Editing East St. Louis, Illinois (section)

===East St. Louis riots of 1917===
{{Main|East St. Louis riots}}
East St. Louis in 1917 had a strong industrial economy boosted by America's economic participation in demands related to [[World War I]]; although war was declared in April, the nation did not meaningfully enter the war until that fall. Industry was dominated by European immigrant workers, who had been coming to industrial cities since the late 19th century. Here and across the country, they repeatedly tried to organize in efforts to gain better wages and working conditions. In the summer of 1916, 2,500 white workers struck the nearby meat packing plants of National City. Companies recruited black workers, sometimes importing them from the South. While the white workers won a wage increase, the companies retained some black workers, firing white ones. Such economic competition raised tensions between the groups in a period when the number of blacks in East St. Louis had increased dramatically due to the first [[Great Migration (African American)|Great Migration]], when African Americans left poor rural areas of the South to escape [[Jim Crow]] oppression and seek jobs in the industrial cities of the North and the Midwest. From 1910 to 1917, the black population nearly doubled in East St. Louis.

The United States established a draft which would bring in many workers to the military. As the war prevented immigration from Europe even before the U.S. entered the war, major companies had begun to recruit black workers from the South to fill demand. When white workers went on strike in April 1917 at the [[Aluminum Ore Company]], the employer hired blacks as strikebreakers. The [[American Steel Company]] also recruited blacks. They were available in part during this period because the U.S. Army initially rejected many black volunteers in the years before an integrated military.<ref>[http://www.redstone.army.mil/history/integrate/CHRON3.html "A Chronology of African American Military Service: From WWI through WWII"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070721021700/http://www.redstone.army.mil/history/integrate/CHRON3.html |date=July 21, 2007}}</ref> This was also the period of resentment on both sides and the arrival of new workers created fears for job security at a time of union organizing and labor unrest, and raised social tensions. At a large labor meeting of white workers held in City Hall on May 28, men also traded rumors of fraternizing between black men and white women. An inflammatory speaker said, "East St. Louis must remain a white man's town." Three thousand ethnic white men left the meeting and headed as a mob for downtown, where they randomly attacked black men on the street. The Illinois governor called in [[United States National Guard|National Guard]] to prevent further rioting, but rumors circulated that blacks were planning an organized retaliation and tensions remained high.

On July 1, 1917, a black man allegedly attacked a white man.{{citation needed|date=September 2018}} After hearing of this, whites drove by black homes near 17th and Market and fired shots into several of them. When police came to investigate a gathering of a large group of local black residents, their car was mistaken for that of the attackers, and several in the crowd at 10th and Bond fired on the police, killing two detectives. The next morning, thousands of whites mobbed the black sections of the city, indiscriminately beating, shooting and killing men, women and children. The rioters burned entire sections of the city and shot blacks as they escaped the flames. They also hanged several blacks. They destroyed buildings and physically attacked people; they "killed a 14-year-old boy and scalped his mother. Before it was over 244 buildings were destroyed."<ref>Jonathan Kozol, ''Savage Inequalities'', p. 22</ref> Other sources say 300 buildings were destroyed.

The city had 35 police officers, but they were seen to be doing little to suppress the violence. The governor called in [[National Guard of the United States|National Guard]] troops to try to control the situation; they arrived July 3, but several accounts reported that they joined in the rioting. Most of the violence ended that day, but reports continued afterward of isolated assaults of blacks. Afterward the city Chamber of Commerce called for the resignation of the Police Chief and greater oversight of police operations. Losses in property damage were high, including railroad warehouses and carloads full of goods that were burned, as well as railroad cars.

Though official reports suggested that the East St. Louis race riot resulted in the deaths of 39 blacks and 9 whites, other estimates put the figure much higher, with estimates of 100 to 250 blacks being killed.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.eslarp.uiuc.edu/ibex/archive/nunes/esl%20history/race_riot.htm |title=Race Riot |publisher=Eslarp.uiuc.edu |date=July 2, 1998 |access-date=September 3, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130827233353/http://www.eslarp.uiuc.edu/ibex/archive/nunes/esl%20history/race_riot.htm |archive-date=August 27, 2013 |df=mdy-all}}</ref>

[[W. E. B. Du Bois]] of the [[NAACP]] came to investigate the riots personally. His organization's photographer published photos of the destruction in the November issue of ''[[The Crisis]]''. Congress also held an investigation.<ref name=":0" />

In New York City on July 28, 10,000 black people marched down Fifth Avenue in a [[Silent Parade]], carrying signs and protesting the East St. Louis riots. The march was organized by the [[National Association for the Advancement of Colored People]] (NAACP), W. E. B. Du Bois, and groups in [[Harlem]]. Women and children were dressed in white; the men were dressed in black.