Nearby National City had stockyards and meatpacking plants, attracting more workers. Many facilities were located just outside the city limits in order to escape paying taxes. Louis included Aluminum Ore Company, American Steel Foundry, Republic Iron & Steel, Obear Nester Glass, and Elliot Frog & Switch (a frog was part of a railroad switch). During the spring of 1917, Blacks were arriving in St. Louis, Illinois both became destinations for southern migrants. Labor agencies recruited some workers for specific jobs, especially as strikebreakers, but labor demand was sufficient that migrants moved on their own, having heard about the new employment opportunities created by the wartime economy. Concurrently, African Americans began the Great Migration from the rural Southern United States to seek better work and education in the North, as well as to escape from lynchings and the second-class status of the Jim Crow era. Many would-be workers were drafted or enlisted into military service, creating a shortage of labor for industrial employers in major cities, which had long been destinations for European immigrants. In 1917, the United States had an active economy boosted by World War I. Background Ĭlass=notpageimage| Location of East St. At the end of July, some 10,000 black citizens marched in silent protest in New York City in condemnation of the riot.

A number of black people left the city permanently black enrollment in public schools in the area had dropped by 35% by the time schools opened in the fall. Louis Chamber of Commerce called for the resignation of the local police chief because officers were told not to shoot white rioters and were unable to suppress the violence and destruction. The multi-day rioting has been described as the 'worst case of labor-related violence in 20th-century American history', and among the worst racial riots in U.S. The July 1917 episode in particular was marked by white-led violence throughout the city. Louis, an industrial city on the east bank of the Mississippi River, directly opposite the city of St. These attacks also displaced 6,000 African Americans and led to the destruction of approximately $400,000 ($9.14 million in 2022) worth of property. Louis, Illinois between late May and early July of 1917. Louis massacre was a series of violent attacks on African Americans by white Americans in East St. Louis plants.Īfrican Americans beaten to death, shot, lynched, and driven into burning buildings by whitesģ9–150 Black Americans, 9 white Americans

White mobs angered by the increasing numbers of Southern African-Americans working at East St.

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