washington, D.C., and African American soldiers returning from WWI. This was one of the many violent events that summer and it was distinguished by strong and organized Black resistance to the white violence.

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1919
After one man was killed and another was injured at a Black sharecroppers' union meeting, White mobs from neighboring states began to hunt for suspects while White media spread rumors of a Black uprising. The resulting hysteria led to a massacre of Black Americans.

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Public domain image

One of the last of the major riots of the "Red Summer" of 1919, the so-called race riot in Elaine, Arkansas was in fact a racial massacre. Though exact numbers are unknown, it is estimated that over 200 African Americans were killed, along with five whites, during the white hysteria of a pending insurrection of black sharecroppers. The violence, terror, and concerted effort to drive African Americans out of Phillips County, Arkansas was so jarring that Ida B. Wells, a founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), published a short book on the riot in 1920. It was also widely reported in African American newspapers like the Chicago Defender and generated several public campaigns to address the fallout.

On the night of September 30, 1919, approximately 100 African Americans, mostly sharecroppers on the plantations of white landowners, attended a meeting of the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America at a church in Hoop Spur, a small community in Phillips County, Arkansas. They hoped to organize to obtain better payments for their cotton crops. Aware of white fears of Communist influence on blacks, the union posted armed guards around the church to prevent disruption and infiltration.

During the meeting, three white men pulled up to the front of the church. One of the men asked the guards, "Going coon hunting, boys?" Gunfire erupted after the guards made no response. Though sharp debate exists as to who fired first, the guards killed W.A. Adkins, a security officer from the Missouri-Pacific Railroad, and injured Charles Pratt, the deputy sheriff.

The next morning, an all-white posse went to arrest the suspects. Though they encountered little opposition from the black community, the fact that blacks outnumbered whites ten-to-one in this area of Arkansas resulted in great fear of an "insurrection." The concerned whites formed a mob numbering up to 1,000 armed men, many of whom came from the surrounding counties and as far away as Mississippi and Tennessee. Upon reaching Elaine, the mob began killing blacks and ransacking their homes. As word of the attack spread throughout the African American community, some black residents fled while others armed themselves in defense. The mob then turned its attention to disarming those blacks who fought back.

Meanwhile, local white newspapers further inflamed tensions by reporting that there were planned black uprisings. By October 2, U.S. Army troops arrived in Elaine, and the white mobs began to disperse. Federal troops rounded up and placed several hundred blacks in temporary stockades, where there were reports of torture. The men were not released until their white employers vouched for them. There was also considerable evidence that many of the soldiers sent to quell the violence engaged in the systematic killing of black residents.

In the end, 122 blacks but no whites were charged by the Phillips County grand jury for crimes related to the riots. Their court-appointed lawyers did little in their defense despite the investigation and involvement of the NAACP. The first 12 men tried for first-degree murder were convicted and sentenced to death. As a result, 65 others entered plea bargains and accepted up to 21 years for second-degree murder. Led by black attorney Scipio Africanus Jones, the NAACP and other civil rights groups worked towards retrials and release of the "Elaine Twelve." Eventually they won their release, with the last of the twelve set free on January 14, 1925.

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One of the last of the major riots of the "Red Summer" of 1919, the so-called race riot in Elaine, Arkansas was in fact a racial massacre. Though exact numbers are unknown, it is estimated that over 200 African Americans were killed, along with five whites, during the white ...

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1923
At least 50 Black Floridians were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan after they went to the polls and attempted to vote.

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In response to an attempt by African Americans to exercise their legal and democratic right to vote, at least 50 African Americans were murdered in a brutal massacre in Ocoee, Florida on Nov. 2, 1920 in what is now called the Ocoee Massacre.

Here is a description from " Ocoee On Fire: The 1920 Election Day Massacre: A quiet Florida citrus town became the scene of a gruesome racial cleansing that purged the entire Black population for over 60 years " by Jason Byrne:

On November 1st, the day before the election, with robes and crosses, the Klan paraded through the streets of the two Black communities in Ocoee late into the night. With megaphones they warned that "not a single Negro will be permitted to vote" and if any of them dared to do so there would be dire consequences.

Election Day came and at least some Blacks did attempt to vote in Orange County; however, none were permitted to enter their respective polling places. White enforcers camped out around the centers and poll workers were given instructions to deflect their attempts.

One-by-one would-be Black voters were turned away either by threats of violence or by poll workers who found their names "mysteriously" absent from the voter registration rolls. Pollsters instructed them to get documentation from notary public R. C. Bigelow to verify that they were indeed registered to vote. Conveniently, however, Bigelow was unable to be located because he was out on a fishing trip that day.

With little other option, most returned to their homes without casting their ballots. Mose Norman would not be so easily deterred. After being turned away that morning in his Ocoee precinct, he rode to Orlando to seek the council of Judge Cheney. The attorney instructed him to write down the names of any African-Americans who were not permitted to vote and also the names of the poll workers who had denied their Constitutional right. Cheney said a lawsuit against the County could be brought to contest this violation.

Norman returned to Ocoee with these instructions, along with a handful of Black citizens again seeking to vote; as you can imagine, things did not go well. After again being forcibly turned away, he demanded the poll workers names and exclaimed: "We will vote, by God!"

The response by the Klan was a massacre. One of the people killed was Julius "July" Perry, pictured above. Here is a description of Perry from " Ocoee On Fire ":

July Perry had become the well-respected godfather of the Black community. He served as a deacon in the church and the local labor leader or "straw boss." It was said that anyone seeking to employ Black laborers needed to speak with him first. He was an admired, brave, and rational thinker. A sort of civil rights leader before there was a civil rights movement, he encouraged young Blacks to be educated and stand up for themselves as first-class citizens.

Perry's wife (Estelle), his three sons and daughter (Coretha Perry Caldwell) lived on a large estate that included their home and several barns and outbuildings. They regularly opened their doors to anyone in need. If anyone was in trouble, they knew they could find advice and sanctuary in the Perry home. Continue reading "Ocoee On Fire".

Read " A Report of the Circumstances and Events of the Race Riot on November 2, 1920 in Ocoee, Florida," by Lester Dabbs Jr., Masters Thesis, 1969.

Learn more from the documentary film, "Ocoee: Legacy of the Election Day Massacre" (2008) by Sandra Krasa and Bianca White. Available for purchase or rent.

Sadly, this is one of countless massacres in U.S. history.

Find resources below for teaching about the history of voter suppression, sundown towns, and the demand for reparations.

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Nov. 2, 1920: The Ocoee Massacre - Zinn Education Project

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More than fifty African Americans killed in the Ocoee Massacre after going to vote in Florida.

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1921
During one of the most appalling acts of violence against Black people in the history of the United States, Whites attacked and killed hundreds of Black Oklahomans and burned several city blocks to the ground. The Tulsa County Grand Jury argued that Whites were not to blame.

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In the article that follows Syracuse University historian Herbert G. Ruffin II takes us back in time to describe the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 on the eve of its 100-year anniversary.
African American life and the passing down of wealth from one generation to the next in the United States has always been frail and never guaranteed. Blacks' expectations of equality can be meet in one instance and instantly lost in the next. This was the lesson that many learned during the red-hot summers from 1917 to 1923. This was a period which experienced twenty-three race riots and massacres, with the worst case of white supremacist terrorism occurring in Tulsa, Oklahoma between May 31 and June 1, 1921.

