Edition |
First U.S. edition. |
Description |
293 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm |
Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 251-274) and index. |
Contents |
Introduction : a history of violence -- Brotherly love -- Reconstruction and redemption : from hope to despair -- A harvest of disaster -- East St. Louis and the great exodus -- A nest of crime and corruption -- The May riot -- Shots in the dark -- The July riot begins -- "This was the Apocalypse" -- A drama of death -- Legacy of a massacre -- Judgment days -- The deal with the devil -- Epilogue : the East St. Louis blues. |
Summary |
The dramatic and first popular account of one of the deadliest racial confrontations in the 20th century?in East St. Louis in the summer of 1917?which paved the way for the civil rights movement. In the 1910s, half a million African Americans moved from the impoverished rural South to booming industrial cities of the North in search of jobs and freedom from Jim Crow laws. But Northern whites responded with rage, attacking blacks in the streets and laying waste to black neighborhoods in a horrific series of deadly race riots that broke out in dozens of cities across the nation, including Philadelphia, Chicago, Tulsa, Houston, and Washington, D.C. In East St. Louis, Illinois, corrupt city officials and industrialists had openly courted Southern blacks, luring them North to replace striking white laborers. This tinderbox erupted on July 2, 1917 into what would become one of the bloodiest American riots of the World War era. |
Subject |
East Saint Louis Race Riot, East Saint Louis, Ill., 1917.
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East Saint Louis (Ill.) -- Race relations -- History -- 20th century.
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East Saint Louis (Ill.) -- Social conditions -- 20th century.
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Race riots -- Illinois -- East Saint Louis -- History -- 20th century.
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Violence -- Illinois -- East Saint Louis -- History -- 20th century.
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African Americans -- Illinois -- East Saint Louis -- Social conditions -- 20th century.
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African Americans -- Crimes against -- Illinois -- East Saint Louis -- History -- 20th century.
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African Americans -- Civil rights -- Illinois -- East Saint Louis -- History -- 20th century.
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ISBN |
9780802715753 alkaline paper |
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0802715753 alkaline paper |
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