IF YOURE AN AFRICAN AMERICAN EDUCATIONAL LEADER AND THIS IS NOT BEING INTEGRATED INTO YOUR DISTRICTS CURRICULUM, YOU ARE DOING OUR KIDS A DISSERVICE! REMEMBER, WE DIDNT START THE RIOTING CONCEPT! #BLACKHISTORY #AMERICANHISTORY In May of 1917, three thousand white men gathered in downtown East St. Louis and attacks on blacks began. With mobs destroying buildings and beating people, the Illinois governor called in the National Guard to prevent further rioting. Although rumors circulated about organized retribution attacks from African Americans, conditions eased somewhat for a few weeks. On July 2, a car occupied by white males drove through a black area of the city and fired several shots into a standing group. An hour later, a car containing four people, including a journalist and two police officers (Detective Sergeant Samuel Coppedge and Detective Frank Wadley) was passing through the same area. Black residents, possibly assuming they were the original suspects, opened fire on their car, killing one officer instantly and mortally wounding another. Later that day, thousands of white spectators who assembled to view the detectives bloodstained automobile marched into the black section of town and started rioting. After cutting the water hoses of the fire department, the rioters burned entire sections of the city and shot inhabitants as they escaped the flames. Claiming that Southern negros deserve a genuine lynching, they lynched several blacks. Guardsmen were called in but accounts exist that they joined in the rioting rather than stopping it. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_St._Louis_Riot
Posted on: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 16:17:16 +0000
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