Tulsa was an early 20th Century boom town that transformed overnight from a sleepy rural community to a major metropolis. Catapulted by the major discovery of oil at nearly Glenn Pool in 1905, Tulsa's population exploded from 10,000 people in 1910 to over 100,000 in 1920. Along with this growth came the rapid establishment of railroads, interurban trains lines, daily newspapers, telegraph companies, banks, a commercial airport, and infrastructure built for newly developed automobile. This Tulsa was a white-dominated setting that blacks may have worked in as domestics and in manual labor jobs connected with the oil industry and its secondary occupations, but it was not one structured to allow them to enjoy the fruits of their labor. For this they established an alternative, their own promised land north of the Frisco railroad yards in a place called Greenwood.

Greenwood was "bordered by the Frisco railroad yards to the south, by Lansing Street and the Midland Valley tracks to the east,...by Standpipe and Sunset Hills to the west" and past Pine Street or "The Section Line" to open country in the north. The heart of this community was its people, 95% of whom lived modest lives compared to their white counterparts in poorly built frame houses often without electricity, indoor plumbing, and paved streets. The spine of the community was the commercial district at the intersection of Archer and Greenwood called Deep Greenwood, better known to the world as "Black Wall Street." This district was anchored by the black-owned Gurley and Stradford hotels. In 1921, on the eve of the Massacre, Greenwood had 108 black businesses including barbershops, billiard halls, churches, clothing stores, fraternal lodges, funeral parlors, a hospital, hotels, markets, movie theaters, newspapers, nightclubs, a public library, public schools, and restaurants. Its professional and skilled classes included attorneys, physicians, ministers, tailors, hairdressers, and shoemakers. Black Wall Street epitomized the best that could be achieved in a racially segregated society, a large degree of African American control over its major institutions, a self-contained black city within a larger and hostile white one.

As impressive this situation was, it was important to note that Tulsa was a troubled city in which white Tulsans purposely ignored or denigrated the African American community. Guided by racial stereotypes, deep-rooted prejudices, and mass layoffs in the oilfields, it was not a surprise that rumor, and insinuation created fertile ground for race paranoia and the rapid growth of white supremacist terrorist hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan. In the 1920s the Oklahoma Klan included farmers, ranchers, miners, oil field workers, small town merchants, big city businessmen, ministers, newspaper editors, policemen, educators, lawyers, judges, and politicians, a cross-section of the entire white population. This combustible mix and the increase of lynching and mob violence placed Tulsa on the path of self-destruction.

The event which caused black leaders to seriously consider their precarious situation was the lynching of Roy Belton. In August 1920, Belton, who was white, was arrested for hijacking and shooting local cab driver Homer Nida. Before this case came to trial, a white mob stormed the courthouse, captured Belton, took him to the countryside area where Nida was murdered, and lynched him.

News of this lynching had Black Tulsans like businessmen A.J. Smitherman wonder: "What about the next time that an African American was charged with a serious crime in Tulsa, particularly if it involved a white victim? What would happen then?" Determined that no black person ever fall victim to mob violence, Smitherman and other local African American leaders recommended that Black Tulsans, from World War I veterans to businessmen to common laborers, all consider using armed resistance as a self-defense tactic.

The local fires of discord were further inflamed within white Tulsa on August 20, 1920, when the highly volatile subject of black men intermingling with white women make the front pages. This was coded in language about the need to end prostitution and "kick out the Negro pimps if we want to stop this vice." Another newspaper report focused on whites slumming in Greenwood and singing and dancing with black people, with special attention given to the fun that young white women were having. Five days later, a series of spectacular jailbreaks happened. Then in the morning of May 30, 1921 (Memorial Day), the unimaginable occurred: a white woman was allegedly assaulted by a black man.

According to the Tulsa Race Commission Report (2001) 19-year-old bootblack Dick Rowland probably "tripped as he got onto a elevator and, as he tried to catch his fall, he grabbed onto the arm of [elevator operator] 17-year-old Sarah Page, who then screamed." Both 19-year-old Rowland and 17-year-old Page worked in the Drexel building. Because of race restrictions the only bathroom that blacks could use was on the top floor of the building. The only way to get to that bathroom was though an elevator manually handled by an operator like Page. A clerk at Renberg's clothing store in the building heard a scream and called police.

The alleged assault was recorded as an attempted rape. Yet Page's testimony does not exist in police reports. A day later, a terrified Rowland was arrested at his adopted mother's home and taken to the courthouse to be held for trial. Under new police sheriff Willard M. McCullough, the investigators initially took a deliberate approach to investigating this case without the gaze of the media. However, between lawyers and newspapers like the Tulsa Tribune, by 7:34 p.m. on May 31, innuendo and rumor quickly spread, alarming and mobilizing white supremacist terrorists into action. Initially, several hundred whites surrounded the courthouse with the intent to lynch Rowland. But new sheriff was not having it, barricading himself and twenty-five police officers on the top floor of the three-story courthouse.

Meanwhile, in Greenwood, black residents met and came to three conclusions: arm themselves and save Rowland from the mob; pray; or flee to the North. In two waves at 9:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m., around 100 armed blacks came to the courthouse to aid the sheriff. He turned them away both times, indicating that everything was under control. More important, the sight of former black military vets in uniform and blacks carrying arms and breaking Tulsa's race etiquette, enraged the white mob of around 2,000 who had gathered near the courthouse. They prepared for a race war. Those whites who did not already have a gun and ammunition raided downtown sporting goods stores, hardware stores, and pawnshops. With shouts of "bring the rope" and "get the n-word," the mob's goal now expanded from lynching Rowland to murdering the armed African Americans who crossed the Frisco railroad tracks and dared interrupted their courthouse invasion.

At 10:14 p.m. Oklahoma state officials got word of the impending riot in Tulsa. Yet it would be four hours, around 2:15 a.m. before Governor James B.A. Robertson authorized state troops to go to the city. Meanwhile Rowland's champions fought with the mob to get back to Greenwood. Teachers and ministers prayed and hoped for the violence to pass. About forty blacks did not wait and fled to the Northeast countryside. They were the fortunate ones. At 11 p.m., Tulsa's all-white National Guard was mobilized for "riot control" with the intent of putting down what they interpreted as a black uprising. They stopped and arrested all adult male black Tulsans, processing them at Conventional Hall and then placing them under their "protection" in make-shift internment camps. The 75-man Tulsa police force "deputized" mob members ranging from 10 years old to adult, authorizing them to imprison blacks and occupy Greenwood. Between midnight and 1:30 a.m. on June 1, the first fires were set to burn Greenwood. Nonetheless most of the anti-black violence seemed to be slowing down prompting many local blacks to believe by 2:00 a.m. that their nightmare had ended. Little did they know that the setback of darkness only made the mob angrier.

