Analyzing The East St Louis Race Riot Of 1917: Written By Amechi Okoli

The past few decades have been awesome for black people living in the United States Of America. And even though it’s true that the dark-skinned population still has a lot to complain about (such as the George Floyd killing and similar incidents), it’s nothing compared to how blacks were treated back in the day.

I mean, Jay-Z is now worth billions of Dollars and hangs out with Warren Buffett, Dr. Dre (who is a black man) signed a white rapper named Eminem (who happens to be the highest selling rapper of all time), and LeBron James is the undisputed king of basketball.

Let’s not even talk about other successful blacks such as Oprah Winfrey, Eddie Murphy, Denzel Washington, Beyoncé, and many more black celebrities and entrepreneurs out there.

Yes, blacks have come a long way since the Jim Crow era. So much that the new generation kids might think it was all good from the beginning.

Well it wasn’t, as there was a time in black American history that the Negros suffered all sorts of racial discrimination which led to unfortunate historical events. And one of such events is the East St. Louis race riots in 1917.

I know what you’re thinking. St. Louis? Isn’t that where Nelly the multi-platinum selling black rapper hails from?

Yep, that’s where he’s from. But believe me when I tell you that there were no million Dollar black musicians in St. Louis at that time!

So, what was the East St. Louis race riot all about? How did it start, and what happened afterwards?

Stick with me to find out!

What You Need To Know

For those who don’t read their history books, The East St. Louis race riots of 1917 was a lengthy stretch of violence by white Americans against the local black communities that lasted between May 1917 to July 1917.

Sadly, the violence claimed the lives of more than 150 black Americans, with over 6,000 more blacks rendered homeless.

But it didn’t stop there, as more than $400,000 worth of property was damaged during the fighting. Now if you think 400k was a huge sum of money in 1917, then you’d be shocked at what it’s worth now.

As of 2023, that amount is equivalent to $9.20 million!

Trust me when I say that this event has gone down in history as one of the worst racially motivated conflicts in American history. It lasted for almost a month, and it put all major economic activities in the region to a halt.

How It All Started

In the year 1917, the United States was enjoying a booming economy after the first World War. But during this time, a lot of prospective workers were enlisted into the military, which in-turn created a shortage of labor for the industries in the prominent towns and cities.

Interestingly, these major industrial areas were hotspots for many European migrants who came to the US in search of greener pastures. But unfortunately for them, it was around this exact same period that African Americans were migrating in large numbers from the rural areas in the south to find more profitable job opportunities in the North.

Job opportunities aside, the migrating blacks were also trying to flee the hardships and oppression they faced under Jim Crow. In fact, it was recorded that at least 2,000 blacks were trooping into the St. Louis area per week!

Who would blame them, when the Eastern parts of St. Louis alone boasted of the American Steel Foundry, Aluminum Ore Company, Obear Nester glass, and the Republic Iron & Steel company.

These job offers were even more appealing to African Americans when you consider the fact that most of these companies were situated in the outskirts of the cities, which at the time meant they wouldn’t be paying any taxes!

As fate would have it, African Americans managed to secure decent jobs in these establishments. Of course these jobs weren’t going to make them millionaires, but at least they could put food on their tables and there would be no more Jim Crow headaches to deal with.

Unfortunately, the blacks were still the minority in the area. In fact, as at 1910, the Negro population in East St. Louis was roughly 6,000, while the white population in the region was about 58,000.

Although in 1917, the black population had risen to about 10,000. But the white population too had risen to about 60,000, which meant that the Negros were still the minority race in East St. Louis.

During this time, black workers did not mind the pay and working conditions, but the same could not be said of the white workers who wanted more.

Now a lot of these factory workers came from Europe, and they significantly outnumbered the black work force. This meant that their labor unions would be stronger and more influential, and they used this influence to exclude the black workforce during their bargains for higher wages.

Unfortunately for them, the white owners of these factories figured that it would be economically viable to ignore the European immigrants and hire more black workers as replacements for the striking European workforce.

This worked for a while, as black labor was significantly cheaper than that of the European immigrants. However, seeing blacks taking over white jobs only brewed already-existing racial friction and hostility.

