Chicago's beaches in 1919 were not segregated by law, but any attempt by African-Americans to stand up to convention could prompt harsh and sudden violence. This is the white beach on the South Side, which started around 29th street.

The beach used by African-Americans was a few blocks north, around 25th street. The two beaches were divided by a rocky inlet--and as five teenaged boys discovered that July, the line between them was all to easy to cross.

In the South, the Jim Crow system enforced the segregation of all public places. African-Americans couldn't eat in the same restaurants, sleep in the same hotels, sit in the same movie theaters, use the same restrooms, or even drink the same water as whites.

Ida B. Wells had not intended to take on the cause of lynching until her friend Thomas Moss was dragged out of jail and shot in a railyard. Her investigation into lynching was a bombshell that shattered the Southern narrative about racial violence.

You can read Wells' original report, titled "Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases," online.

General Pershing likely never intended the 369th Infantry Regiment, the Harlem Hellraisers, to fight on the front lines, but under pressure from the Allies he turned them over to French command. They served with courage and distinction and won the respect and admiration of the entire French nation.

Private Henry Johnson fought off a 24-man German patrol alone while wounded. He was awarded the French Croix de Guerre--but received no medals from his own country.

James Reese Europe served as the 369th's regimental band leader. A brilliant musician, conductor, composer, and arranger, he brought jazz to France.

Author W.E.B. DuBois electrified readers of the NAACP magazine The Crisis with his essay "Returning Soldiers," which urged African-American veterans to fight racism at home. You can read the essay online.

Riots broke out in early summer in Charleston, South Carolina; Longview, Texas; and Washington, D.C. This sort of scene was happened frequently--black men were dragged out of trolley, as well as seized walking down the street or yanked out of businesses to be beaten by a white mob.

Poet Claude McKay wrote "If We Must Die" in 1919 in the same spirit as Du Bois' "Returning Soldiers." It was a call for African-Americans to stand up and defend themselves against white attacks. You can read the poem online or listen to Ice-T read it.

During the Chicago riot, bands of white men prowled the city looking for African-Americans. Here a group of men are running through a black neighborhood.

Order was finally restored when the state militia arrived. Generally, the soldiers were impartial and prevent further attacks on African-Americans, but encounters between white troops and black men were still fraught.

The riot in Omaha, Nebraska drew an enormous crowd, estimated at anything from 5000 to 15,000. Here you can see some of that mob surrounding the Omaha courthouse, which they eventually set alight.

Newspapers across Arkansas ran headlines about the supposed uprising of African-Americans in Phillips County.

Conductor and intelligence agent Water H. Loving submitted a report to the Department of War that explained that socialist, communist, and labor organizers had nothing to do with the violence in 1919; rather, African-Americans had decided enough was enough. His report was shelved and ignored.

• Please note that the links below to Amazon are affiliate links. That means that, at no extra cost to you, I can earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. (Here's what, legally, I'm supposed to tell you: I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for me to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.) However, I only recommend books that I have used and genuinely highly recommend.

Support The Year That Was

Links:

• Red Summer by Cameron McWhirter — McWhirter's book was my primary source for this episode, and I highly recommend it for the in-depth context and masterful storytelling.
• The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration: Isabel Wilkerson: 8580001042800: Amazon.com: Books — Wilkerson's book has won every award under the sun, and it should probably win more. It is brilliant and moving and heartbreaking and a must-read.
• "Ida B Wells: the unsung heroine of the civil rights movement" by David Smith, The Guardian
• "Against All Odds: A new play and photo exhibition call attention to Ida B. Wells and her brave fight to end lynching in America" by Clarissa Myrick-Harris, Smithsonian Magazine
• "The Arkansas race riot" by Ida B. Wells-Barnett via the Internet Archive
• "THE N.A.A.C.P. and the Struggle for Anti-Lynching Legislation, 1897-1917" by William F. Pinar, Counterpoints, on JSTOR — This article is behind a paywall, but you may be able to access it through your library. It is an excellent resource on the role of the NAACP in anti-lynching legislation.
• Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror
• "One Hundred Years Ago, the Harlem Hellfighters Bravely Led the U.S. Into WWI," by Eric Trickey, Smithsonian Magazine
• World War I and Great Migration, US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
• "Race Riots of 1919 - The Red Summer" ESRI Map Journal  
• Chicago 1919: Confronting the Race Riots -- A Series of Community Conversations
• In Their Own Words: The 1919 Race Riot
• Opinion | The Forgotten History of America’s Worst Racial Massacre - The New York Times
• "I'll Just Stand and Wring My Hands and Cry" by Ed Ware — This song was written by Ed Ware, one of the twelve men from Phillips County while sitting on death row. It's an old and scratchy recording, but deeply moving.