Stoked by false rumors, meetings were taking place throughout the night all over white Tulsa. These rumors included claims of five hundred armed blacks coming to Tulsa by train from Muskogee to assist the uprising, or large bands of blacks firing on white residents and in the process, killing a white woman. Incensed, the mob decided to invade Greenwood at sunrise. This massacre proceeded with military-like precision. At 5:00 a.m. on June 1, an unusual whistle/ siren sounded, setting off three clusters of now thousands of whites who invaded Greenwood from three strategic railroad passenger stations near the edge of the community, and for the first time in U.S. history, by plane. For good a period of the morning African Americans such as John Wesley Williams and Peg Leg Taylor were able to fight off this onslaught from areas like Sunset Hill and the newly built Mount Zion Baptist Church. But they were ultimately surrounded, smoked out, and pummeled into dropping their arms. As for blacks who decided to flee north, most were tracked down by planes and contained by gunfire and dynamite.

Some blacks were able to survive when sympathetic whites and Mexican immigrants opened their homes to them. Others hid when and where they could. Five-year old George Monroe and his older siblings survived after sister Lottie prevented him from crying by covering his mouth while mob members searched their home. Other black residents, imprisoned by mob members, were terrorized by being forced to dance while white rioters shot at the heels of their feet. In one instance a black resident was dragged around town by automobile with a noose around his neck. In one of the most heinous acts of wanton violence, mob members tracked down the nationally famous black surgeon, Dr. A.C. Jackson. After surrendering to mob members who promised he would be protected, the surgeon was murdered in cold blood. While death figures will never be completely determined with accuracy, at least 300 black people died in this eighteen-hour effort to destroy an American community of upstanding, hardworking people. Hundreds more were injured, and more than 1,000 black-owned homes and businesses were destroyed. The Massacre ended by noon on June 1 when Governor Robertson placed the city under martial law. By this point he had sent 109 white state troopers to control the violence even though they had been present in the city since 7:30 a.m.

The "Tulsa Riot" made front page news across the United States. Meeting on June 25, 1921, the Tulsa County Grand Jury blamed the Blacks for inciting the riot. Their report stated that "The assembly was quiet until the arrival of armed Negroes, which precipitated and was the direct cause of the entire affair." As for the white supremacist terrorism the report added that "There was no mob spirit among the whites, no talk of lynching and no arms."

In the Massacre's aftermath, most Black Tulsans were homeless and penniless. They stayed and rebuilt Greenwood from its ashes. The only Black homes spared were in the countryside on the eastern and northern edge of Greenwood where they were interspersed with white homes. This was also the area where Blacks had the greatest success in finding sympathetic whites who provided their homes as safe houses for Massacre survivors.

In the first year after the Massacre most Black Tulsans lived in tents and were assisted by the Red Cross, synthetic whites, and financial support from throughout the nation. By 1922 most of the temporary tents were replaced with new homes. Crucial in that development was the role of the black law firm, Spears, Franklin & Chappelle, which managed to overturn a city fire ordinance that would have made reconstruction in the neighborhood prohibitively expensive. Buck Colbert Franklin, the father of historian John Hope Franklin, was a partner in the firm and a leader in the effort to rebuild Black Tulsa.

Yet, there was hardly any restitution for the loss of life or property. While most African Americans were separated from family members in internment camps, 120 mass graves were dug. The largest unmarked graves were at Booker T. Washington Cemetery, Newblock Park, Oaklawn Cemetery, and along Sand Springs road. Efforts are ongoing today to uncover more of these graves. Additionally, insurance companies were allowed to drag out claims for years. Conversely, the Klan easily manipulated Oklahoma's racial climate after the Massacre to have its membership surge to over 100,000 by 1925. The Massacre's history was essentially erased from history books and public memory until Ed Wheeler published "Profile of a Race Riot" in Impact Magazine (1971) months after Massacre survivors publicly addressed their traumas for the first time at historic Booker T. Washington High School.

In 1995, the State of Oklahoma publicly acknowledged and apologized for the Massacre as civic and political figures began a campaign to get restitution for Massacre survivors. Ironically, these efforts went viral after other citizens demanded that the state memorialize and never forget the April 19, 1995 domestic terrorist bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. The Oklahoma legislature responded by authorizing the formation of the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 in preparation for its eightieth-year anniversary and the state's one-hundredth year anniversary (2007). As historians John Hope Franklin and Scott Ellsworth wrote in the Commission's final report (2001), "we can best honor that past not by burying it, but by facing it squarely, honestly, and, above all, openly." Echoing many of President Bill Clinton's "Advisory Board to the President's Initiative on Race" (1997-98) which Franklin also chaired, the Tulsa Race Riot report concluded that the city had colluded with the white mob against its African American citizens. For this they recommended restitution for African American survivors and their descendants; a scholarship fund for descendants; economic development in the Greenwood district; and a memorial for the victims.

So far in 2021, Massacre survivors have received a gold medal from the of Oklahoma and an apology, however, few have received substantial restitution for themselves or their descendants. The college scholarship fund has supported approximately 300 descendants; the Greenwood commercial district has been rebuilt as a historical district; and the heart of Black Tulsa, which is its people, has been memorialized through the 2018 opening of John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park. Only time will tell, however, if the lessons of the Tulsa Massacre have been permanently learned so that the community can say with confidence, never again, and the victims of the Tulsa Massacre can finally rest in peace.

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We Can Best Honor Our Past by Not Burying It: The Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 *

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In the article that follows Syracuse University historian Herbert G. Ruffin II takes us back in time to describe the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 on the eve of its 100-year anniversary. African American life and the passing down of wealth from one generation to ...

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1923
White domestic terrorists successfully ran every Black family out of town over a course of a few days in December, 1923.

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On Dec. 29, 1923, the Catcher "Race Riot" " began, leading to the creation of another sundown town in Arkansas.

Within the span of a few days, an African American man was murdered, 11 African Americans were charged with night riding, and after serious threats to their safety, there was an exodus from Catcher of every African American family.

Two African-American men were executed (including Charles Spurgeon Rucks, 1893-1924, in the photo) while a third was given life in prison, following speedy trials that included dubious "evidence" offered by the prosecution.

The defendants were represented by Scipio Africanus Jones, a prominent attorney in Little Rock.

Learn more about this story at the Encyclopedia of Arkansas.

Teach about the legacy of these "race riots" with the lesson " Burned Out of Homes and History: Unearthing the Silenced Voices of the Tulsa Race Riot " by Linda Christensen from Rethinking Schools.

Find a list of other events that are called "race riots" in mainstream texts, but are better described as massacres in U.S. history.

Learn more about sundown towns in the book by James Loewen.

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Dec. 29, 1923: Terror Attack on African Americans in Catcher, Arkansas - Zinn Education Project

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tdih On Dec. 29 1923, the Catcher "Race Riot" began, leading to the creation of another Sundown town in Arkansas. Within the span of a few days, an African American man was murdered, 11 African Americans were charged with night riding, and after serious threats to their safety, there was an exodus from Catcher of every African American family.

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1937
Soldiers under the direct military command of the United States fired into a group of peaceful protestors, killing 21 and injuring hundreds.

