82: Legalized Murder: When The Purge Happened In America—Red Summer of 1919 | Dark History with Bailey Sarian
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This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

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So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24-7, 365 days a year, so you're protected no matter what. Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customer surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. This is an ad by BetterHelp. What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better even when it's impossible to make time for them.

Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow. Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere, and the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash darkhistory today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash darkhistory.

Hi friends. I hope you're having a wonderful day today. My name is Bailey Sarian and I'd like to welcome you to my study and to my podcast, Dark History. This is a chance, I don't know, just to tell the story like it is and to share the history of stuff that maybe you would never think about. I do all the thinking for you and I just tell you what I've learned, okay? So all you

you have to do is sit back, relax, and let me tell you about that hot, juicy history gas. Oh wait, this is a sad story. Let me tell you how I really got to today's episode. Back when I was doing research for my murder mystery makeup, I did an episode about the Tulsa race massacre. I had never heard about it. And I was like, what the hell is what? What?

What? Like, I felt so dumb. I mean, that, I think I even said in that video, that was just like a little tiny seed in this big, larger history, part of our history that just seems to be missing from our school system. What I'm getting at is while researching for murder mystery makeup, I kept coming across all these like super historical events that I at least can say are

um the schools i went to i never learned about and that's really what was the start of dark history really all that yeah i just wanted to share like what i had learned anyway so with today's episode i had originally come across it when i did the tulsa race massacre episode and i was like holy crap this thing

It just like, it doesn't make sense why I didn't, I just, anyway, let me tell you, okay? I kept being brought back to something called the Red Summer. And I was like, what is this? Like a really hot summer or something? Where everyone was like, their skin was like really red. It had nothing to do with that. Look, the Red Summer of 1919 was a bloody period of violence in America that

sparked by racism. I'm talking about crazy riots, fires, and murders that had happened across 26 different cities. And some sources say that up to 250 people were murdered. Now others say that there was actually way more. Before the Red Summer of 1919, America was going through some changes. I mean, America, she is always evolving.

But after the Civil War ended, millions of enslaved Americans were now technically free. But like just because a piece of paper said they were free, it didn't mean they were treated equally all of a sudden like technically.

a wand was like poof, everything's great, yay, you know? Tensions were at an all-time high and literally America almost like went up in flames. So after the Civil War, things were awful in the South for Black Americans. In most...

aspects of so many people's lives. And kind of in response to that, there's something called the Great Migration that happened. And this took place in 1910, where millions of Black Americans were moving from the South to the North to chase better schools and better job opportunities. And of course, to escape the racism that was threatening their lives every day with groups like the KKK, who had a strong presence where they were at. Yeah. So it's like,

Yeah, we're gonna get the fuck out of here. Do you blame them? No. The Great Migration ends up being one of the largest movements of people in the history of the world.

Six million people spread across America. But it's still, in the years after the Great Migration, Black Americans were able to come together and fight for the basic rights they were owed as Americans. I mean, just like everyone else. Many white Americans and people in power, they no likey, you know? And this created like just the perfect climate for violent backlash toward the Black community. What took place during the summer, it happened over 26 different cities.

So, look, that's a lot, you know? You know? Are you listening, 26 Cities? That's a lot. And I'm just doing a little episode. So, you know, I'm just going to focus on three big cities.

Just to kind of like give us, you know, a good idea of just how chaotic and disastrous the Red Summer was. But please, I encourage you to always like do further research. I'll list in the description box or whatever, like different organizations you can go to, different books, just every... Anyways, I'm getting ahead of myself. One of the biggest events of Red Summer happened in a city where like nothing bad has ever happened.

happened. A place that has, like, never seen one ounce of corruption. The nation's capital. Good old Washington, D.C. There's one person who is extremely important to the Washington, D.C. chapter of our story, and that is Mr. Woodrow Wilson. Now, if you don't know who this is, he was a president of the United States. There's just so many of them, you know? Anyway,

Anyways, so we're gonna call him Woody. Now Woody, as we affectionately called him in our Edith Wilson episode, he was like a lot of men I've known. He seemed like a pretty great guy at first, super charming, friendly, approachable, like, and hey, he didn't support segregation. He seemed great. I mean, look at him. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to react, but you let me know.