A. Mitchell Palmer's home was devastated when a bomb exploded at his front door on the night of June 2, 1919. If Palmer had been at his usual spot in the library, he likely would have been killed.

This is another view of the blast damage. Notice that all of the windows and the door were blown out.

Eugene V. Debs serves as a case study of pre-war opinions about socialism. As leader of the Socialist Party in America, he was considered leftist, but not radical--until the Russian Revolution changed attitudes about anyone or anything related to communism. For saying basically the same things he had been saying for years, Debs was tried under the Sedition Act in 1919 and sentenced to ten years in prison.

Many Americans believed in the progression laid out literally step by step in this political cartoon. Disturbances such as strikes would lead inevitably to Bolshevism and chaos.

The majority of people believed that immigrants were mostly or wholly responsible for radicalism in the United States. It seemed the easiest solution was that proposed by the 1918 Immigration Act: deport them all.

To be fair, not everyone believed the Reds were an imminent threat. While many political cartoons fed the fear, others mocked it, like this example, which pointed to the hysterical tone of the Overman Report.

When A. Mitchell Palmer took the job of Attorney General in March, he was among the moderates. Everything changed when his house was blown up--and really, you can hardly blame him.

Palmer placed the young but well-liked and hard-working J. Edgar Hoover in charge of intelligence for his Red hunt. Hoover quickly gained the trust of his boss and ultimately managed all of the planning and operations details of the November and January raids.

After the November 7th raids, 249 people were deported to Russia. The sailed on the Buford, a ship that Hoover arranged to borrow from the war department. It became known as the Soviet Ark.

Up to ten thousand people were rounded up in the January 2nd, 1920 raids. Individuals were arrested, searched, and held without warrants, often in deplorable conditions.

Deportation hearings began almost immediately. This is a photo of men waiting to be called for hearings at Ellis Island. It was an incredibly fraught situation. Many of the suspected radicals had lived in the United States for decades. They had families and children--and their children had often been born in the U.S. and were therefore citizens.

Assistant Secretary of Labor Louis F. Post insisted on full constitutional protection for those rounded up in the Palmer Raids and ended up dismissing the majority of cases. He infuriated Palmer, who arranged for him to be impeached by the House of Representatives. Post's testimony was a major factor in Palmer's downfall.

After all was said and done and the panic subsided, the anarchists struck again. The 1920 Wall Street Bombing left 38 dead and hundreds wounded. It was likely the work of the anarchists, who still had not been captured.

Historic Newspapers

If you are not familiar with the fantastic resource that is the Library of Congress Chronicling America site, let me introduce it to you. It contains scanned newspapers from across the country and the decades.

Click here to find the results of a search of headlines nationwide on June 3rd, 1919, the morning after the bomb attacks. It's fascinating to compare the headlines and see what else was considered important that day.

Then have fun looking up more dates and more newspapers. You'll probably be there some time.

• Please note that the links below to Amazon are affiliate links. That means that, at no extra cost to you, I can earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. (Here's what, legally, I'm supposed to tell you: I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for me to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.) However, I only recommend books that I have used and genuinely highly recommend.

