766 ★ CHAPTER 19 Safe for Democracy: The United States and WWI
clear that no region of the country was free from racial hostility. More white
southerners than blacks moved north during the war, often with similar eco-
nomic aspirations. But the new black presence, coupled with demands for
change inspired by the war, created a racial tinderbox that needed only an inci-
dent to trigger an explosion.
Racial Violence, North and South
Dozens of blacks were killed during a 1917 riot in East St. Louis, Illinois,
where employers had recruited black workers in an attempt to weaken
unions (most of which excluded blacks from membership). In 1919, more than
250 persons died in riots in the urban North. Most notable was the violence
in Chicago, touched off by the drowning by white bathers of a black teen-
ager who accidentally crossed the unofficial dividing line between black and
white beaches on Lake Michigan. The riot that followed raged for five days and
involved pitched battles between the races throughout the city. By the time the
National Guard restored order, 38 persons had been killed and more than 500
injured.
One of a series of paintings by the black artist Jacob Lawrence called The Migration Series,
inspired by the massive movement of African- Americans to the North during and after World
War I. For each, Lawrence composed a brief title, in this case, “In the North the Negro had
better educational facilities.”