{"id":34,"featured":0,"modified":"2025-01-24 04:13:22","latitude":32.78353359999999838692019693553447723388671875,"longitude":-79.9348767999999978428604663349688053131103515625,"title":"Charleston \u201cRace Riot\u201d of 1919, 305 King Street","address":"305 King Street, Charleston, SC 29401","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/b784056c8c9d3270d5f619c2dd2cc4c4.jpg","creator":["Joseph Williams"],"description":"

King Street has not always been the touristy commercial district of Charleston. In place of its present-day antique shops, trendy fashion design outlets, and tempting eateries was once a sprawling corridor with many Black-owned and -operated businesses, especially around the southern section of the street. As testaments to their industriousness and as a sliver of autonomous space within the repressive racial climate of the city, however, Black business owners and the African American community writ large took considerable pride in this section of Charleston. Today there are no reminders of the crucially important businesses that once stood on the same street that so many people flock to during the tourist season\u2014and there is no marker of one of the most gruesome episodes of racial violence that took place here that blemishes the city\u2019s history.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the immediate aftermath of World War I, African American servicemen and women\u2014having served overseas in order to, in the words of President Woodrow Wilson, \u201cmake the world safe for democracy\u201d\u2014came back to the United States only to find that democracy continued to be threatened at home. Chafing at this injustice, many African Americans adopted the mantle of the \u201cNew Negro,\u201d a concept popularized by author Alain Locke. In 1925, Locke wrote about the wave of Black migration to urban areas in the South, North, and Midwest that began during the war years. Collectively, the members of this new generation, as Locke reflected, maintained \u201ca new vision of opportunity, of social and economic freedom.\u201d Recognizing the economic and social diversity of the growing communities, Locke argued that this generation of urban Blacks--regardless of class status--began casting aside the deference that had been expected of them by urban whites and developing \u201cmore positive self-respect and self-reliance\u201d that would lead to their \u201crise from social disillusionment to race pride.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Embodiments of the \u201cNew Negro\u201d took on many forms, all of which were typically characterized by the shedding of the deferential demeanor that the white community expected. Sometimes this was represented by such grand displays as parades through the streets or organizing voter registration campaigns, and at other times by more humble, but no less profound, ways such as the wearing of expensive clothes or owning a successful business. This generation of \u201cNew Negroes\u201d displayed a racial assertiveness and demanded their rights as American citizens; but, in the fearful eyes of many whites, this so-called \u201cNew Negro\u201d represented nothing more than an insubordination that would ultimately jeopardize the very premises of Jim Crow segregation.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the midst of these tense racial relations was a painful post-war recession. Together, these conditions made the potential for violence almost palpable in the air. During the Saturday night of May 10, 1919, the whole city of Charleston was caught in a conflagration of death and destruction.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Although the exact circumstances surrounding the origin of the riot are still a matter of dispute, many scholars agree that two seamen who had recently been discharged from the Charleston Navy Yard felt slighted by a young African American man. A scuffle soon broke out between these three men. One neighbor, after trying to resolve the dispute, fired his pistol into the air. Rumors began to spread throughout the city that these two white soldiers had been harmed or even killed by a Black man. In an effort to exact vengeance, groups of white men raided nearby shooting galleries for weapons and began prowling the streets in an indiscriminate murderous rampage.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

White mobs violently assaulted African Americans in the streets, beating and robbing dozens of people. They stopped trolleys and forcibly ejected passengers from their seats. Several Black-owned and -operated businesses\u2014powerful physical representations of the economic self-reliance of the \u201cNew Negro\u201d\u2014were purposefully destroyed. One gentleman in particular, a man by the name of W.G. Fridie, owned a well-respected barbershop at 305 King Street that catered to a predominately white clientele. Nevertheless, the mobs ransacked this business as well. Spanning several blocks and involving hundreds of people, the violence raged unabated for hours.<\/span><\/p>\n