Black workers were utterly resented, all thanks to their high demand. The white workers were also afraid that the blacks would sweep them off the labor market since they were ready to work for peanuts.

To that effect, the white labor strikes in St. Louis continued in the summer of 1916. At this time, more than 2,500 white workers protested for higher wages, but the business owners simply hired more blacks to replace them.

And even though the strike eventually helped the white protesters get a pay rise, many of them were sacked, while almost 1,000 black workers were retained. And this further escalated racial tensions in the area.

To make matters worse, there were rumors circulating in a town hall meeting on May 28, 1917, that black men had begun wooing white women.

Be it true or false, such a rumor did more harm than good, as the white workers were already upset by the competition they were facing from the black workers in the labor market.

Taking their jobs was one thing, but taking their women was a totally different ball game. A personal one at that!

And The Violence Begins!

After being triggered by rumors at the May 28 town hall meeting, a group of white men, numbering around 3,000, stormed into East St. Louis and proceeded to attack African Americans anywhere they could find them.

It didn’t matter whether they were on the streets, in their homes, or in their cars. As long as they were black, then they were targets!

But after the deaths and damages became significant enough, Governor Frank Orren of Illinois sent in the National Guard to restore order in the area.

Luckily, the attacks were suppressed, but only for a few weeks!

After the chaos in May, the East St. Louis Council for Central Labor ordered an investigation by the state defense council.

Its report stated, and I quote –

“Southern negroes were misled by false advertisements and unscrupulous employment agents to come to East St. Louis in such numbers under false pretenses of secure jobs and decent living quarters”.

Unfortunately, this did not do anything to quench the current tensions between the white and negro populace in the area, as no significant solution to the labor and communal challenges had been reached.

Violence kicked back into gear on the 1st of July, 1917, when a Ford Model T filled with white men cruised around a black neighborhood in East St. Louis.

The occupants of the vehicle opened fire several times into a group of black males on the street. Fast forward to around an hour later, and another Ford vehicle occupied by about 4 white males (two policemen and a journalist inclusive), drove through the same area.

As you would expect, the black residents of the community assumed it was the same vehicle from which they had been shot at earlier, and proceeded to retaliate by firing some shots of their own.

This led to the injury of one of the passengers and the death of one of the police officers on board.

The following day, thousands of white onlookers flocked to see the investigators’ blood-splattered car. They then flooded into the city’s black neighborhoods to the south and west and started looting and rioting.

In the streets, the mob mercilessly attacked and killed black people, including women and children. White rioters sabotaged the fire department’s water supply, set fire to neighborhoods, and then shot black civilians fleeing the blaze.

To prove that “Southern Negros deserved a genuine lynching,” some whites executed numerous African-Americans by hanging!

According to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch writer on July 4, 1917, “for an hour and a half last evening I saw the massacre of helpless negroes at Broadway and Fourth Street, in downtown East St. Louis, where black skin was death warrant.”

How Did The Police Respond To The Chaos?

Independent witnesses concur that law enforcement was either complacent or actively supported the brutality against blacks, and that the majority of the National Guard did nothing to stop it.

There was no coordinated effort to save the African-Americans or disperse the murderous mobs. The mission was simple because there was no madness and no vast, angry throng to contend with.

Perhaps is as little as ten dedicated police officers were present, most crimes could have been avoided!

The Blacks Had To Run!

More than 1,500 African Americans sought shelter in St. Louis public buildings, while hundreds more crossed the Eads Bridge over the Mississippi River to safety.

A number of organizations in St. Louis helped the refugees, including the local Red Cross chapter, the Provident Association, the Jewish Education and Charitable Association, and other affiliated organizations.

Every day, the Acting Mayor Aloe, members of his administration, and charity representatives met with the Red Cross Emergency Committee to plan for helping the refugees.

The Illinois National Guard was later called in by Governor Lowden on July 3rd. And numerous eyewitnesses attested that at first, the Guard did not try to quell the unrest but rather joined in the attacks against blacks.

According to The New York Times, a group of teenage girls, described as “ten or fifteen young girls about the age of eighteen,” chased a black woman at the Relay Depot at around five o’clock, instigating the guys to “kill the woman” with clubs!

