Never Been a Time (41 page)

I would like to thank my agent, Matthew Carnicelli, and my publisher, George Gibson, for agreeing with me that this was a story that needed to be told and one that would be read. I am also grateful to George and editor Jacqueline Johnson for insisting that the story needed its roots firmly planted in the tragic history of race relations in America. At Walker and Company, I would also like to thank Laura Keefe, Peter Miller, Michele Lee Amundsen, Michael O'Connor, and Paula Cooper.

For help in research, I am indebted to Adele Heagney, Joseph Winkler, and Keith Zimmer of the main branch of the St. Louis Public Library, as well as the staff of the Julia Davis branch, with its extensive and invaluable collection of thousands of books and other documents of African American history, much of it assembled by the teacher whose name the branch bears. I am also grateful to Duane Sneddeker of the Missouri Historical Society Library, Deborah Cribbs of the St. Louis Mercantile Library, Walter Hill and Rodney Ross of the National Archives, Janet Cameron Levkowicz of the libraries of the University of New Orleans, Elaine Pichaske Sokolowski of the Peoria
(Illinois) Public Library, and the staffs of the Omer Poos Law Library at St. Louis University, the Olin Library at Washington University, the Lovejoy Library at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, the Ellis Library at the University of Missouri–Columbia, and the public libraries of the cities of East St. Louis and Belleville, Illinois.

For help along the way, I would like to thank Paul Solman, Joe Klein, Jill-Ellyn Riley, Diane McWhorter, Durb Curlee, Dan McGuire, Anne Walker, Gary and Terry Kennedy, Dan Martin, Susan Luberda, Matthew Fernandes, Hillary Levin, Ernest Stadler, June and Larry Rouse, and Charles Lumpkins. Finally, I was helped and inspired by the work of three writers now deceased who preceded me in recounting the tragedy of the East St. Louis riot of 1917: Paul Y. Anderson and Carlos Hurd of the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
and Elliott Rudwick, author of the superb 1964 study
Race Riot at East St. Louis
.

1
. H. Rap. Brown, head of the Student Non-Violent Co-Ordinating Committee, said in 1967 of the black race riots of the era, “I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.” See
NYT
, July 28, 1967. Woodson,
A Century of Negro Migration
, 3.

2
. Numerous scholarly sources, such as Henderson H. Donald in
Negro Migration
, 18–19, and George W. Groh in
The Black Migration
, 48, postulate a total northward migration of five hundred thousand or more in the decade from 1910 to 1920, as do standard references such as the
Encyclopedia Britannica
and
Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience
. With its release of the 1920 census, the United States Census Bureau reported, “While it is impossible to calculate exactly the extent of this [black] migration during the recent decade, the available data indicate that approximately 400,000 [blacks] left the South subsequent to April 15, 1910.” Censuses and other surveys traditionally have undercounted blacks, poor people, and immigrants, all categories that apply to statistics on African Americans moving to the northern United States. (See Donald,
Negro Migration
, preface, 15.)

3
. Myrdal,
An American Dilemma
, 566.

4
. The exact number of blacks in East St. Louis at the time of the riots in 1917 is difficult to determine, in part because the black population peaked in the spring, just before the May riot, and plunged immediately after the July riot. For his meticulous and authoritative book on the 1917 riot,
Race Riot at East St. Louis, July 2, 1917
, Southern Illinois University sociologist Elliott Rudwick examined the records of the strictly segregated East St. Louis school system and selective service records. He estimated that the black population of East St. Louis went from about 8,200 in 1916 to between 10,600 and 13,000 in the spring of 1917, suggesting roughly 2,500 to 5,000 blacks arrived in a year or so. At that point, the total population of East St. Louis was roughly 75,000, up from 72,000 in 1915. See
Statistical Abstract of the
United States, 1915, no. 38,published in 1916 by the Department of Commerce; Rudwick,
Race Riot
1917, 160–70; McLaughlin,
Power, Community, and Racial Killing
, 11; and Rudwick, “Colonization,”42
.