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The Ponce massacre occurred on March 21, 1937, when a peaceful march in Ponce, Puerto Rico was attacked by police who shot and killed 19 Puerto Ricans and wounded over 200 others.

The march had been organized by the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party to commemorate the ending of slavery in Puerto Rico and to protest the imprisonment, by the U.S. government, of Nationalist leader Pedro Albizu Campos on alleged sedition charges.

The bloodshed began when the Insular Police fired on the marchers. The Insular Police, a force somewhat resembling the National Guard, was under the direct military command of the U.S.-appointed governor of Puerto Rico, General Blanton Winship.

Learn more about the Ponce Massacre, a defining event in Puerto Rico's history, from the Democracy Now! story below. In the segment, co-host Juan González (born in Ponce) reads from his book Harvest of Empire.

The day was Palm Sunday, March 21, 1937. My aunt Graciela was sixteen and caught up in the Nationalist fervor at the time. Luckily, she decided to skip the march that day and go on a picnic with her sisters, Ana and Pura. They all trekked up to El Vigia, the magnificent hilltop estate of the Seralles family, owners of the Don Q rum distillery.

From the rolling castle grounds you can look down on all of Ponce. Pura, who was a child at the time, recalls that shortly after the Nationalists gathered, the church bells began to ring, and when she looked down the mountain toward the plaza she saw people scattering in all directions.

A young woman they knew ran up to them, screaming, "There's a massacre in the town. The Nationalists and the soldiers are fighting. The hospital is full of wounded." When the smoke had cleared, 21 were dead and 150 were wounded. A human rights commission would later report that all had been gunned down by police. It was the biggest massacre in Puerto Rican history.

Related Resources

" A Hurricane in the Classroom: Inside the Schools Ensnared in Puerto Rico's Privatization Fever - and How Its Teachers Are Fighting Back " in Rethinking Schools (2018).

Caribbean Connections: Puerto Rico: A free collection of readings on Puerto Rico for the classroom from Teaching for Change.

More related resources below.

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March 21, 1937: Ponce Massacre | Zinn Education Project

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The Ponce massacre occurred on March 21, 1937, when a peaceful march in Ponce, Puerto Rico was attacked by police who shot and killed 19 Puerto Ricans and wounded over 200 others. The march had been organized by the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party to commemorate the ending of slavery in Puerto Rico and to protest the imprisonment, by the U.S.

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1968
When South Caroline State College students engaged in peaceful protest of a Vietnam veteran's denied entrance to a segregated bowling alley, police fired into the crowd, killing three and injuring many more.

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While most people know that students were killed at Kent State in 1970, very few know about the murder of students at Jackson State (1970) and even less about South Carolina State College in Orangeburg (1968).

On Feb. 8, 1968, 28 students were injured and three were killed - most shot in the back by the state police while involved in a peaceful protest in Orangeburg, South Carolina. One of the by-standers, Cleveland Sellers, was arrested for inciting a riot and sentenced to a year of in prison. Later serving as president of Voorhees College, he was the only person to do time.

Background

In 1968, although home to two Black colleges and a majority Black population, Orangeburg's economic and political power remained exclusively in the hands of whites. When a Black Vietnam War veteran was denied access to a nearby bowling alley, one of the last segregated facilities in town, 300 protesters from South Carolina State College and Claflin University converged on the alley in a non-violent demonstration. A melee with the police ensued during which police beat two female students; the incensed students then smashed the windows of white-owned businesses along the route back to campus. The Governor sent in the state police and National Guard.

By the late evening of Feb. 8, army tanks and over 100 heavily armed law enforcement officers had cordoned off the campus; 450 more had been stationed downtown. About 200 students milled around a bonfire on S.C. State's campus; a fire truck with armed escort was sent in. Without warning the crackle of shotgun fire shattered the cold night air. It lasted less than ten seconds. When it was over, twenty-eight students lay on State's campus with multiple buckshot wounds; three others had been killed. Almost all were shot in the back or side. Students and police vividly describe what they experienced that night.

Journalists remember that the Governor and law enforcement officials on the scene claimed police had fired in self-defense. The Associated Press' initial account, carried in newspapers the morning after the shooting, misreported what happened as "an exchange of gunfire." The source, an AP photographer on the scene, subsequently revealed that he heard no gunfire from the campus.

In Orangeburg, police fingered Cleveland Sellers as the inevitable "outside agitator" who, they claimed, had incited the students. Twenty-three years old, he had returned home, leaving his position as Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) program director, to organize black consciousness groups on South Carolina campuses. Sellers had already attracted the attention of law enforcement officials as a friend of SNCC head Stokely Carmichael, who had frightened many Americans with his call for "Black Power." Carmichael's ideas articulated the Movement's shift from a focus on integration to one of gaining political and economic power within the black community.

South Carolina officials saw Sellers as a direct challenge to their power. Wounded in the massacre, Sellers was arrested at the hospital and charged with "inciting to riot." Though students made clear he was only minimally involved with their demonstrations, Sellers was tried and sentenced to one year of hard labor. He was finally pardoned 23 years after the incident. The U.S. Justice Department charged the nine police officers who admitted shooting that night with abuse of power. However, neither of two South Carolina juries would uphold the charges. [Description from California Newsreel.]

Related Resources

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Feb. 8, 1968: Orangeburg Massacre | Zinn Education Project

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While most people know that students were killed at Kent State in 1970, very few know about the murder of students at Jackson State (1970) and even less about South Carolina State College in Orangeburg (1968). On Feb.

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1979
The Ku Klux Klan and Nazis killed five peaceful protestors at an anti-Klan rally.

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To Signe Waller, the morning of November 3, 1979, initially felt like any other. If anything, she felt excited.

She had a dinner date planned that night with her husband, Jim. First they'd attend a protest together, a "Death to the Klan" rally kicking off a march and conference in Greensboro, North Carolina, the city where they lived. The couple were active members of the Workers Viewpoint Organization, a multi-racial labor group that planned to rename itself as the "Communist Workers' Party" at the conference that day.

Signe had agreed to sell copies of their organization's communist newspaper at the rally and talk to any reporters who showed up. She had two kids, and her young son was with her as the rally began. There's news footage of her smiling, and she remembers talking to Jim as people prepared a sound truck for the upcoming anti-KKK march.

"I didn't suspect anything untoward would happen," she tells Teen Vogue.

What happened next was partially caught on film by TV news crews. A caravan of cars filled with white supremacists drove directly by the rally, which was held in the then majority black community of Morningside Homes. With zero visible police presence, anti-racist activists beat on the passing cars, and before long, white supremacists got out and began shooting at protestors. A few people returned fire, and in the end, five anti-Klan protesters were killed and at least 10 more were injured, including one Klansman. Years later, the public would learn that police had intentionally been missing, despite knowing about the potential for violence that day.

Signe never expected the police not to show up, she says. As soon as the shooting began, Signe said she fled with her son toward shelter in a nearby home.

"I felt like I had been running forever," she says. "I just hoped he could run faster."

From her hiding place, Signe imagined that the caravan of Klan and American Nazi Party members had simply shot their guns into the air. But when she eventually emerged, Signe said it "looked like a battlefield." Her husband, Jim Waller, was among the five killed that day.