Did you like that, Joan? Wow, he looked great. So when he was running for office in 1912, he was making all these promises to the public as one does when they are trying to get votes, you know? And one of them that really stuck out to people, especially black voters, was the idea of quote unquote new freedom for the whole nation. So the country was divided and still at this time dealing with Jim Crow laws and segregation.

So many Americans were like, finally, like someone who's for us, all of us. And black voters came out for Woody. They showed up. They ended up casting more votes for him than any other Democratic candidate in history. And thanks to all of that, he wins. Okay.

Okay, so it's like, yay, woohoo. But then literally, within the first few weeks of his presidency, Woody starts to disappoint some. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking.

Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance. It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts.

discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner, and more. So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24, 7, 365 days a year, so you're protected no matter what. Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customer surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. This is an ad by BetterHelp. What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better even when it's impossible to make time for them.

Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow. Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere, and the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash darkhistory today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash darkhistory.

In one of his first cabinet meetings, his postmaster general stands up and is like, "You know how we've been segregating the schools and buses?

Well, what if we made that a federal thing? Ideas, feedback? This would mean that anyone who worked for the government, like postal workers, would face segregation rules of separate but equal. This essentially meant that, you know, if you worked at the DMV and you were a Black American, you would have to work in a different part of the office completely, which pretty much separate but equal was never actually equal.

Math, huh? So you'd think that the president who promised "new freedom" would be against all of this. Doesn't make any sense. Well, unfortunately, Woody,

he doesn't do anything to stop it. He thought segregation might help ease everyone into this new America, kind of like a soft opening, you know, friends and family only, 20% discount kind of deal. But all it really did was screw over the black middle class. During this time, the black middle class was emerging and getting great opportunities to work and succeed in government jobs, which

Awesome benefits. So like a government job? Great. This allowed them to really start to make a life for themselves and their families. Finally, it was an opportunity to build their generational wealth. I mean, just like everyone else had.

this opportunity in America, right? But once Woody's Law passed, they were now being physically forced out of their offices and isolated away from everyone else, so they weren't able to really do their jobs. A lot of the time, if an office didn't have enough space for segregated workers, they just weren't going to hire them. But let's say you did manage to already have one of these government jobs. It didn't mean life was all rainbows and lollipops.

I mean, there was one male clerk who couldn't technically be segregated due to the nature of his work. So his office built a cage around him.

Yeah, they literally built a cage around him. The reasoning to separate him from the same people he'd been working with for years, right? It makes no sense. Such a waste of freaking money. That's my feedback. It's such a waste of money. I'm sick. A lot of sitting lately. I need to get up and

W.E.B. Du Bois, one of the founders of the NAACP, said that, quote, the federal government has set the colored apart as if mere contact with them were contamination, end quote.

If that wasn't bad enough, I mean, crime was on the rise and the newspapers, they weren't helping at all. On July 19th, the Washington Post rolled out a story about a black man violently attacking a white woman. Okay. And like this was getting everybody riled up. They're all like, see, this is why we shouldn't have let them move over here. Referring to the migration.

And they're like, yeah, no, they're hurting our people. And they're just it's like this circle jerk of just hatred. And people are just like really feeding into the story. And it was now becoming a media frenzy. But it turned out that the man who was named in that story, his name was Charles Rawls. He actually did not attack the woman personally.

Her name was Elsie Stefnik. She was a white woman, right? And I don't even know why they named this guy. Like he had nothing to do. It was okay. Look, Elsie's husband was in the Navy. So somehow word got back to him about what had happened. And you best believe he brought in his troops to defend his wife's honor and like get even.

Pretty soon, there were like hundreds of sailors, soldiers, and Marines in uniform out on the streets hunting down Charles. Or like...