1
. Historical Census Statistics.

2
. Runcie, “Hunting,” 189.

3
. Du Bois,
The Philadelphia Negro
, chap. 4, sec. 10.

4
. Woodson,
A Century of Black Migration
, 43; Runcie, “Hunting,” 187.

5
. Runcie, “Hunting,” 210.

6
. Gilbert,
Westering Man
, 13–25.

7
. Schecter,
The Devil's Own Work
, 36; Runcie, “Hunting,” 199.

8
. Runcie, “Hunting,” 206–13.

9
. Du Bois,
Philadelphia Negro
, chap. 13, sec. 37.

10
. Ibid., chap. 18, sec. 58.

11
. Ibid., chap. 4, sec. 10.

12
. Jefferson,
Notes on the State of Virginia
, 291; Baldwin,
The Fire Next Time
, 4.

13
. Schecter,
Devil's Own Work
, 40–45.

14
. Woodson,
A Century of Black Migration
, 57–58.

15
. Primm,
Lion of the Valley
, 182–85.

16
. Schechter,
Devil's Own Work
, 47.

17
. Lincoln,
Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln
, vol. 1, 109–10.

18
. Schecter,
Devil's Own Work
, 51; Franklin,
From Slavery to Freedom
, 228.

19
. Schecter,
Devil's Own Work
, 33.

20
. Ibid., 4–8, 148–52.

1
. Historical Census Statistics. Note: High black death rates and low black birth rates in Northern cities in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries meant that virtually all population growth came from migration. In some Northern cities, and in New York State as a whole, deaths among blacks significantly exceeded births from 1895 to 1915, so the population of blacks in those areas actually would have shrunk if it were not for migration. In that period, more than one fourth of black infants in the North died before the age of one, which was twice the death rate for white infants. Black adults also died at a much higher rate than whites in the cities of the North. Also, many of the migrants to the North were single men and women, others were married men who left their wives and families at home, at least for the time being, as job-seeking immigrants often do, so there was a relatively low birth rate among blacks in the North. See Henri,
Black Migration
, 112–13, and Scroggs, “Interstate Migration of Negro Population,” 1039.

2
. Eric Foner,
Reconstruction
, 261–63.

3
. Du Bois,
Black Reconstruction
, 678.

4
. Eric Foner,
Reconstruction
, 140–42.

5
. Du Bois,
Black Reconstruction
, 671–78.

6
. Ibid., 678.

7
. Ibid., 676.

8
. Lemann,
Redemption
, 3–22.

9
. Foner,
Reconstruction
, 558; Williams, “Long Hot Summers,” 13.

10
. Foner,
Reconstruction
, 558–63.

11
. Du Bois,
Black Reconstruction
, 30.

12
. Matison,
Labor Movement and the Negro
, 430–31.

13
. Spero and Harris,
Black Worker
, 23–24.

14
. Foner,
Reconstruction
, 512–13.

15
. Franklin,
From Slavery to Freedom
, 310–11.

16
. Historical Census Statistics.

17
. Scott,
Negro Migration
, 4–6.

18
. Bontemps and Conroy,
Anyplace But Here
, 57–71; Scott,
Black Migration
, 6; Historical Census Statistics: Between 1870 and 1880, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the black population of Kansas increased from 17,000 to 43,000.

19
. Woodson,
A Century of Negro Migration
, 142.

20
. Bontemps and Conroy,
Anyplace But Here
, 65.

21
. Douglass,
Life and Times
, 433–35.

22
. Bontemps and Conroy,
Anyplace But Here
, 61.

23
. Historical Census Statistics.

24
. Logan,
Negro in American Life and Thought
.

25
. Henri,
Black Migration
, 10.

26
. Tuskegee Institute.

27
. Tolnay and Beck,
Festival of Violence
, 119–37.

28
. Benedict,
Race
, 151.

