The First Red Scare & Red Summer
While the stereotype of the Roaring 20s is that of freewheeling jazz music and dancing, it was also a period of tension and fear for many Americans.
After World War 1, America experienced a period of widespread fear of communism and anarchism while at the same time seeing a rise in white supremacist terrorism and racial riots.
Concerns over the effects of radicals in America led to the beginning of the first Red Scare in 1919. That summer was called Red Summer by the civil rights activist James Weldon Johnson due to anti-Black riots in more than 30 cities.
The Red Scare had its origins in the hyper-nationalism of World War I as well as the Russian Revolution. In 1917, Vladimir Lenin led the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Communism had existed since the writings of Karl Marx 70 years earlier.
However, Russia's saw the world's first successful communist revolution. Bolsheviks murdered Russia's czar and his family and completely reorganized the country into the new Soviet Union.
American authorities saw the threat of a communist revolution in the actions of organized labor, including major strikes in Seattle, Boston, and other cities in 1919. Also contributing to fears were 36 mail bombs sent by an anarchist group to prominent politicians and businessmen.
Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, whose house was bombed, responded with the Palmer Raids. These raids rounded up and deported many suspected radicals. They targeted Italian and Eastern European immigrants along with union organizers and labor leaders.
Palmer appointed a young Justice Department staffer named J. Edgar Hoover to lead his General Intelligence Division that investigated supposed radical groups. This would go on to become the FBI and Hoover served as FBI director from 1924 to 1972.
The Palmer Raids were conducted in November 1919 and January 1920 and were popular at first. However, they eventually faced a backlash for the exaggerated rhetoric, illegal searches and seizures, and unwarranted arrests and detentions.
In 1921, two Italian immigrants - Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti - became the face of the Red Scare.
The two were arrested for murder after an armed robbery in Braintree, Massachusetts. Despite the authorities having little evidence, Sacco and Vanzetti were convicted and sentenced to death.
Both men maintained their innocence and protests were held across the country on their behalf. The men were known anarchists and many felt they were stereotyped for their beliefs and background.
Appeals followed, showing conflicting evidence and another men confessed to the crime in 1925. Still, all appeals were denied and Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in the electric chair in 1927.
The first Red Scare faded after J. Edgar Hoover told the nation to prepare for a mass uprising on May Day but it passed without incident.
Racial Violence and Red Summer
Around the same time, white supremacist terrorism and racial riots took place in more than 30 cities across the United States, as well as in one rural county in Arkansas.
In most instances, attacks consisted of white-on-Black violence. However, numerous African Americans also fought back, notably in the Chicago and Washington, D.C. race riots, which resulted in 38 and 15 deaths, along with even more injuries, and extensive property damage in Chicago.
Still, the highest number of fatalities occurred in the rural area around Elaine, Arkansas, where an estimated 100-240 Black people and five white people were killed—an event now known as the Elaine Massacre.
The anti-Black riots developed from post-World War I social tensions. Black and white soldiers returned to the country and often competed for work and housing. Returning Black veterans also expected to be treated with respect for serving their country, only to be disappointed when whites saw them as second-class citizens.
The labor unrest also contributed to the violence as Black men were recruited by factory leaders as strikebreakers, further garnering the resentment of white workers.
The Washington DC riot began after rumors spread that a Black man had assaulted a white woman. In Chicago, it was after a Black teenager was killed for drifting in the water from the Black section of the beach over to the whites-only beach.
Baltimore, Philadelphia, Norfolk, and many other cities saw similar incidents break out into multi-day riots. Often, Black populations fought back in ways that they never had before.
Countless African Americans were lynched, lost their homes, or suffered in the Red Summer of 1919. However, after standing up to white supremacy, a shared sense of purpose developed that laid the foundation for the later civil rights movement.