So, the Chester race riot in 1917 was one several of the events which led to the bloodiest time in African American history called the Red Summer. The Red Summer happened 1919. George Edmond Hayes, co-founder and executive president of the National Urban League at the time reported that between January 1 and September 14, 1919, white mobs lynched at least 43 African Americans, hanged 16, shot dozens of others and burned 8 men at the stake…. hold my beer. So, you might think that lynchings by its very nature means that somebody is swinging from the highest tree they could find with a rope tied around their neck. Now this may sound strange but the only difference between a hanging and a lynching is the perpetrator. A hanging is an official act, usually carried out by the authorities, while a lynching is carried out by some good old boys who just came out of Sally’s Red Slipper high on Don Pedro’s Mosquito Prick Liquor. That’s right… only a sheriff can hang you… everything else is a lynching.
Anyway, 1917, was also memorable because more than 350,000 African Americans were in Europe fighting in WWI. The war ended in 1918, but in the interim black soldiers were being sent back to the States after their tours were up. These men made up a significant portion of the Great Migration, when millions of black folks left the South for better jobs, better housing, and towns with more bushes instead of trees… okay they weren’t looking for towns with more bushes…
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Black: Hi there… I’m thinking about buy some property here… I hear there is an ordinance against growing trees… You know black folks don’t like a lot of trees…
Realtor: Well sir you came to the right place… not a tree in sight… let me show you around… pull up right over there. Okay here we have a lovely three bed-room with one bush… but we can dig it up if you like…
Black: How high does the bush grow?
Racist Neighbor: How tall are you? I got a bush 24 feet high in my yard… It’s one of the tallest bushes I could find…
Black: Uh… I think we’ll look someplace else sir…
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Anyway, so yeah, they were part of the Great Migration and many of them headed North where industrialization was creating a lot of high paying jobs. Now one thing is for sure; after coming from Europe and tasting freedom, it was bound to be bloodshed as racist tried to put black men who were fighting in the trenches and dying under the red, white and blue, back into their places as third class citizens. As a matter of fact, they were warned in Europe by the Armed Forces, that once they left, they would be leaving that freedom behind. However, they didn’t leave it behind and that idea of freedom blossomed throughout our community. Hell, when they got back, they were even dating white women, and some were even still alive a few hours afterwards… It was a time of great excitement…
So, I bring this up because the events in Chester, Pennsylvania could not have happened at any other time before in history… this is the story of the Chester, Pennsylvania, Race Riot of 1917.
That’s What I Thought
So, Chester was not your typical 1917 segregated community, middle-class blue-collar blacks and middle-class blue-collar white lived more or less in the same communities. In the beginning there were about 4500 black folks in Chester and the town was known for its shipbuilding and textile manufacturing. Now, WWI started in 1914, but before the war started a group of manufactures moved in and started manufacturing locomotives. Of course, a locomotive is the engine that pulls the train cars. Later they started manufacturing railway gun cars. Between 1910 and 1920 Chester grew from about 34,000 people to 58,000 people. Twenty-five percent were blacks that were migrating from the South. White folks were like… WTF!! The hostility grew as more blacks arrived and by the time the shat hit the fan, there were nearly 20,000 black folks living in Chester.
So, at the height of this black migration, as you can imagine there were housing shortages. As more black folks arrived, they started building camps near the factories. These camps were not well planned and lacked even the basic necessities such as sanitation facilities or clean drinking water. Crime and vice were rampant, and white folks blamed the all the social ills they were experiencing on the “heathen” Nigras. Now, I don’t know why because way before the black migration, Chester was known as a destination for vices such as drugs, alcohol, number rackets, gambling and prostitution.
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Racist: I’m tired of them naggers with their dope and gambling…
Racist 2: Me too!!
Racist: And them black gals!!! They are running around here in short dresses… why yesterday I saw one with a dress so short you could even see her knees!!
Racist 2: Gosh darn!!
Racist: And those black naggers… all they do is spend all they check on gabbling and drinking all day!! Look at that one coming over here… it’s outrageous!!
Black Man: Hi Sheriff!! Here’s your winning from the numbers… Oh yeah… Bobbi said can you meet her behind the old barn instead of the church tonight?
Sheriff: And where do you think are you going…?
Racist 2: I’ve got something to do….
Black Man: Wait a minute Sam…
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So yeah, it was already a hotbed for vice before the black migration.