Anybody who looked like him. And the city's newspapers, again, were not helping in any way. I mean, they were mainly white-owned and they were constantly putting out these completely made-up stories about black men assaulting white women day after day. When this mob of men eventually spots Charles, because they do, who is just at the time on an innocent stroll with his wife, they attack and they beat both of them. Thankfully,

they are able to break free and like book it back to home for to safety but like gunshots had followed them all the way to their front door now the mob that was chasing them they tried to break in but Charles had some good neighbors who had their back and they come out to defend like their neighbor and just the neighborhood in general so there's just like a lot of chaos happening and a lot of fighting and you know somebody's gonna get hurt and I guess some sailor ends up

and this kind of feeds into the angry mob situation. They're like, "You hurt my friend!" And now they're just even more amped. Eventually though, the confrontation ends, but these people were not gonna let them get away with this. And they were seeing red.

On July 20th, Charles and his neighbors, they call up the police to help them out because the mobs are still out for blood. But the DC police, they had completely ignored the call. They're like, sorry, our phones aren't working for some reason. My battery died. I hate when that happens. They literally weren't answering the phone. So at this point, there's a mob of angry military guys growing on the streets of DC. And because no one has stopped them yet, they're

they all know it's just a free-for-all. They're going to do whatever they want. And they do just that. They start yanking innocent black people off the street, out of their homes, beating them for no reason, and in turn, facing no consequences. Man, it's just...

chaos. Meanwhile, Elsie, nowhere to be seen, probably eating brunch somewhere, we don't know. During all the violence, Washington Post runs another front page story that told people where to meet up if they wanted to join the growing mob. And they're like, hey, if you just like want to commit some hate crimes, just meet up with us. And it made it to the front page.

I mean, this seems like a perfect time for maybe the president of the United States to step in and say something. I mean, DC was essentially on fire and several people had already been murdered. Like, come on, this is your time to step in and defend the people who maybe got you elected?

Just a thought. But, I don't know, he just seemed like he was a little too busy or something because he ends up doing nothing. Nothing at all. And according to his own employees, the president was worried that all the riots would damage America's image as a place of justice and peace.

I wonder why. So he continues to be absolutely no help. And I mean, different communities all around D.C. formed self-defense groups to keep these violent mobs from terrorizing their. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking.

Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance. It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts.

discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner, and more. So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24-7, 365 days a year, so you're protected no matter what. Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customer survey who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. This is an ad by BetterHelp. What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better even when it's impossible to make time for them.

Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow. Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere, and the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp.

Visit BetterHelp.com slash Dark History today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Dark History. Neighborhoods. The next morning on July 21st, 1919, the Washington Post, they went on to publish another, this time questionable, headline. This one was like a mysterious call to action. No one seemed to know where it had come from.

or who was behind this headline, okay? It just like showed up. The headline called for, quote, mobilization for tonight. And it reported that, quote,

every available serviceman in or near Washington was being called out to a cleanup that would make the events of the last two nights pale in comparison." End quote. Hmm, I wonder what that means. So DC's black community requested official protection from the city police.

Obviously, this is a little scary. Can we get some help? But this time, they didn't just ignore them completely. The state and federal government, the officials, they all refused. We're busy. We're

What are they supposed to do? So then Monday rolls around. It's July 21st. And a full-blown race war explodes in the streets. I mean, just like that newspaper article had predicted. The original mobs were just like a bunch of drunk dudes roaming the streets.

Still doing bad stuff, but like it was sloppy. Now these people in the streets were like a full blown militia. Now these people were patrolling the streets, lynching, beating and shooting any black person they saw on site. And they believe the government was corrupt.

cool with it because no one was coming to tell them to stop. Nobody stopped them. And eventually, the president, he wakes up in the White House, I guess, takes a peek out the window and he's like, fine.

