| Part of Red Summer | |
 US News coverage of the Garfield Park riot of 1919 | |
| Date | July 1919 |
|---|---|
| Location | Garfield Park, Indianapolis, United States |
The Garfield Park riot of 1919 was a race riot that began in Garfield Park in Indianapolis, Indiana on July 14, 1919. Multiple people, including a seven-year-old girl, were wounded when gunfire broke out.
Amidst racial tensions during the summer of 1919, a group of white youths in Indianapolis thought that they were being followed by groups of African-Americans. On July 14, 1919, hundreds of white boys 16 to 19 years old converged on Garfield Park. There they used bricks and clubs to beat any black people they came across. When a group of African-Americans took shelter in the house of Nathan Weather, a local black man, the white mob followed them and surrounded the house. Weather fired into the crowd in hopes of dispersing the mob. A seven-year-old onlooker, Charlotte Pieper, received a flesh wound from stray buckshot. Another youth, Paul Karbwitz, 18, was also hit. Police were eventually able to disperse the mob and quell the riot. [1]
This uprising was one of several incidents of civil unrest that began in the so-called American Red Summer of 1919. The Summer consisted of terrorist attacks on black communities, and white oppression in over three dozen cities and counties. In most cases, white mobs attacked African American neighborhoods. In some cases, black community groups resisted the attacks, especially in Chicago and Washington, D.C. Most deaths occurred in rural areas during events such as the Elaine Race Riot in Arkansas, where an estimated 100 to 240 black people and 5 white people were killed. Also occurring in 1919 were the Chicago Race Riot and the Washington D.C. race riot which killed 38 and 39 people, respectively, and with both having many more non-fatal injuries and extensive property damage reaching up into the millions of dollars. [2]
Notes
References
In the broader context of racism against Black Americans and racism in the United States, mass racial violence in the United States consists of ethnic conflicts and race riots, along with such events as:
Red Summer was a period in mid-1919 during which white supremacist terrorism and racial riots occurred in more than three dozen cities across the United States, and in one rural county in Arkansas. The term "Red Summer" was coined by civil rights activist and author James Weldon Johnson, who had been employed as a field secretary by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1916. In 1919, he organized peaceful protests against the racial violence.
The Knoxville riot of 1919 was a race riot that took place in the American city of Knoxville, Tennessee, on August 30–31, 1919. The riot began when a lynch mob stormed the county jail in search of Maurice Mays, a biracial man who had been accused of murdering a white woman. Unable to find Mays, the rioters looted the jail and fought a pitched gun battle with the residents of a predominantly black neighborhood. The Tennessee National Guard, which at one point fired two machine guns indiscriminately into this neighborhood, eventually dispersed the rioters. Headlines in the immediate aftermath stated five people were killed, while the Washington Times reported "Scores dead." Other newspapers placed the death toll at just two, though eyewitness accounts suggest it was much higher.
Jim McMillan was lynched in Bibb County, Alabama on June 18, 1919.
The Washington race riot of 1919 was civil unrest in Washington, D.C. from July 19, 1919, to July 24, 1919. Starting July 19, white men, many in the armed forces, responded to the rumored arrest of a black man for rape of a white woman with four days of mob violence against black individuals and businesses. They rioted, randomly beat black people on the street, and pulled others off streetcars for attacks. When police refused to intervene, the black population fought back. The city closed saloons and theaters to discourage assemblies. Meanwhile, the four white-owned local papers, including the Washington Post, fanned the violence with incendiary headlines and calling in at least one instance for mobilization of a "clean-up" operation. After four days of police inaction, President Woodrow Wilson ordered 2,000 federal troops to regain control in the nation's capital. But a violent summer rainstorm had more of a dampening effect. When the violence ended, 15 people had died: at least 10 white people, including two police officers; and around 5 black people. Fifty people were seriously wounded and another 100 less severely wounded. It was one of the few times in 20th-century riots of whites against blacks that white fatalities outnumbered those of black people. The unrest was also one of the Red Summer riots in America.
The Baltimore riots of 1919 were a series of riots connected to the Red Summer of 1919. As more and more African-Americans moved from the south to the industrial north they started to move into predominantly white neighborhoods. This change in the racial demographics of urban areas increased racial tension that occasionally boiled over into civil unrest.
The Port Arthur riot happened on July 15, 1919, in Port Arthur, Texas. Violence started after a group of white men objected to an African American smoking near a white woman on a street car. A "score" of whites and twice that number of African Americans battled in the streets leaving two seriously injured and dozens with minor injuries.
The Morgan County, West Virginia race riot of 1919 was caused by big business using African-American strikebreakers against striking white workers in Morgan County, West Virginia.
The Putnam County, Georgia arson attack was an attack on the black community by white mobs in May of 1919.
The Dublin, Georgia riot of 1919 were a series of violent racial riots between white and black residents of Dublin, Georgia.
The 1919 Coatesville call to arms was when the black community of Coatesville, Pennsylvania formed a large armed group to prevent a rumoured lynching. Only later when the armed group had surrounded the jail to prevent the lynching did they learn that there was no suspect and no white lynch mob.
The Syracuse riot of 1919 was a violent racial attack that occurred when the management of the Globe Malleable Iron Works pitted striking white unionized workers against black strikebreakers in Syracuse, New York on July 31, 1919.
The Newberry 1919 lynching attempt was the attempted lynching of Elisha Harper, Newberry, South Carolina on July 24, 1919. Harper was sent to jail for insulting a 14-year-old girl.
The Darby 1919 lynching attempt was the attempted lynching of Samuel Gorman in Darby, Pennsylvania on July 23, 1919. Samuel Gorman, a 17-year-old black boy was sent to jail for the alleged murder of William E. Taylor.
There were a number of race riots in Philadelphia during the 1919 Red Summer.
The Wilmington, Delaware race riot of 1919 was a violent racial riot between white and black residents of Wilmington, Delaware on November 13, 1919.
The New York race riots of 1919 developed with increasing racial tension and violent incidents in New York City. These riots were a part of the Red Summer, a series of violent terrorist attacks on black communities in many cities in the United States during the summer and early autumn of 1919. The New York race riots were caused by social tensions such as competition for jobs, politics, and racial tension. Many historians and scholars view these riots as the culmination of racial tensions which had been rising due to the migration of African Americans from the rural South to northern cities. Tensions developed partly due to the competition for jobs, which was worsened by the presence of African Americans workers who could replace striking White workers.
The Laurens County, Georgia race riot was an attack on the black community by white mobs in August of 1919. In the Haynes' report, as summarized in the New York Times, it is called the Ocmulgee, Georgia race riot.
The Whatley, Alabama race riot of 1919 was a riot, gun battle between the local Black and White community on August 1, 1919.
Miles Phifer and Robert Crosky were lynched in Montgomery, Alabama for allegedly assaulting a white woman.