Support The Year That Was

Links:

• YOUNG J. EDGAR: Hoover and the Red Scare, 1919-1920 by Kenneth D. Ackerman — I relied heavily on Ackerman's book, which provides an excellent overview of the events of 1919-1920 and fantastic insight into the main players.
• Savage Peace: Hope and Fear in America by Ann Hagedorn — Hagedorn's book continues to be incredibly useful and insightful.
• Enemies: A History of the FBI by Tim Weiner — Weiner's book extends far beyond the Red Scare, but its treatment of the events of 1919-1920 is excellent.
• When America Tried to Deport Its Radicals by Adam Hochschild, The New Yorker — The New Yorker had great timing with this excellent article about the Palmer Raids and the role of Louis F. Post in turning the tide.
• "To the American people; report upon the illegal practices of the United States Department of Justice" - via HathiTrust Digital Library — The entire report on of the National Popular Government League is available online, and is fascinating just to dip into, even if you don't want to read the entire thing.
• Watch The Bombing of Wall Street | American Experience | Official Site | PBS — The PBS series "American Experience" presented a fantastic overview of the 1920 bombing of Wall Street that I highly recommend.

The Wobblies were so famous for singing that they repeatedly published their lyrics in "The Little Red Songbook," which contained Wobbly sayings and organizing advice as well as songs.

"Big Bill" Haywood was tough and physically imposing, but he had a big heart and a gift for communicating with workers.

Samuel Gompers was leader of the IWW-rival the American Federation of Labor. He cultivated a reputation for the organization as reasonable and cooperative--and achieved many results for his members.

Pinkerton agent James McParland took over the investigation of the murder of former Idaho governor Frank Steunenberg, and his handling of the main suspect was, shall we say, questionable. McParland was one of the country's most famous Pinkerton agents, known for his infiltration of the Molly Maguires--so famous, in fact, that Arthur Conan Doyle modeled a character in his novel The Valley of Fear on McParland and imagined a conversation between Sherlock Holmes and the real detective.

The trial of multiple Wobbly leaders for the murder of Frank Steunenberg garnered nationwide--even international--press attention.

The most successful IWW-led strike was the "Bread and Roses" strike in 1912 in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Many of the strikers were women, seen here on the picket line.

IWW organizers urged the strikers to remain peaceful no matter how much the police and state militia threatened them. The strikers generally remained non-violent, although in one confrontation between the two groups a young woman was shot and killed. It remains uncertain who was responsible, but IWW organizer Joseph Ettor was placed on trial. No evidence connected him to the murder, and he was aquitted.

Joe Hill was an uneducated, unskilled Swedish immigrant with a remarkable gift for songwriting--in an adopted language, no less. He was convicted of murder and executed by firing squad in 1915. His death can be seen as matter of perverse stubbornness in the face of officialdom--he refused to explain how he had received a gunshot wound on the night a former policeman was killed. Or it was a blatant miscarriage of justice in which a man with no connection to the the murder victim became a convenient scapegoat. Or perhaps it was both. In any case, Hill became a martyr to the Wobbly cause.

This remarkable image shows striking miners and those considered their allies being loaded up into cattle cars on the morning of July 12, 1917 by the sheriff of Bisbee, Arizona and the self-appointed Citizens' Protective League. The men were told if they attempted to return to town, they would be killed. The cattle cars were abandoned across the New Mexico border, leaving the men without food or water.

Sheriff Harry Wheeler was unconcerned that his actions might have been illegal. "It became a question of 'Are you American, or are you not?'" he said.

In September 1918, 48 IWW offices across the country were raided. This image shows one office after the raid.

More than one hundred IWW members and leaders were tried under the Espionage Act. Most were convicted and received sentences of up to twenty years.

The union spent most of 1918 and 1919 raising money for defense and appeals. This was a Wobbly fundraising picnic. The banner reads, at the top, "We're in For You" and asks for money for the "Class War Prisoners."

When the unions of Seattle called a general strike in January 1919, the mayor was so terrified he requested U.S. Army troops, including machine gun companies, be sent to his town.

Actors walked out of Broadway shows in August 1919 in the first Actors Equity union strike. Here actors walk the picket line.