I guess I'll do something today. So after four days of chaos, the president, Woody, decides to send in 2,000 members of the National Guard to help calm things down. And then the riot finally ends. But the damage at this point had already been done. I mean, 15 people were killed and 150 others had been injured. The Washington Police Commissioner blamed the article in the Washington Post for arson.

all the violence. The NAACP asked the government to charge and prosecute the newspaper for their article. And essentially, so they could send a message like, hey, it's not okay to print stuff like that and you should be held accountable. But the request was denied. Now, the spooky part, no one could like find out who even freaking wrote that article.

headline or where it came from. Congress also blocked the NAACP's request to find out how the 15 people died in the riots. Woody, I mean, could have acted on both requests if he had wanted to, but no dice. And his refusal to take action really set the tone for the Red Summer. Because if the

Who would? So just a few days after the DC riot ends, Chicago was feeling a little inspired.

or something. So by 1919, Chicago's black middle class was thriving and growing. But just like in DC, the segregation laws from the president were causing major tension in Chicago, and not just in the workplace. At the time, most of the black population was squeezed into segregated neighborhoods on the south side of the city. Living conditions sucked, and

there weren't many places where people could go to escape, really. But there was a little place to get away to called the 29th Street Beach. Six days after the DC riot on July 27th, the weather is hot. It's hot.

outside in Chicago. And Eugene Williams, a 17-year-old boy, and his friends headed to the beaches on Lake Michigan to escape the heat. So he got out to the beach, spread out, you know, and then just headed into the water to float on a raft and just enjoy being a kid during the summer. But then Eugene, who was black, accidentally floated into the section of the white beach.

and he had no idea because he was in the water and there was like how there was no sign saying he was in the wrong area but some people on the white side of the beach see young eugene float into their section and they decide to do the mature thing and throw rocks at him yeah they were trying to send a message that he floated into the wrong area they say well one of these rocks ends up

hitting Eugene in the head and he loses consciousness. Well, he ends up falling off the raft. So while his friends are frantically searching for him in the water, none of the people who witnessed this on the shore did anything. And after a few minutes, poor Eugene drowned. He died. All because he drifted a few feet in the wrong direction on a pool floatie. The

Well, Eugene's friends who witnessed everything are of course very upset, very angry. So they go to the police and they tell them exactly what happened. They even point out the guy that did it. I mean, it was a packed beach and there were a lot of eyewitnesses. So the police let the guy go who did it and they end up arresting no one. For good reason, people were outraged. I mean, an innocent kid was killed.

and nobody was being held accountable. I mean what kind of sick world is this? Like do we have no feelings people? This poor kid just died and no one seemed to care. I mean not even police. Well the news spreads quick about what happened to Eugene and within two hours there were over 1,000 people at the beach demanding justice. People were like confronting the police, getting in their face and then a

A gunshot rings out. A man fired a gun in the direction of the cops who then end up like shooting back and they killed that person. So now there were two bodies on the beach and it's like at this point all hell breaks loose. Now people had read about what happened in DC thanks to the Washington Post and it was like it was happening all over again but now in this new location.

Once again, white-owned newspapers are pushing rumors that black citizens were stockpiling weapons to start a race war, which turns out to be completely untrue, but there were a lot of people who believed it. So over the next few days, mobs of men loaded themselves into cars and began to rampage the city. They were randomly shooting into the homes of black neighborhoods and black-owned businesses. There were even reports of bombs going off, like,

so much drama. Oh my god. And if anyone was killed, these men would just take their dead bodies and dump them into the Chicago River. This place sucks. And even if you weren't involved in the riots, Chicago newspapers were telling citizens to be scared. You need to be, you need to be scared. Because in their words, black bandits were terrorizing the town. Which,

It was funny, they never mentioned anything about the white people involved. They were never a terror for some reason, but they were dumping bodies in the lake or river.

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner, and more. So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24, 7, 365 days a year so you're protected no matter what.

This is an ad by BetterHelp. What?

What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better, even when it's impossible to make time for them. Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow.

Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere, and the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash darkhistory today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash darkhistory.

I don't know. So one city official said he witnessed black people lighting torches, burning buildings, and then fleeing. But after the riots, the authorities did an investigation and proved that none of the fires were caused by these, quote,

unquote black bandits. It was done by people who wanted to stir up trouble. I don't know, maybe point the finger in a different direction. One of the major areas of the city that was targeted by rioters was an area known as the Vortex of Violence on the south side of Chicago. Because there were so many people moving into such a small area, the south side became overcrowded and it

did not have many of the basic things people needed to survive, like heat and bathrooms, you know? But still, this was their home. This is their home turf. And Black Chicagoans were going to defend it, as they should.

