some images from the Silent Protest Parade, NYC 28 July 1917 (response to bloody east st louis riots

[niyad]

Last edited Fri Jul 28, 2017, 01:10 PM - Edit history (1)

http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/Randy/clips/Silent%20Protest%20Parade.mp4/thumbnailImage

and more:
https://www.google.com/search?q=silent+parade+of+1917+images&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwilqouSsqzVAhVI2WMKHUV6Dj8Q7AkIUg&biw=1056&bih=619#imgrc=tdKANX4njDzG_M:

[csziggy]

1. Short but good article here

NAACP Silent Protest Parade, New York City (1917)

The National Association of the Advancement of Colored People’s (NAACP) Silent Protest Parade, also known as the Silent March, was held in New York City on Saturday, July 28, 1917, on 5th Avenue. This parade came about because the violence acted upon African Americans, including the race riots, lynching, and outages in Texas, Tennessee, Illinois, and other states.

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.

More: http://www.blackpast.org/aah/naacp-silent-protest-parade-new-york-city-1917

[niyad]

2. thank you for that!

[csziggy]

4. Thank you for posting the photo!

I should have included that thanks in my message.

This is a piece of history I had never heard about - not surprising considering I grew up in the South with an American History teacher who taught us about the War of Northern Aggression. That chapter of American history took more time than the American Revolution and she covered little about the two World Wars - and nothing about the Korean War or Vietnam.

The March from Selma to Birmingham happened just before the year I took her class but she would not discuss the fight for civil rights at all.

[niyad]

5. I know what you mean--what I learned in different history classes, depending on where I was,

was astounding.

[csziggy]

7. Most of the accurate history - American and World - I learned on my own

Which is good since I got into less main stream sources than would be taught in most classes.

[niyad]

8. and fortunately, we have Zinn's "People's History" and Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz "An Indigenous

People's History of the US (now THAT was a really upsetting eye-opener)

I remember looking at the history books in the libraries and bookstores, and asking "where are the women?" and "why are all the history books about war? other things were going on, too"

[csziggy]

9. I'll have to look for the Dunbar-Ortiz book

Right now I am reading "1491" by Charles C. Mann which attempts to cover the indigenous population of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus. It's very interesting and unsettling. Not a scholarly approach but gives references so if you want more detailed and scholarly backup for his information you can find it.

He spends a good amount of time on the deaths of Indians (the term he uses as all encompassing and concise) from European introduced diseases. The percentage of people who died is appalling - between 90-95% by some estimates - especially when you factor in multiple diseases in numerous waves over the first two to three hundred years.

I've just gotten to the section on origins, which promises to be fascinating.

[niyad]

10. And I will look up the book you are reading. I think they must make intereting companion

views.

[DBoon]

11. I loved "1491"

His section on the Amazon in particular is fascinating. At the time his book was published, it was considered speculative, but evidence supporting a dense agricultural civilization in the Amazon has since been found.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. K&R.

Solidarity.

[leftstreet]

6. DURec

[Behind the Aegis]

12. Kick for forgotten history!

History. Do not forget!

[niyad]

13. . . .