White Mobs Terrorize Black Residents in East St. Louis Riots
On July 3, 1917, continuing violence raged in East St. Louis, Illinois, as white mobs attacked Black residents and destroyed their homes and other property. The primary outbreak of violence began on July 2, 1917, when white residents of East St. Louis and other nearby communities ambushed African American workers as they left factories during a shift change. The National Guard was called in to suppress the violence but they were ordered not to shoot at white rioters; some troops reportedly joined the mobs targeting the Black community.
In 1916 and 1917, thousands of African Americans moved from the rural South to East St. Louis in search of industrial work. White residents, along with the city’s political leaders, attempted to discourage Black migration and prohibited railroads from transporting Black people to the region. When these attempts failed, white residents used violence to intimidate, expel, and destroy the African American population.
From July 2 through July 5, 1917, at least 39—and some estimate as many as 200—African Americans were shot, hanged, beaten to death, or burned alive after being driven into burning buildings. The riots caused more than $400,000 in property damage and prompted 6,000 African Americans—more than half of East St. Louis’s African American population—to flee the city. While 105 people were indicted on charges related to the riot, only 20 members of the white mob received prison sentences for their roles in perpetrating the extreme violence and killings.
NAACP Leader Elbert Williams Lynched in Brownsville, Tennessee
On June 20, 1940, NAACP leader Elbert Williams was abducted from his home in Brownsville, Tennessee, by a group of white men led by the local sheriff and the night marshal. Three days later, Mr. Williams’s lifeless and brutalized body was found in the nearby Hatchie River. He was 31 years old.
Discrimination and violence had prevented African Americans from voting in Brownsville since 1884. By 1940, Black people made up 75% of the 19,000 people living in town, and they wanted their voices to be heard. In May 1940, members of the Brownsville chapter of the NAACP organized a voting rights drive. Elbert Williams was one of its leaders.
A few days before Mr. Williams’s lynching, fellow NAACP leader Elisha Davis was abducted from his home by the same group of white men. Mr. Davis survived the attack but was ordered to leave Brownsville or face death upon return. Soon after, when Mr. Williams refused to leave town or cease his voting rights work, he was killed.
In the months following the lynching of Elbert Williams, up to 40 more Black families were permanently driven from the community under threats of violence from the white mob. African Americans who remained in Brownsville were prohibited from meeting in groups, even for church services, and two African American men were beaten to death after being arrested by the same night marshal who had helped to abduct Mr. Williams and Mr. Davis.
Despite investigations launched by local authorities, the Department of Justice, and the FBI, charges were never lodged against the well-known men responsible. According to one contemporary observer, the perpetrators of the abuses and murders “can be seen in Brownsville each day going about their work as though they had killed only a rabbit.” As a result of the harassment, violence, and murder of its leaders, the Brownsville NAACP dissolved in 1940, and a new chapter was not formed until 1961.