One black Chicagoan who was a superhero to his community, and honestly should be to all of us, was a man by the name of Jesse Binga. So Jesse founded the first black-owned private bank in Chicago, and his company grew over the years. So did other black-owned businesses in the area. It was just doing really well. And Jesse's success made him a target basically right away. So during the red summer of 1919, Jesse's business and home were bombed.

Oh yeah, someone was trying to take him down. But whoever did it did not destroy the business at home. Ha ha ha, he's like, I win. He also received a letter from a group claiming to be something called, quote, the headquarters of the White Hands, end quote. I know when I was thinking about it, I was just picturing like those big ass Mickey Mouse gloves. The

The white hands? I don't know. But the letter essentially said that Jesse was the cause of the riots because his loans allowed black Chicagoans to move into white neighborhoods. My God. It ended with, quote, just take this as a warning. You know what comes next. End quote. Did this scare Jesse?

No. I'm sure he was scared, but I mean like he wasn't gonna let this stop him. During the riots, his bank was located in that vortex of violence.

So he's kind of like right in the middle of just all the drama and chaos going on. But even though all this was going on, his bank became a meeting place for Black citizens to like share news about what was happening or put together self-defense forces. So there was this group of Black soldiers who had fought in World War I and they were actually part of these defense forces. This was the 370th Infantry Corps.

but that's not the name that they would like be remembered by. This was the only troop run by black officers. And they fought so hard during the war that the Germans on the other side were terrified of them and gave them the nickname, the Black Devils. That got me thinking like, you know how terrifying you have to be to scare a German soldier?

That's badass. So these soldiers returned from the war thinking that America was going to embrace them for defending democracy, defending their country, doing a lot of things that nobody else was going to do, you know? But they sure... No, they did not return to a very warm welcome. It was so rude. When the Red Summer popped off, the Black Devils did not stand on the sidelines at all.

They dug in and waited for people to attack so they could protect their neighborhoods. The Black Devils saved so many homes and lives that there's actually a big statue dedicated to their bravery that still stands to this day on the Chicago's South Side. The Red Summer Riots lasted about a week in Chicago. 38 people died and over 500 people were injured. Over 1,000 homes in Black communities were burned or destroyed. And all on top of this...

There were zero consequences for the white rioters, just like in DC. And these riots swept across the whole country. With each city, they just kept escalating. And even though it was bad in DC and Chicago, it gets so much worse when I tell you about what went down in Arkansas or Arkansas.

After everything that happened, some people are on high alert while others were getting super paranoid. And then on top of all this mixture of chaos going on, communism enters the chat. Yes, communism. Huh?

Why? This is a lot, I know. Being a communist back then meant you did not believe in like social classes and you believed wealth should be equally shared amongst the people. Everyone gets the same size slice of the money pie. And it's essentially anti-capitalism.

Who the fuck knows? Everyone kind of makes up their own definitions these days, I swear to God. Anyways, so in the 1910s, the social classes and wealth gaps were starting to get pretty big. So communism was starting to sound like really great to some people.

Especially in Russia. They love this shit. In 1917, communist leaders took over Russia during a bloody revolution that took down the monarchy or whatever. I guess a lot of people were killed and it was not good. So the powerful leaders over here in America, they see what's going on and they get very nervous.

And they're like, oh my God, you guys, people are going to form little communist groups, kill us and like take our money. Just like over there. No, we can't have this happen. So a massive propaganda campaign goes out saying to look out for communist like behavior. Okay.

