The Greensboro Sit-Ins were non-violent protests in Greensboro, North Carolina, which lasted from February 1, 1960 to July 25, 1960. The protests led to the Woolworth Department Store chain ending its policy of racial segregation in its stores in the southern United States. The Greensboro Sit-Ins were the first prominent sit-ins of the civil rights movement. Continue reading Revisit: GREENSBORO SIT-INS
On July 14, 1946, four African American sharecroppers were lynched at Moore’s Ford in northeast Georgia in an event now described as the “last mass lynching in America.” Yet the killers of George Dorsey, Mae Murray Dorsey, Roger Malcolm, and Dorothy Malcolm were never brought to justice. The violence and public outcry surrounding the event reflected growing African American challenges to Jim Crow in the post-World War II years as well the failures of state and federal authorities to address racial inequality and violence in the South. Continue reading Revisit: THE MOORE’S FORD LYNCHING (JULY 1946)
The race riot of Charleston, South Carolina in 1919 was a part of a series of race riots that year, known as the “Red Summer.” The migration of blacks out of the south, the end of World War I, the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the illness and near incapacity of President Woodrow Wilson, and the 1918 influenza epidemic that killed more than 600,000 in the United States led to widespread social instability. These events lead to fears of social and political upheaval which contributed to racial tensions and violence as whites sought scapegoats and blacks, emboldened by their own progress, sought to defend their rights. Continue reading CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA RACE RIOT (1919)
The Knoxville Race Riot in Knoxville, Tennessee, was one of several race riots that took place in the “Red Summer” of 1919. The so-called “Red Summer” of 1919 was a series of violent riots, predominantly whites against blacks, which lasted from May until October of that year and resulted in an estimated six hundred deaths across the nation. Continue reading Revisit: KNOXVILLE RACE RIOT (1919)
Black Art Story 