Jim was unarmed. So were three other anti-Klan protesters - Michael Nathan, César Cauce, and Sandra Smith. William Sampson, who helped organize local textile mills like many others in the area, was shooting back at white supremacists when he was fatally shot.

The incident that became known as the Greensboro Massacre deeply affected the working-class city in central North Carolina where it happened. Had the Iran hostage crisis - where Iranian students took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held 60 hostages for more than a year - not begun the next day, the Greensboro Massacre likely would've captured national headlines for longer and become more widely understood.

Decades later, in June 2004, an independent commission began to dig into what happened that morning. The Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission sought to give people a more complete understanding of what occurred on that day in 1979 and to aid in the healing process for everyone affected by the attack.

Muktha Jost estimates that she poured thousands of hours into the commission. Her family moved to Greensboro from Iowa in 1999, and she was working as an assistant professor at North Carolina A&T State University, a historically black public school in Greensboro. When someone asked her to be one of the commissioners on the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission, she saw it as an opportunity to feel like part of the city.

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This 1979 Massacre by the KKK Should Be Taught in Schools

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To Signe Waller, the morning of November 3, 1979, initially felt like any other. If anything, she felt excited. She had a dinner date planned that night with her husband, Jim. First they'd attend a protest together, a "Death to the Klan" rally kicking off a march and conference in Greensboro, North Carolina, the city where they lived.

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1985
Police dropped a C-4 bomb on the MOVE organization, killing several children and obliterating two city blocks.

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May 13, 1985: Philadelphia Police Bomb MOVE | Zinn Education Project

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On May 13, 1985, the Philadelphia Police Department dropped a C-4 bomb on the home of the MOVE organization, killing eleven people - including five children - and wiping out 61 homes in two city blocks. MOVE is a political and religious organization founded by John Africa Sr. in 1972.

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2015
Eight Black churchgoers were killed at the historic Mother Emmanuel A.M.E. Church by a White supremacist.

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On June 17, 2015, nine African American churchgoers were gunned down inside Charleston's historic Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church in an act of white supremacist terrorism. The nine people murdered were:

Clementa C. Pinckney (41)

Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd (54)

Susie Jackson (87)

Ethel Lee Lance (70)

Depayne Middleton-Doctor (49)

Tywanza Sanders (26)

Daniel L. Simmons (74)

Sharonda Coleman-Singleton (45)

Myra Thompson (59)

We recommend two articles for this day by Rev. William J. Barber, II, " The True Charleston Killer Remains at Large: Racism, poverty and violence are the real killers in America" and the sermon Barber gave in January of 2016 at Riverside Church (with references to the massacre in San Bernadino). Barber talks about the moral compass needed to guide the U.S. forward on a path of justice in " The Misdiagnosis of Terrorism."

This is one of countless massacres in U.S. history. Most of these massacres were designed to suppress voting rights, land ownership, economic advancement, education, freedom of the press, religion, LGBTQ rights, and/or labor rights of African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, Asians, and immigrants.

Find related resources below, including the statement by Bree Newsome who ten days later removed the Confederate flag from the South Carolina state house. Newsome said,

I removed the flag not only in defiance of those who enslaved my ancestors in the southern United States, but also in defiance of the oppression that continues against Black people globally in 2015, including the ongoing ethnic cleansing in the Dominican Republic. I did it in solidarity with the South African students who toppled a statue of the white supremacist, colonialist Cecil Rhodes. I did it for all the fierce Black women on the front lines of the movement and for all the little Black girls who are watching us. I did it because I am free. Continue reading.

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June 17, 2015: Charleston Church Massacre | Zinn Education Project

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On June 17, 2015, nine African American churchgoers were gunned down inside Charleston's historic Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church in an act of white supremacist terrorism. The nine people murdered were: Clementa C. Pinckney (41) Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd (54) Susie Jackson (87) Ethel Lee Lance (70) Depayne Middleton-Doctor (49) Tywanza Sanders (26) Daniel L.

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1875
After shots were fired during a Black political rally and barbecue, White mobs seized the opportunity to indiscriminately kill Black Americans and their White allies over the course of the next few days. A request for federal troops was denied by President Ulysses Grant.

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Sept. 4, 1875: Clinton, Mississippi Massacre | Zinn Education Project

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The Reconstruction era Clinton Massacre began on Sept. 4, 1875, in the small town of Clinton, Mississippi at a Republican rally to introduce the party's candidates who were running for political office in the upcoming November elections. The immediate death toll included five African American and three white men.

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1873
When Republicans and their Black allies narrowly won a gubernatorial election, in an act of revenge Democratic leaders urged armed gunmen to lay siege to the courthouse. By the end, 150 Black Americans were dead.

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The Colfax Massacre occurred on April 13, 1873. The battle-turned-massacre took place in the small town of Colfax, Louisiana as a clash between blacks and whites. Three whites and an estimated 150 blacks died in the conflict.

The massacre took place against the backdrop of racial tensions following the hotly contested Louisiana governor's race of 1872. While the Republicans narrowly won the contest and retained control of the state, white Democrats, angry over the defeat, vowed revenge. In Colfax Parish (county) as in other areas of the state, they organized a white militia to directly challenge the mostly black state militia under the control of the governor.

Colfax Parish reflected the political and racial divide in Louisiana. Its 4,600 voters in the 1872 election were split between approximately 2,400 hundred mostly black Republican voters and 2,200 white Democratic voters. One incident however, touched off the Colfax massacre. On March 28, local white Democratic leaders called for armed supporters to help them take the Colfax Parish Courthouse from the black and white GOP officeholders on April 1. The Republicans responded by urging their mostly black supporters to defend them. Although nothing happened on April 1, the next day fighting erupted between the two groups.

On April 13, Easter Sunday, more than 300 armed white men, including members of white supremacist organizations such as the Knights of White Camellia and the Ku Klux Klan, attacked the Courthouse building. When the militia maneuvered a cannon to fire on the Courthouse, some of the sixty black defenders fled while others surrendered. When the leader of the attackers, James Hadnot, was accidentally shot by one of his own men, the white militia responded by shooting the black prisoners. Those who were wounded in the earlier battle, particularly black militia members, were singled out for execution The indiscriminate killing spread to African Americans who had not been at the courthouse and continued into the night.

All told, approximately 150 African Americans were killed, including 48 who were murdered after the battle. Only three whites were killed, and few were injured in the largely one-sided battle of Colfax.

On April 14, the state militia under the control of Republican Governor William Kellogg arrived at the scene and recorded the carnage. New Orleans police and federal troops also arrived in the next few days to reestablish order. A total of 97 white militia men were arrested and charged with violation of the U.S. Enforcement Act of 1870 (also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act). A handful of them were convicted but were eventually released in 1875 when the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Cruikshank ruled the Enforcement Act was unconstitutional. No one was ever arrested by the state of Louisiana or by intimidated local officials.

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The Colfax Massacre occurred on April 13, 1873. The battle-turned-massacre took place in the small town of Colfax, Louisiana as a clash between blacks and whites. Three whites and an estimated 150 blacks died in the conflict. The massacre took place against the backdrop of racial tensions following the hotly contested Louisiana governor's race of 1872.