And they say the places you can expect to see communist meetings are with unions or within unions and where immigrants and people of color would meet. Hmm, weird, very convenient, huh? So this led to a crazy amount of deportations and arrests based purely on paranoia. So what does all this have to do with the Red Summer of 1990? You know, you're like Bailey, get to the point. Well, that paranoia would lead to yet another bloody battle

This time taking place in Arkansas. So during this time, Arkansas was experiencing a windfall of money. The price of products, especially cotton, was going through the roof. I mean, it had quadrupled in price from 11 cents a pound to 44 cents a pound.

and people were making like some serious money. But the people who were stuffing their pockets with the money were landowners, merchants, and like factory owners. None of the money was being seen by the people who were actually doing the work.

you know, to like harvest the cotton or the sharecroppers. A sharecropper was essentially a farmer on someone else's land who was entitled to a cut of the profits. Now this model became really popular after the Civil War since slavery was

no longer legally allowed. People were like, well, you know, they would get paid for their work, but they were getting ripped off. I mean, the sharecroppers were rarely making even close to what they were owed. So this is when the sharecroppers decide to unionize. Yeah.

Yeah, baby, unionize. There was one man named Robert Hill who formed the Progressive Farmers and Household Union. And his union really led the charge in all this. I mean, Robert and his union started making plans to sue their employers who were screwing them out of their hard-earned money. And all this led to the final and deadliest chapter of the Red Summer. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking.

Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance. It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts.

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Visit BetterHelp.com slash Dark History today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Dark History. The Elaine Massacre. The night of September 30th was a tense one. Robert had gathered around 100 workers to a church. And it was the night before the big cotton harvest. And they knew if they were going to take a stand to be treated fairly and socially.

stop getting ripped off. They had to do something now. So while Robert and the union members were inside discussing plans for like, I mean, what their plan was, they had a few people standing guard outside. Then a car full of armed men end up driving up to where they're all at.

And someone, I guess, had tipped them off that the union meeting was happening. And this person wanted to like send them a message. So this car full of pissed off men with guns, for some reason, they pull up, wasting everyone's damn time. And they end up shooting, shooting and firing directly into the church windows. Glass breaks, it's going everywhere. People are freaking out, obviously, right? It's immediately just chaos. The armed guards, they're standing outside.

And they end up firing back in self-defense. And one of them ends up killing a white man and injuring another. Now, once a white man gets hurt, that's when it's like they really lose their shit. So the car drives off and nothing else happens that night. But the real violence, you know, it was brewing. They were marinating in it. And the very next day, mm-mm.

So the next morning, the local sheriff had found out what had happened. He got the details about, you know, who attacked who. And honestly, it didn't really matter to him. At the end of the day, a white man was shot and that's all he needed to know. He immediately created a militia to hunt down the people who did this. Who shot this man? And they went straight for Robert and his union.

And the sheriff was like, I freaking knew it. I knew it. I mean, he had been saying for a while that black labor unions were just a communist front and that they wanted to kill everyone and take over the government, just like Russia. So dramatic, I swear to God. Robert Hill, the union leader, he managed to escape and survive like all this insanity. But in Elaine, a massive investigation, quote unquote, was launched.

By most accounts, Black workers were cooperating with the sheriff, even though his investigation was really more of a manhunt. But it didn't matter. I mean, just like in D.C. and in Chicago, the media shows up and they made things worse. There were stories in newspapers all across Arkansas that had completely false headlines blaming Black Americans for a, quote, plot to rise against the white residents of the southern part of Phillips County, end quote.

The sheriff got 500 military troops sent to join the violence in Elaine. And the sheriff was, why does this sheriff have so much power, right? Like, does everyone just want to fuck this guy? I don't get it. He just like was making all these wild calls and people were just like, yeah, like, I don't get it.

Like, do people not, like, know how to make their own choices? The sheriff, this douche, was able to convince the military to help him out. He's like, I need help, you guys, because we're outnumbered. Okay, there's way more black people in this neighborhood than white. We need help. So the sheriff was kind of, like, calling up his mom, like, Mom, pick me up. I'm scared.

Well, so right after the troops arrived, four brothers who were black men were returning home to Arkansas from a trip when a large group of men jumped them and shot them to death. Now, this was a straight up hate crime, period. And nothing was once again done about it. It came across.

essentially as legalized murder. And reports say that the troops and groups of the angry men who were usually drunk out of their goddamn minds on moonshine, they would just open fire on groups of black people

Even if their hands were in the air. If they weren't shot on sight, they were rounded up and taken to jail. But angry mobs formed around jail houses saying jail wasn't enough. And the cops were like, don't worry, guys, we're taking care of it. Sorry, I'm matching the job. We're taking care of it. So the cops put the wrongly imprisoned black Americans in front of a judge, knowing that the judge would sentence them to death for no damn reason. Other people were interrogated.

and were tortured into saying whatever the cops wanted them to. Reports even said that some imprisoned people had to choose, turn on your friends and give a fake testimony so they get killed or be sentenced to death by the electric chair and get yourself killed. So, hmm, which option do I want?

