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VermontKevin

(1,473 posts)
Fri Jul 28, 2017, 08:22 AM Jul 2017

100 YEARS AGO: THE SILENT PARADE





The Silent Parade, one of the first mass protests against lynching and anti-black violence in the United States, is the subject of a July 28, 2017 Google Doodle that commemorates its 100th anniversary.

The parade took place on July 28, 1917 along New York City’s Fifth Avenue, and, as Google notes, the only sound “was the muffled beat of drums.” Google chose the Silent Parade for a Google Doodle to honor “those whose silence resonates a century later.”


At the time, the parade was also called the “Silent Protest Parade.” Its NAACP organizers wrote in a promotional flyer for the parade that they were marching to rouse the “conscience of the country.”

Here’s what you need to know:

1. Nearly 10,000 People, Including Children, Marched in Silence During the 1917 Silent Parade

On July 28, 1917, notes Google, “the only sound on New York City’s Fifth Avenue was the muffled beat of drums as nearly 10,000 African American children, women, and men marched in silence in what came to be known as the Silent Parade.”


The parade had a dress code that created a scene of unity.

As Alexis Newman described it for Black Past.org, “Children, dressed in white, led the protest, followed by women behind, also dressed in white. Men followed at the rear, dressed in dark suits. The marchers carried banners and posters stating their reasons for the march. Both participants and onlookers remarked that this protest was unlike any other seen in the city and the nation. There were no chants, no songs, just silence.”

http://heavy.com/news/2017/07/silent-parade-google-doodle-the-1917-new-york/



This was never taught in any history book or class I ever read or went to. Today, my granddaughter showed me the google doodle. I will never forget a couple of years ago when she came home from school and wanted to tell me how her best friend, Aniah, would not have been allowed in her classroom "back in history." She was outraged, and astonished. She could not understand something so incomprehensibly stupid.

Remember. It has to be carefully taught:

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100 YEARS AGO: THE SILENT PARADE (Original Post) VermontKevin Jul 2017 OP
NAACP link: VermontKevin Jul 2017 #1
kick VermontKevin Jul 2017 #2
Recommended. H2O Man Jul 2017 #3
Thanks for this post...my "learn something new everyday" item. And yes, racism is indeed taught... iluvtennis Jul 2017 #4
I was taught racism. Not just through active words but through passive erasing. VermontKevin Jul 2017 #5
I hear you. But you at least started to questioned thing. That is the key to how we erase those iluvtennis Jul 2017 #6
You can't erase everything but you can listen. Always listen. VermontKevin Jul 2017 #7
Evening kick. VermontKevin Jul 2017 #8
K&R smirkymonkey Jul 2017 #9
Those children were always on the front lines. VermontKevin Jul 2017 #10
Kick for night crowd VermontKevin Jul 2017 #11
 

VermontKevin

(1,473 posts)
1. NAACP link:
Fri Jul 28, 2017, 08:36 AM
Jul 2017
http://www.blackpast.org/aah/naacp-silent-protest-parade-new-york-city-1917

One incident in particular, the East St. Louis Race Riot, also called the East St. Louis Massacre, was a major catalyst of the silent parade. This horrific event drove close to six thousand blacks from their own burning homes and left several hundred dead.

James Weldon Johnson, the second vice president of the NAACP, brought together other civil rights leaders who gathered at St. Phillips Church in New York to plan protest strategies. None of the group wanted a mass protest, yet all agreed that a silent protest through the streets of the city could spark the idea of racial reform and an end to the violence. Johnson remembered the idea of a silent protest from A NAACP Conference in 1916 when Oswald Garrison Villard suggested it. All the organizations agreed that this parade needed to be comprised of the black citizens, rather than a racially-mixed gathering. They argued that as the principal victims of the violence, African Americans had a special responsibility to participate in this, the first major public protest of racial violence in U.S. history.

The parade went south down 5th Avenue, moved to 57th Street and then to Madison Square. It brought out nearly ten thousand black women, men, and children, who all marched in silence. Johnson urged that the only sound to be heard would be the “the sound of muffled drums.” Children, dressed in white, led the protest, followed by women behind, also dressed in white. Men followed at the rear, dressed in dark suits.

The marchers carried banners and posters stating their reasons for the march. Both participants and onlookers remarked that this protest was unlike any other seen in the city and the nation. There were no chants, no songs, just silence. As those participating in the parade continued down the streets of New York, black Boy Scouts handed out flyers to those watching that described the NAACP’s struggle against segregation, lynching, and discrimination, as well as other forms of racist oppression.

iluvtennis

(19,758 posts)
4. Thanks for this post...my "learn something new everyday" item. And yes, racism is indeed taught...
Fri Jul 28, 2017, 11:27 AM
Jul 2017

...I remember a diversity training course I attended at Apple many years ago where one of the participants told of her experience where her dad taught racism (them to hate blacks) every night at the dinner table. She was one of those who after she grew up questioned what was taught to her as a kid and determined it wasn't right.

 

VermontKevin

(1,473 posts)
5. I was taught racism. Not just through active words but through passive erasing.
Fri Jul 28, 2017, 11:37 AM
Jul 2017

I have noticed something. It is easy to dismiss the active words. Easier, I should say. But then you have opinions and thoughts that are there, that you have never questioned. Maybe because you can't see they are there. Then there are things you were never exposed to, and you kind of feel like "where was this history?"

iluvtennis

(19,758 posts)
6. I hear you. But you at least started to questioned thing. That is the key to how we erase those
Fri Jul 28, 2017, 11:46 AM
Jul 2017

items where have pre-judged folks.

 

smirkymonkey

(63,221 posts)
9. K&R
Fri Jul 28, 2017, 07:50 PM
Jul 2017

One thing that I am curious about. Why were the children first, then the women and then the men at the back? Is it because they think that nobody would hurt the children and women? What if they did? I don't know, it just seems kind of dangerous to put the children on the front lines.

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