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1868
Two years before the ratification of the 15th Amendment to the Constitution, White supremacists feared the loss of power and privilege as Blacks gained the right to vote. They resorted to violence and mayhem in the days before the 1868 Presidential election.

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Following the Civil War, as freedmen gained the right to vote, white Democrats of the St. Bernard Parish in Louisiana (and throughout the South) were afraid of losing their majority and thus their power to thwart Reconstruction efforts.

In late October of 1868, armed groups of white men mobilized to suppress the recently emancipated voters in the hopes of regaining their way of life turned upside down by the Civil War and Reconstruction. It was just days before the presidential election between Ulysses S. Grant and Horatio Seymour, which would decide the fate of Reconstruction in the South.

On October 25, 1868, the first blood spilled of the St. Bernard Parish Massacre.

Days later, freedman Louis Wilson was struck down from his horse and thrown in a makeshift prison by a group of white, Democratic vigilantes.

Freedpeople were dragged from their homes and murdered in cold blood. The reported numbers of those killed varies from 35 to over 100. Many who escaped death did so by fleeing to the cane fields, where they hid for days.

Over 60 freedpeople were arrested after the atrocities while not a single perpetrator was questioned. While the gruesome nature of the tragedy was swept under the rug, the implications reverberated throughout the South for generations.

Grant received only one vote in St. Bernard Parish as Seymour swept the state. As historian John C. Rodrigue puts it,

Republicans captured the presidency in 1868, but white terror carried the day in Louisiana.

Despite the federal investigation, no one was arrested for the killing of the freed people. Black survivors identified white neighbors as their assailants, but no justice was sought. Instead, more than 60 freed people were arrested by local authorities and vigilantes for the killing of Pablo San Feliu.

Over time, the massacre faded into obscurity. To this day, its only physical reminder is the tombstone of Pablo San Feliu, located in St. Bernard Cemetery, which reads:

Pablo San Feliu
Assassinated by Slaves
Incited by Carpetbag Rule
Died Oct. 1869

The inaccuracies on San Feliu's tombstone misrepresent the circumstances surrounding his death. The incorrect date suggests that it was erected a significant amount of time after the massacre, perhaps memorializing his death as if he were a martyr. The engraver referred to the freed people as "slaves." Most importantly, by placing blame on carpetbaggers, the derogatory term applied to Northerners and other outsiders who had migrated to the South during Reconstruction, the inscription implies that San Feliu was an innocent murder victim. Continue reading.
This entry was prepared by St. Bernard Parish high school history teacher Chris Dier on the 150th anniversary of the massacre. Dier is the author of "Unraveling a Forgotten Massacre in My Louisiana Hometown: A History Teacher Discovers a Racially Driven Rampage That Still Haunts His Students' Lives" (Zócalo Public Square) and The 1868 St. Bernard Parish Massacre: Blood in the Cane Fields (History Press).
Chris Dier, an eight-year veteran in the St. Bernard Public Schools, researched and wrote about the St. Bernard Parish Massacre because,

Not only did I live in the very parish where the massacre took place, but the surnames of the assailants and the victims matched those of some of my students, both Black and white, who worked together, played sports together, and shared lunches. My focus is to have students think critically about the past and its relevance to their own lives. It's their history. They should own it.

Dier credits his passion for local history to his mother Lynne Dier, who taught high school history in St. Bernard for four decades.

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Oct. 25, 1868: St. Bernard Parish Massacre | Zinn Education Project

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Following the Civil War, as freedmen gained the right to vote, white Democrats of the St. Bernard Parish in Louisiana (and throughout the South) were afraid of losing their majority and thus their power to thwart Reconstruction efforts.

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1868
A White teacher who advocated for Black voting rights was beaten in his own classroom. This served as the catalyst for White terrorists to roam the countryside and kill Black Americans.

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On Sept. 28, 1868, one of the worst outbreaks of violence during Reconstruction took place in Opelousas, Louisiana.

The event started with three local members of the KKK-like Knights of the White Camelia beating teacher and newspaper editor Emerson Bentley - while he was teaching class - because he had promoted voter registration and education for all.

After some African Americans came to his rescue, armed white mobs roamed the countryside in a murderous rampage, killing more than 150 people, mostly African Americans.

These violent acts became known as the Opelousas Massacre.

Learn more from BlackPast.org and from The Deadliest Massacre in Reconstruction-Era Louisiana Happened 150 Years Ago in the Smithsonian Magazine.

Find lessons on the history of the fight for voting rights and on Reconstruction below.

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Sept. 28, 1868: Opelousas Massacre | Zinn Education Project

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On Sept. 28, 1868, one of the worst outbreaks of violence during Reconstruction took place in Opelousas, Louisiana. The event started with three local members of the KKK-like Knights of the White Camelia beating teacher and newspaper editor Emerson Bentley - while he was teaching class - because he had promoted voter registration and education for all.

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1866
At the direction of the lead police chief, police and firemen surrounded and stormed a voting rights convention killing 48 people and injuring 102 others.

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The New Orleans Massacre (also known as the New Orleans Riot) occurred when white residents attacked Black marchers gathered outside the Mechanics Institute, where the reconvened Louisiana Constitutional Convention met in response to the state legislature enacting Black Codes and limiting suffrage.

As explained in " An Absolute Massacre: The 1866 Riot At The Mechanics' Institute ":

The parade of marchers had thwarted off the mob on the other side of Canal, but once they made it to the Mechanics' Institute, where the convention was taking place inside, they were beset by more violence. A gang of white supremacists and ex-Confederates attacked. Fire sirens went off, signaling police to attack. They were sent by the mayor.

"There was panic because the police and firemen, armed, surrounded that building and began advancing," says [Caryn Cosse] Bell. "The attack was premeditated. Lead police chief Harry T. Hayes, what he was doing at the time was recruiting policemen from Confederate veterans. They stormed in and started shooting, chasing people down the street."

The brutal attack led to a total of 150 casualties, including 48 deaths (44 African Americans and three white Radical Republicans).

The New Orleans and Memphis riots strengthened the argument by Radical Republicans (a faction in the Republican Party) that President Johnson's Reconstruction plan was insufficient and greater protection of African Americans was needed.

Today marks the 154th anniversary of the Mechanics Institute Massacre in which New Orleans police & firemen stormed an interracial voting rights convention & butchered its participants at the Mechanics Institute (pictured). pic.twitter.com/DQumYkiE1l

- Dr. William Horne (@wihorne) July 30, 2020

Read more at Black Past.org. Find resources below to Teach Reconstruction and to teach about the long history of the fight for voting rights.

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July 30, 1866: New Orleans Massacre | Zinn Education Project

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The New Orleans Massacre (also known as the New Orleans Riot) occurred when white residents attacked Black marchers gathered outside the Mechanics Institute, where the reconvened Louisiana Constitutional Convention met in response to the state legislature enacting Black Codes and limiting suffrage.

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Ebenezer Creek Crossing, McCall Road, Springfield, GA, USA

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Ebenezer Creek Crossing, McCall Road, Springfield, GA, USA

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Ebenezer Creek Crossing, McCall Road, Springfield, GA, USA

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1864

Hundreds of recently freed Black families drowned in the freezing water or were shot by pursuing Confederate soldiers after being abandoned by the Union Army.