Even photographers were attacked and their equipment smashed by rioters, and city police were hostile to reporters, therefore few images of the events survive.

As the St. Louis Argus put it after the massacre on Monday, July 2, “the entire country has been aroused to a sense of shame and pity by the magnitude of the national disgrace enacted by the blood-thirsty rioters in East St. Louis”.

Scores Of People Killed

Over one hundred African Americans had been killed from the riots, according to the East St. Louis police chief.

Ida B. Wells, a famous writer, estimated that between forty and one hundred fifty African Americans were assassinated in Chicago in July 1917.

The number of fatalities was believed to be between 100 and 200 by the NAACP. And after their communities were burned down, around 6,000 African Americans were displaced from their homes.

In the fall of that year, a congressional investigating committee met and reported back that an exact death toll could not be determined, but that at least 8 whites and 39 blacks had perished.

The local coroner had reported nine white fatalities, but fewer information about the deaths of African-Americans was available.

Many black bodies were either not discovered or did not make it through the hands of undertakers, who reported to the coroner, therefore activists who disagreed with the committee’s conclusions about deaths claimed that the exact number of deaths would never be known.

Many black people in St. Louis and across the country became radicalized as a result of the attacks’ fierce violence and the failure of authorities to safeguard civilian lives.

In a speech he delivered on July 8, black nationalist and UNIA leader Marcus Garvey of Jamaica said the riot proved the United States’ claim to be a “dispenser of democracy” and its criticism of the Empire of Germany for human rights abuses during the Great War was disingenuous.

Garvey described the violence as “one of the bloodiest outrages against mankind” and a “wholesale massacre of our people,” adding that “This is no time for fine words, but a time to lift one’s voice against the savagery of a people who claim to be the dispensers of democracy.”

Ten thousand African-Americans took part in a Silent Parade down New York’s Fifth Avenue on July 28 to express their outrage at the violence in East St. Louis. They were passionately protesting the riot, and their signs reflected that.

Harlem-based organizations and the NAACP’s (then New York-based) leadership organized the march. During the protests, the men wore black, while women and children wore white.

Houses, shops, churches, and brick warehouses were all left in ruins following the violence in East St. Louis, and the NAACP had organized for journalists to document the devastation. Many images of the unfortunate events even appeared in the September 1917 issue of the group’s publication, “The Crisis”.

How Did The Government Respond To This?

On July 12, 1917 in New York City, Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labour, addressed a large crowd at Carnegie Hall to downplay the role trade unions were said to have had in the massacre.

He stated that an inquiry was required to assign responsibility. In response, the former American president Theodore Roosevelt said, “Mr. Gompers, when the time comes for me to answer for murder, I will”.

As for murder, Roosevelt reportedly said, “I will go to the extreme to bring justice to the laboring man, but when there is murder I will put him down.”

Representative Leonidas C. Dyer of a St. Louis metropolitan district has requested a federal probe. On July 28, President Woodrow Wilson replied to him indicating that Department of Justice special agents had not found sufficient evidence to warrant government action in the matter.

He stated, and I quote –

“I have been informed that the Attorney General of the State of Illinois has travelled to East St. Louis to assist local authorities there in prosecuting criminal activity in accordance with Illinois law. Department of Justice officials are assisting state authorities as far as they can in their attempts to restore calm and prevent any outbursts”.

On August 3, 1917, the Committee on Rules and the House of Representatives began holding hearings over the killings. In the end, a federal probe was initiated.

In October 1917, 25 African-Americans and 10 whites stood trial for crimes, including murder and inciting a riot in connection with the massacre. After enduring an assault, a woman named Lena Cook testified successfully against two white men who had murdered her husband, Ed Cook, and 14-year-old son, Lurizza Beard.

Conclusion

There have been many other racially motivated riots in the US, but thankfully, it seems those days are slowly getting behind us.

And even though racism is still very much an issue, blacks can take joy in the fact that it isn’t as terrible as it used to be, and that they are now beginning to thrive in an economy that once didn’t even want them to have paying jobs.

Thanks for reading!


This article was written by Amechi Okoli