Featured Article Summary #202

The Negro Silent Protest Parade, known as the Silent Parade, was held in New York City on July 28, 1917. Its goal was to bring national attention to racial violence and unfair treatment of African Americans. The march was organized in response to attacks in 1916 and 1917, including the East St. Louis massacre and lynchings in Waco and Memphis. Led by the newly formed NAACP and other African American groups, it began at 57th Street, went down Fifth Avenue, and ended at Madison Square. About 8,000 to 15,000 people marched silently with a muted drumbeat, and the event gained wide publicity. Organizers wanted the federal government to pass anti-lynching laws, but President Woodrow Wilson did not act, and it took until 2022 for such legislation to be passed. Lynchings were killings done outside the law, often by mobs who claimed they were punishing crimes, but were actually driven largely by racial hatred toward African Americans. In the U.S., lynchings rose sharply after the Civil War and peaked around 1892, remaining common into the early 1900s. Because states often did not prosecute and federal law at the time did not specifically criminalize lynching, anti-lynching activists—especially the NAACP—pushed for federal action, helped by reports in The Crisis documenting thousands of lynchings and specific cases that fueled anger leading up to the Silent Parade. In April 1917, the United States entered World War I by declaring war on Germany and joining the Allied Powers. The war dominated American news, and African American soldiers were often treated as second-class and kept segregated from white troops. While some African Americans saw military service as a chance to prove their value, others worried it was another way their country would exploit them; leaders like W.E.B. Du Bois urged African Americans to enlist. The Silent Parade was sparked by violent race riots in East St. Louis in 1917, after white workers at the Aluminum Ore Company voted for a strike and the company hired hundreds of African Americans as replacements. Between 39 and 200 African Americans were killed, many were injured, and thousands were forced from their homes, while nine white Americans also died. W.E.B. Du Bois and Martha Gruening investigated and later published a graphic photo-essay, and the brutality and lack of police protection led Black leaders to push harder for civil rights, with the NAACP planning a public protest. James Weldon Johnson and other community leaders planned a silent march to protest violence against African Americans, especially lynching, choosing a silence-based protest after earlier ideas from the NAACP and similar marches. The event was organized by an NAACP, church, and business committee, led by prominent Black clergy and organizers, with Du Bois among the march leaders, and it was meant to show African American unity without involving white participants. A week ahead, newspapers publicized the “Negro Silent Protest Parade,” which welcomed people of all ages and aimed to pressure President Woodrow Wilson to support federal anti-lynching laws, using leaflets explaining “Why We March.”