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On Dec. 9, 1864, on the march to Savannah, hundreds or thousands of African American families who had just escaped from slavery were left to drown by Sherman's Army. This is referred to as the Massacre at Ebenezer Creek.

From an article in The Washington Post,

"On the pretence that there was likely to be fighting in front, the negroes were told not to go upon the pontoon-bridge until all the troops and wagons were over: a guard was detailed to enforce the order," recalled Col. Charles Kerr of the 16th Illinois Cavalry in a speech 20 years after the incident. "As soon as we were over the creek, orders were given to the engineers to take up the pontoons and not let a negro cross. . . . I sat upon my horse then and witnessed a scene the like of which I pray my eyes may never see again."

Just before sunrise, the refugees cried out as their escape route was pulled away from them. Moments later, Wheeler's scouts rode up from behind and opened fire. Hundreds of refugees rushed forward into the icy current. Several Union soldiers on the eastern bank tried to help, pushing logs out to the few refugees still swimming.

In response to public outcry about the massacre, demands by Black ministers to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and Union General William T. Sherman were heeded and led to the short-lived land distribution during Reconstruction known as Sherman's Special Field Order No. 15.

This was one of many massacres in U.S. history.

To introduce this event to middle and high school students, we recommend the young adult book, Crossing Ebenezer Creek by Tonya Bolden. Find more resources below to teach about the abolition movement and the Reconstruction era.

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Dec. 9, 1864: Ebenezer Creek Massacre | Zinn Education Project

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On Dec. 9, 1864, on the march to Savannah, hundreds or thousands of African American families who had just escaped from slavery were left to drown by Sherman's Army. This is referred to as the Massacre at Ebenezer Creek.

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1887
Black sugarcane workers who attempted to organize into a union to demand better wages and working conditions were met with gunfire.

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On November 23, the Louisiana Militia, aided by bands of prominent citizens, shot and killed 30 to 60 unarmed striking Black sugar workers in what became known as the Thibodaux Massacre.

Black Louisiana sugarcane workers, in cooperation with the racially integrated Knights of Labor, had gone on strike at the beginning of November in 1887 over their meager pay issued in scrip, not cash. The scrip was redeemable only at the company store where excessive prices were charged.

Much of this history was documented through research by John DeSantis, author of The Thibodaux Massacre (History Press). The story of how he learned of and found accounts of the massacre in pension records is a history lesson in and of itself.

An article in the Smithsonian Magazine describes the conditions at the time.

Years after the Thirteenth Amendment brought freedom, cane cutters' working lives were already "barely distinguishable" from slavery, argues journalist and author John DeSantis. With no land to own or rent, workers and their families lived in old slave cabins. They toiled in gangs, just like their ancestors had for nearly a century. Growers gave workers meals but paid famine wages of as little as 42 cents a day (91 cents per hour in today's money, for a 12-hour shift). Continue reading.

This was part of the violent end to the Reconstruction era of the United States. It was also a devastating attack on organized labor. As explained in the Smithsonian Magazine,

The union died with the strikers, and the assassins went unpunished. There was no federal inquiry, and even the coroner's inquest refused to point a finger at the murderers. Sugar planter Andrew Price was among the attackers that morning. He won a seat in Congress the next year.

Southern black farm workers would not attempt to unionize again, until the 1930s when the Southern Tenant Farmers Union attracted both white and African American members. But it too was met by a violent racist backlash. The struggle for southern unions continued into the civil rights era. On the night before he was assassinated in Memphis, Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech supporting striking sanitation workers. He urged his audience "to give ourselves to this struggle until the end. ...You may not be on strike. But either we go up together, or we go down together." Continue reading.

To learn more, we recommend:

Thibodaux is one of countless massacres in U.S. history. Learn about more on the Zinn Education Project list of selected massacres in U.S. history.

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Nov. 23, 1887: Thibodaux Massacre | Zinn Education Project

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On November 23, the Louisiana Militia, aided by bands of prominent citizens, shot and killed 30 to 60 unarmed striking Black sugar workers in what became known as the Thibodaux Massacre. Black Louisiana sugarcane workers, in cooperation with the racially integrated Knights of Labor, had gone on strike at the beginning of November in 1887 over their meager pay issued in scrip, not cash.

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1896
White railway workers attacked itinerant Black workers in an attempt to drive them out of Arkansas.

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On Aug. 5, 1896, white workers attacked Black workers in Arkansas who were coming to work on the Kansas City, Pittsburg, and Gulf Railway.

As a result, three African Americans were killed and eight wounded. Although reports place some of the events near Horatio, accounts clearly stated that the purpose of the attack was to keep African Americans out of Polk County, and so it was generally referred to as the Polk County Race War.

This was part of a pattern of labor-related racial terrorism that was sweeping Arkansas at the time. Continue reading at the Encyclopedia of Arkansas.

Learn more in Racial Cleansing in Arkansas, 1883-1924 Politics, Land, Labor, and Criminality by Guy Lancaster and Sundown Towns by James W. Loewen.

For a lesson on teaching about the history and legacy of African Americans being forcibly denied access to their land, employment, housing, and more, see " Burning Tulsa: The Legacy of Black Dispossession."

Read about more Massacres in U.S. History.

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Aug. 5, 1896: Polk County Massacre | Zinn Education Project

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On Aug. 5, 1896, white workers attacked Black workers in Arkansas who were coming to work on the Kansas City, Pittsburg, and Gulf Railway. As a result, three African Americans were killed and eight wounded.

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1898
A armed, White mob burned a Black-owned newspaper office and murdered innocent Black civilians. In the ensuing coup d'etat, the leader of the mob ousted elected officials and installed White supremacists instead.

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Nov. 10, 1898: Wilmington Massacre - Zinn Education Project

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On Nov. 10, 1898, white supremacists murdered African Americans in Wilmington, North Carolina and deposed the elected Reconstruction era government in a coup d'etat. It was the morning of November 10, 1898, in Wilmington, North Carolina, and the fire was the beginning of an assault that took place seven blocks east of the Cape Fear River, about 10 miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean.

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1866
In a city whose population was still deeply affected by Civil War, White civilians and police went on a three-day killing spree and burned Black schools and churches. No White perpetrators were ever charged or tried in a court of law.

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From May 1-3 in 1866, white civilians and police killed 46 African-Americans and injured many more while burning houses, schools, and churches in Memphis, Tennessee.

No criminal proceedings were held for the instigators or perpetrators of atrocities committed during the Memphis Massacre (also referred to as the Memphis Riot). Here is a description of the riot in historical context by Lerone Bennett Jr. from Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America (pages 224 - 226):

The land problem was linked to the larger problems of the South and the status of Blacks. Nothing could be done with the conquered South until the status of Blacks was settled. The reverse was also true. Nothing could be done for Blacks until the status of the conquered South was settled. Lincoln's answer to this problem was liberal to the South. He wanted to readmit the Southern states as soon as 10 percent of the prewar electorate had qualified by taking an oath of allegiance to America. Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, was substantially of the same mind. Neither man came to grips with the status of Blacks, although Lincoln suggested that "very intelligent" Blacks and Union veterans be given the right to vote.