You know? I mean, no one was showing up trying to help them or save them. So after three days of terror, at least 100 black people were killed. Some sources say the number is closer to 230, but many believe that the number may be even way higher. But it was such a time of chaos, it's hard for the records to actually show everything. And plus, you know, white people weren't going to be honest about how many of them. You know, they're just kind of round and shit. They're just being little shitheads.

point blank period. On top of that, dozens of black people in the area were tried and convicted for crimes that they didn't even commit. Nothing. Like, it's just for being black. Zero white people were ever charged with a crime. Everything that happened in D.C., Chicago, and Arkansas does not just happen out of thin air. The riots in each city were lit by a match.

But for all of it to burn as hot as it did, there had to be fuel in that fire. And that fuel came from the very top. Starts with the president, right? Corrupt politicians, crooked law enforcement, lies being spread by newspapers, trickling down into town.

to terrible housing practices, and then black workers being taken advantage of. We can go on, just to name a few. One of the craziest things is that no one really knows how many casualties there were. But historians agree it was likely hundreds. I mean, this was a time when a lot of people didn't consider black Americans as real citizens. It's really sad at the end of the day that hardly any investigating went into the deaths of so many innocent people.

It's more sad that there really hasn't been more research or anything done to get an official death toll and to talk about this more, to understand the facts and not feelings, because that's the only way we can heal and move forward. I mean, right? Isn't that what we want? And the only way we can do that is by recognizing the truth in our past and our history, right?

All right. I love you. You love me. Okay, but like there's a lot of history books out there that really don't talk about Red Summer. And if they do, it's like a sentence or two. And even for me right now, I mean, I couldn't give you the full story. So much happened. I mean, to this day, many scholars and historians call 1919 the worst year in American history. You think that would be, I don't know, chapter one in our books? I don't know. Right?

I wish there was a happier ending to this, but usually when it comes to history, there just isn't. Unfortunately, though, all of this is true and all this pain and suffering didn't just end with any new protections for black Americans. The red summer is just as much a part of our history as Washington chopping down that cherry tree. And guess what? That never even happened. Oh my God, you know what tree was chopped down? Bitch.

Get this, listen. There was a willow tree in Elaine, Arkansas. Okay, they planted this tree in 2019 to remember the lives lost during the Red Summer and also during the Elaine Massacre. But I'm not even kidding you. It was completely destroyed shortly after they planted it. I'm laughing because like, why this, why? You would think that it would be an important thing to shine a light on and you know, it happened here, whatever.

last that long. Hmm. Shame on you. Anywho, I don't know how to end this. Like there's no way to be like, okay, have a great day. But in the episode description, I will put some links to additional info and organizations to check out. Thank you guys so much for listening and thank you for learning along with me today. Remember, don't be afraid to ask questions, to further research and just get the whole story because there always is one.

And you deserve to know it. Why not? Now, I'd love to hear your reactions to today's episode. So make sure to use the hashtag dark history over on social media so I can follow along. Join me over on my YouTube where you can watch these episodes on Thursday after the podcast airs. And while you're there, also catch my murder mystery and makeup. I hope you have a great rest of your day. You make good choices and I'll be talking to you next week. Goodbye.

Dark History is an Audioboom original. This podcast is executive produced by Bailey Sarian, Junya McNeely from 3Arts, Kevin Grush, and Claire Turner from Maiden Network. Writers, Katie Burris, Allison Filobos, Joey Scaluzzo, and me, Bailey Sarian. Shot and edited by Tafadzwa Namarundwe and Hannah Bakker. Research provided by Regina Dolza and the Dark History Researchers.

And I'm your host, Miss Bailey Surian. Goodbye.