29
. Wells-Barnett,
Crusade for Justice
, 18–20, 52.

30
. Wells-Barnett,
On Lynchings
, 14–29; Wells-Barnett,
Crusade for Justice
, chap. 5.

31
. Harlan,
The Making of a Black Leader
, 163.

32
. Ibid., 210–17.

33
. Ibid., 219–20.

34
. Ibid., 222–28.

35
. Lewis,
Biography of a Race
, 175, 206.

36
. Harlan,
Making of a Black Leader
, 225–26; Wells-Barnett,
Crusade for Justice
, 265; Myrick-Harris, “Ida B. Wells.”

37
. Henri,
Black Migration
, 14–15.

38
. Much of the information on the riot comes from the official,
Wilmington Race Riot Report
. See also Tyson, “The Ghosts of 1898.”

39
. Tyson, “The Ghosts of 1898.”

40
. “Alex Manly—;Wilmington Race Riots,”
Encyclopedia of the State Library of North Carolina
.

41
.
Wilmington Race Riot Report
, chap. 8.

42
. Historical Census Statistics.

1
. Franklin,
From Slavery to Freedom
, 341; Harlan,
Wizard of Tuskegee
, 3–6.

2
. Tolnay and Beck,
Festival of Violence
, 119–37; Historical Census Statistics.

3
. Franklin,
From Slavery to Freedom
, 340–46; Henri,
Black Migration
, 52, 112–13.

4
. Lewis,
Biography of a Race
, 222; Foner and Lewis,
Black Workers
, 286.

5
. Williams, “Long Hot Summers,” 14;
Monett (Mo.) Times
, Aug. 10, 2001;
NYT, PD
, June 8, 1903.

6
. Godshalk,
Veiled Visions
, 59.

7
. Lewis,
Biography of a Race
, 226.

8
. Du Bois,
Souls of Black Folk
, 48.

9
. Ibid., 14, 45–49.

10
. Lewis,
Biography of a Race
, 320–25.

11
. Godshalk,
Veiled Visions
, 13–25.

12
. Lewis,
Biography of a Race
, 332–35.

13
. Godshalk,
Veiled Visions
, 39–47.

14
. Baker,
Following the Color Line
, 4–8.

15
. Lewis,
Biography of a Race
, 330; Godshalk,
Veiled Visions
, 74–76.

16
. Baker,
Following the Color Line
, 9–10.

17
. Godshalk,
Veiled Visions
, 86–115.

18
. Lewis,
Biography of a Race
, 333–40.

19
. Godshalk,
Veiled Visions
, 123, 191–92.

20
. Ibid., 143–50;
NYT
, Sept. 24, 2006.

21
. Godshalk,
Veiled Visions
, 182–83.

22
. Lewis,
Biography of a Race
, 376–87.

23
. Senechal, “The Springfield Race Riot,” 22–32.

24
. Ibid., 25.

25
. Lewis,
Biography of a Race
, 386–407; Wells–Barnett,
Crusade for Justice
, 324–26.

1
. Information on the early development of East St. Louis and St. Louis comes from Theising,
Made in USA
, chaps. 2–4, and Primm,
Lion of the Valley
, chaps. 1–3.

2
.
Journal
, Sept. 24, 1916.

3
. Southern, “In Retrospect,” 85–86.

4
. Handy,
Father of the Blues
, 26–27, 120–21.

5
. Theising,
Made in USA
, 105–13.

6
. Congressional Hearings, 1912–13; McLaughlin,
Power, Community, and Racial Killing
, 12–15.

7
. Tuttle,
Red Summer
, 120–22.

8
. Wells-Barnett,
Crusade for Justice
, 310.

9
. Rudwick,
Race Riot
, 165; McLaughlin,
Power, Community, and Racial Killing
, 10–11.

10
. Scott,
Negro Migration
, 41.

11
. Ottley,
The Lonely Warrior
, 121–37.

12
. Ibid., 105–15.

13
. Ibid., 138–40, 126.