When the Boston Police went on strike in September 1919, the public was terrified they would be helpless at the hands of criminals. The recently elected governor Calvin Coolidge sent the state militia to town and earned nationwide praise for ensuring law and order. Coolidge is seen here inspecting militia members.

The steelworkers strike was pushed from the bottom up and never had the full support of the unions who were supposed to organize and lead it.

The factory owners convinced workers that the cause was hopeless and they should go back to work. Notice that this advertisement, which ran in a Pittsburgh newspaper, is in mutiple languages to reach immigrant workers.

When the town of Centralia, Washington planned a parade for the first anniversary of Armistice Day, rumors swirled that the IWW hall would be attacked. The rumors were so prevalent that the Wobblies issued a statement requesting that the townspeople avoid violence and turn to law enforcement if they believe the IWW is guilty of any crimes.

This photo shows the parade stepping off, before violence erupted at the IWW hall.

Warren Grimes had served with the U.S. Army in Vladivostok and had a well-earned fear of Bolshevism. He was a local hero, and when he warned about the IWW, people listened. Grimes was one of the first shot in the conflict between the IWW and the American Legion. Exactly what happened that day remains under dispute.

It is not disputed that a mob of Centralia townsfolk dragged Wobbly member Wesley Everest out of jail and hanged him on a nearby railway bridge.

Labor Songs

"Solidarity Forever" by John H. Chaplin, recorded by Pete Seeger on the album "If I Had a Hammer: Songs of Hope and Struggle," Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, 1998.

"The Popular Wobbly" by T-Bone Slim, recorded by Eric Glatz on the album "IWW Rebel Voices: Songs of the Industrial Workers of the World," Universal Music Group, 1984.

"Bread and Roses" from a poem by James Oppenheim, sung by Bronwen Lewis, from the movie "Pride," 2014.

"There Is Power in a Union" by Joe Hill, recorded by Joe Glazer on the album "Songs of the Wobblies, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, 1977.

"The Preacher and the Slave" by Joe Hill, recorded by Utah Phillips on the album "Classic Labor Songs from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, 2006.

"Joe Hill's Last Will" by Joe Hill, recorded by John McCutcheon, 2015.

"Union Burying Ground" written and performed by Woody Guthrie, recorded in the 1940s and released on the album "Struggle," Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, 1976.

"Bread and Roses" from a poem by James Oppenheim, sung and recorded by Bronwen Lewis, 2014.

Please note that the links below to Amazon are affiliate links. That means that, at no extra cost to you, I can earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. (Here's what, legally, I'm supposed to tell you: I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for me to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.) However, I only recommend books that I have used and genuinely highly recommend.

Support The Year That Was

Links:

• There Is Power in a Union: The Epic Story of Labor in America by Philip Dray — Dray fills the story of labor in America with all of the drama and excitement it deserves while never losing sight of the big picture.
• Songs Of The Workers Fifteenth Edition : Industrial Workers of the World, via Internet Archive — This edition of The Little Red Songbook was published in 1919 and makes for a fascinating read. I was unable to find recordings of all of the songs, but it's worth it just to read the lyrics.
• "Old Letter Sheds New Light on Joe Hill Murder Case," by Steven Greenhouse, The New York Times — This article looks at recently discovered evidence to provide a possible explanation for why Joe Hill refused to explain his gunshot.
• Why the Great Steel Strike of 1919 Was One of Labor’s Biggest Failures - HISTORY — A brief but thorough account of the 1919 Steelworkers Strike.
• The US national steel strike, 1919 - Jeremy Brecher — Another excellent overview of the steel strike, this time with more detail, especially about the inter-union conflicts.
• "Painful Memories: The Historical Consciousness of Steelworkers and the Steel Strike of 1919," by Robert Asher, Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies, via on JSTOR — This article includes accounts of steelworkers who participated in the 1919 strike and is a fascinating look at the experience of those on the ground. The article is behind a paywall, but you may have access through your local library.