Red Summer Summary

2106 Words9 Pages
Red Summer The Summer of 1919 and The Awakening of Black America Mackenzie Zeiler History 1221 Professor Mary Ludwig March 9, 2014 The year 1919 was a violent and tragic time for Americans. WWI was ending, and many soldiers were coming home. Some of these soldiers were black men who fought for their country and these men came home expecting that they had earned a place in society and were hoping for change. They believed that with the reconstruction era coming to an end and slavery being outlawed, they would have the equal rights that they were promised. The cause of so much violence during this time was the fact that whites felt that things should return to the way they were before the war. The blacks disagreed with this, and when…show more content…
Whites were met with retaliation from blacks because blacks had been, “transformed by their experiences during the war.” Historian and Author, Cameron McWhirter shares many different outbreaks of violence during 1919, in his book Red Summer. The first outbreak of violence and rioting was the Jenkins County riot in Georgia. This riot started on Sunday April 13, 1919. It involved a black farmer named Joe Ruffin, who attended a festival at the Carswell Grove Baptist Church. On his way home from the festival Ruffin sees his friend Edmund Scott, in the back of a police car hand cuffed and being taken to jail. Scott sees his friend Ruffin and points him out to the officers telling them, that Ruffin would pay his…show more content…
I have so much empathy for the struggles and strive that they have endured for freedom, something many Americans take for granted. I found myself reading Red Summer and getting teary eyed because I had no idea about most of the events that occurred in 1919. It, in a sense, was a war that went on for blacks - a war that had to be fought in order for them to have the simple rights that whites enjoyed. I truly believe that the men and women who suffered and fought for their place in society are heroes. I found myself wondering what I would have done if I had lived in this time. I hope that I would have been an advocate of black freedoms and rights and that I would stand proud in my beliefs, even against a crowd of angry
Open Document