[Thaddeus] Stevens and [Charles] Sumner were aghast at the presidential innocence. To turn the former slaves over to their former master without adequate safeguards, they contended, would be madness. It was soon apparent that their apprehensions were all too well founded. For the conservative provisional governors appointed by President Johnson organized lily-white governments with blatant proslavery biases. In 1865 and 1866 these governments enacted the Black Codes which indicated that the South intended to reestablish slavery under another name. The codes restricted the rights of freedmen under vagrancy and apprenticeship laws. South Carolina forbade freedmen to follow any occupation except farming and menial service and required a special license to do other work. The legislature also gave "masters" the right to whip "servants" under eighteen years of age. In other states Blacks could be punished for "insulting gestures," "seditious speeches" and the "crime" of walking off a job. Blacks could not preach in one state without police permission. A Mississippi law enacted late in November required Blacks to have jobs before the second Monday in January.

Even more serious was the vindictive attitude of Southerners, who vented their frustration on unarmed Blacks. Gen. Carl Schurz, who made a special investigation for the president, was astonished by postwar conditions in the South. "Some planters," he said, "held back their former slaves on their plantations by brute force. Armed bands of white men patrolled the country roads to drive back the Negros wandering about. Dead bodies of murdered Negroes were found on and near the highways and by-ways. Gruesome reports came from the hospitals-reports of colored men and women whose ears had been cut off, whose skulls had been broken by blows, whose bodies had been slashed by knives or lacerated with scourges. A number of such cases, I had occasion to examine myself. A . . . reign of terror prevailed in many parts of the South."

Throughout this period, and on into the 1870s, hundreds of freemen were massacred in "riots" staged and directed by policemen and other government officials. In the Memphis, Tennessee, "riot" of May 1866, forty-six Blacks (Union veterans were a special target) were killed and seventy-five were wounded. Five Black women were raped by whites, twelve schools and four churches were burned. Two months later, in New Orleans, policemen returned to the attack, killing some forty Blacks and wounding one hundred.

"The emancipation of the slave," General Schurz concluded, "is submitted to only in so far as chattel slavery in the old form could not be kept up. But although the freedman is no longer considered the property of the individual master, he is considered the slave of society. . . . Wherever I go-the street, the shop, the house, the hotel, or the steamboat-I hear the people talk in such a way as to indicate that they are yet unable to conceive of the Negro as possessing any rights at all. Men who are honorable in their dealing with their white neighbors will cheat a Negro without feeling a single twinge of their honor. To kill a Negro, they do not deem murder; to debauch a Negro woman, they do not think fornication; to take property away from a Negro, they do not consider robbery. The people boast that when they get freedmen's affairs in their own hands, to use their own expression, 'the niggers will catch hell.'"

All of these factors-Southern intransigence and arrogance, the Black Codes, the Memphis and New Orleans "riots" - changed the national mood. Here and there, men fell into step with Sumner and Stevens. They did so for many reasons. Some believed it would be a major tragedy to hand the freedmen over to their former masters. Others saw a chance to insure the continued supremacy of the Republican party. Still others believed it would be dangerous to return ex-Confederates to national power. For various reasons, some of them contradictory, some of them noble, some of them base, people began to march by the sound of a different drummer.

Read more in this detailed thread from Professor Shawn Leigh Alexander:

Remembering Reconstruction: The Memphis Massacre of 1866 #TeachReconstruction #ReconstructionPBS @MemphisMassacre #MemphisMassacre1866 pic.twitter.com/qMB8xWlKv9

- Shawn Leigh Alexander (@S_L_Alexander) May 3, 2019

Alexander alerted us to " A History They Can Use: The Memphis Massacre and Reconstruction's Public History Terrain" by Susan O'Donovan and Beverly Bond and he recommends reading Terror in the Heart of Freedom: Citizenship, Sexual Violence, and the Meaning of Race in the Postemancipation South (UNC Press, 2009) by Hannah Rosen.

The Memphis Massacre is one of countless massacres in U.S. history and one of many key stories from the Reconstruction era of the United States history included in these resources for teaching outside the textbook about Reconstruction.

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May 3, 1866: Memphis Massacre - Zinn Education Project

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From May 1-3 in 1866, white civilians and police killed 46 African-Americans and injured many more while burning houses, schools, and churches in Memphis, Tennessee. No criminal proceedings were held for the instigators or perpetrators of atrocities committed during the Memphis Massacre (also referred to as the Memphis Riot).

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1919
After police continued to turn blind eyes to Black swimmers getting harassed and a teenager getting killed on Chicago's segregated beaches, the city erupted into a summer of violence. Thousands of Black businesses were torched in acts of arson.

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The Chicago Riot began on July 27, 1919. It was one extremely deadly and destructive instance of the white rage that fueled mob violence across the United States during the "Red Summer" of 1919.

July 27 was a Sunday - and it was a hot one. That meant the beaches of Lake Michigan were the place for working people and their families. The beaches were segregated, not by any law on the books, but by custom would be enforced by the police. When a group of Black men and women defied custom and tried to swim at the white beach on 29th Street, they were driven off by a white mob throwing rocks. They returned with larger numbers. The white mob also grew.

Unaware of the violence taking place by the 29th Street beach, five Black teenagers were enjoying the water on a raft and floated toward that part of the lake. A white man on the shore, George Stauber, began throwing rocks at the boys. One of the teens, Eugene Williams, was hit in the head with a rock and drowned.

The white police officer on duty at the beach, Daniel Callahan, refused to arrest Stauber. It was not uncommon for the ethnic white Irish police officers to ignore white-on-Black crime in the city and that fact touched a raw nerve.

Reportedly, a thousand Black Chicagoans assembled at the 29th Street beach and demanded the police arrest Stauber for murder. They refused to arrest him. A Black man named James Crawford, opened fire on a group of police officers. Crawford was immediately shot and killed, but the crowd did not disperse and other Black individuals began to attack whites. By nightfall, rumors of "race war" in white neighborhoods were running rampant, and the rioting began.

The rioting lasted almost a whole week. By the end of the first week of August, at least 38 people were dead (23 Black, 15 white) and over 500 were seriously wounded. Thousands of Black homes were looted and damaged, many the targets of arson.

There are many resources about the infamous Chicago riot and its causes, including African American journalist Walter White's October 1919 article, " The Causes of the Chicago Race Riot," published in the Crisis.

Contemporary resources include articles in New Historian, Encyclopedia Britannica, an article about " Race Divisions on Public Beaches" published by the Encyclopedia of Chicago, and by Eve Ewing.

Read about the representation in textbooks in " Remembering Red Summer - Which Textbooks Seem Eager to Forget " by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. Find more resources below.

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July 27, 1919: Red Summer in Chicago - Zinn Education Project

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Sparked by a white police officer's refusal to make an arrest in the murder of a Black teenager, violence in Chicago lasted almost a week. At least 38 people were killed and thousands of Black homes were looted and damaged during Red Summer.