Eventually, Mayor Tristram Hyde was finally able to restore order by sending in the National Guard. At this point, however, the damage had been done: dozens of African Americans were critically injured and at least three\u2014possibly as many as six\u2014were dead. In the ensuing investigations, only two servicemen were court martialed for rioting while the remainder got off scot-free. All other rioters who had charges levied against them had their charges dropped.\u00a0 Meanwhile, the Black community languished with virtually no reparations from the government whatsoever. The only business to be compensated for damages was the aforementioned barbershop owned by W.G. Fridie.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The violence in Charleston originated at the hands of whites and was continued in large measure by whites. Dozens of instances of racially-motivated mob violence\u2014all-too-similar to the one described above\u2014occurred in far-flung places across the country, including Southern cities like Norfolk, Virginia; Knoxville, Tennessee; and Elaine, Arkansas\u2014but also places outside of the South, such as Chicago, Illinois; Omaha, Nebraska; and even Washington, D.C. Collectively, these brutal acts of violence are referred to as the \u201cRed Summer of 1919.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Although the physical shackles of slavery had been broken during the American Civil War, the haunting legacies of slavery persisted long afterwards, and the massacre that occurred here in Charleston bears witness to that fact. Whether by convoluted legalistic manueverings, oppressive cultural norms, or outright violence like that described above, African Americans struggled under a social order that was in many ways reminiscent of the dehumanizing days of slavery.\u00a0 Although African Americans aspired for a better future for themselves, exemplified perhaps most idealistically in the idea of the \u201cNew Negro,\u201d whites instead sought to reinforce their second-class citizenship\u2014and, effectively, reimpose a new, more subtle form of enslavement. <\/span><\/p>","sponsor":null,"subtitle":null,"accessinfo":null,"lede":"King Street has not always been the touristy commercial district of Charleston. In place of its present-day antique shops, trendy fashion design outlets, and tempting eateries was once a sprawling corridor with many Black-owned and -operated businesses, especially around the southern section of the street.","website":null,"related_resources":["Alain Locke, \u201cEnter the New Negro.\u201d Survey Graphic, March 1925. National Humanities Center Resource Toolbox, http:\/\/nationalhumanitiescenter.org\/pds\/maai3\/migrations\/text8\/lockenewnegro.pdf


<\/span>","Cameron McWhirter, Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America <\/i>(New York City, NY:\u00a0 Henry Holt and Company, 2011).

<\/span>","Leon F. Litwack, <\/span>Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow <\/span><\/i>(New York City, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998)., 197-198.<\/span>","Nick Butler, \u201cThe Charleston Riot of 1919<\/a>\u201d,\u00a0<\/span>Charleston County Public Library<\/span><\/i>.<\/span>"],"factoids":[],"files":{"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/b784056c8c9d3270d5f619c2dd2cc4c4.jpg":{"id":291,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"Upper King Street, 1901","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/b784056c8c9d3270d5f619c2dd2cc4c4.jpg","description":"King Street has historically been the center of commercial activity in Charleston, but it did not always cater to the same clientele. On the eve of the Charleston \u201cRace Riot\u201d of 1919, the street was located in one of the African American sections of town, and therefore the street predominantly consisted of black businesses who served black customers. While such businesses were undoubtedly a source of pride to many African Americans, to many white southerners these outward expressions of black industriousness posed an unconscionable challenge to white supremacy, which explains why most of the violence that occurred that evening took place in this section of the city. Courtesy of College of Charleston Libraries, Special Collections."},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/a6fcc22bf9e46b7ffb7acbc42682ae86.jpg":{"id":329,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"New York Times Headline for the 1919 Charleston Race Riot","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/a6fcc22bf9e46b7ffb7acbc42682ae86.jpg","description":"This clipping shows the New York Times'<\/em> Headline for the 1919 Charleston Race Riot."},"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/fullsize\/d3a6309687720badce96a7c2838a74d6.jpg":{"id":330,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"The Bennington Evening Banner","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discovering.cofc.edu\/redirect\/files\/square_thumbnails\/d3a6309687720badce96a7c2838a74d6.jpg","description":"News of the riot spread far, published here in Vermont's The Bennington Evening Banner. <\/em>Courtesy of Library of Congress."}}}