Category: Civil Rights
-
East St. Louis Race Riot – 1917
The history of the 1917 East St. Louis Race Riot intersects many themes. The Great War put an abrupt halt to immigrant labor from Europe while creating a new demand for African-American workers in America’s northern manufacturing cities. War in Europe brings opportunity and conflict at home First thousands and then tens of thousands of…
-
Biloxi Wade-Ins
Today, the beaches of Biloxi, Mississippi are temporarily closed in response to the Novel Coronavirus pandemic. But until the late 1960s, nearly all of Biloxi’s twenty-six miles of public beaches were open to all but African American citizens. This closure to some was not temporary, but rather one of the scores of racial restrictions throughout…
-
Pauli Murray says no to Jane Crow
While we know Rosa Parks wasn’t the first African American woman who refused to surrender her bus seat as dictated by Jim Crow, most have never heard of Pauli Murray. More than twenty years before Claudette Colvin, inspired by stories of other women of color who fought for civil rights, was arrested for violating the…
-
Port Chicago Disaster
At 10:18 p.m. on July 17, 1944, a pair of explosions at the Port Chicago naval pier killed more than 300 military personnel and civilian workers. The event caused the largest number of stateside deaths during the war. In the aftermath of the explosion, it was determined that racism played a key role in an…