Anywho, remember when I told you this event could not have happened at any other time in African American history? Well, I might have been exaggerating but not by much. You see it started when a black man named Arthur Thomas was walking with his girlfriend and another black couple through a white neighborhood in the city’s West End… in broad daylight!! That’s right!! He walked through a hostile white neighborhood at in broad daylight like he was the Grand Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan conducting a nagger search! Now I said earlier that blacks and whites lived in the same communities, but those communities were segregated. Blacks lived at one end of the community and whites at the other. It wasn’t like down south, where blacks live in one part of the town and whites in another part. These people could look out their windows and see each other.
Anywho, black folks walking in their part of the neighborhood wasn’t going to stand. Thomas got into a fight when a white man named William McKinney came up to him and smacked him across his lips! McKinney: Nagger you must be crazy!!”
Okay I don’t know if McKinney smack him across his lips… but I do know somebody got cut! The men got into a physical altercation and McKinney was stabbed to death.
The next day a mob of “pissssssed” off white folks stomped through the black part of the neighborhood of Chester with nothing else on their minds but kicking pure azz!! This went on for four days!! It took four days because everyone knows you got to bring azz to kick azz and they weren’t the only ones kicking azz. Damn near every one of those black folks living in the camps near the factories had a two-foot shank on them… and everybody knew each other…
Anyway, the white mob came in there deep! There were reportedly 200 or 300 of them roaming the streets and attacking black folks. That shat didn’t go on for long… a counter mob of about 150 black folks met them near Market Square in downtown Chester and those naggers weren’t carrying knives, they came out there with nines!! Okay, they didn’t have nines in those days but my boys were carrying. Not only were they carrying… they were shooting too!! They charged into the mob of whites and it took the hot diggity dog sheriff to pull them brothers off them white folks.
Not to be out done, the brothers started smelling smoke! They were like… “OMG!!! The white folks are setting our houses on fire!!” BAM!! A row of houses went up in flames. A black man being chased by a mob of white dockworkers suddenly stopped, turned around and let some fly!! Bang!! Bang!!! Bang!! One man was killed!! It was starting to get out of hand.
Them were some fierce naggers out there!
On the 27 of July, four days after the riot started, the mayor ordered all hotels, pool halls and liquor stores closed. He forbade the carrying of weapons and implemented a curfew after dark. Delaware County Sheriff John H. Heyburn, Jr. declared a “state of riot” in Chester and forbade public assembly in the city. Sheriff: “We can’t give them naggers a chance to burn our houses down…”
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Blackman: Naw!! Hell naw!! I ain’t going nowhere!! Y’all started this shat!! Now we gonna finish it!!
Blackman 2: Come on brother!! Come on man!! Let it be…
Blackman: HELL NO!! I SAY LET’S GO ON OVER THERE AND BURN SOME OF THEY HOUSES DOWN!!
Blackman 3: NAW MAN!! COME ON MAN!! COME ON!!
Sheriff: If y’all naggers don’t get off this corner… Ima sends for some outta town boys… you know what I’m talking about… the kind nobody will be able to identify…
Blackman: Okay… we gonna let you go this time…
Sheriff: That’s what I thought…
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He Was Just Here…
Yep… those were some fierce dudes… Still the sheriff took no chances. Along with local, state and mounted officers, he also brought in a posse of 150 outta town boys and order was restored.
Blackman: Come on man! Come on!!!
Sheriff: Naw nagger… naw…
After it was all said and done, seven people had been killed, twenty-eight had been shot and more than 360 had been arrested. Hundreds of others had been treated at local hospitals for injuries. It took a couple more months for the violence to subside. For the next few weeks afterwards, folks kept disappearing mysteriously…
Black women: Has anyone seen my husband? He went to the kitchen last night…
After the riot, the mayor banned the sale of liquor to military personnel visiting Bethel Court. Remember when I told you about black men returning from WWI. Where do you think they got them weapons from and who do you think was doing all the shooting? Bethel Court was there before blacks folks started coming and was the reason Chester had its reputation as being the destination if you wanted to get yo’ head right… After the riot, Chester morphed into your typical American community of 1900s with blacks and whites living in separate areas of the city.
History doesn’t say how many of the 360 people arrested during the riots were black, but it does say that a magistrate known for giving out low bail amounts for the coloreds was dismissed.
New Magistrate: That’ll be one hundred thousand dollars nagger…
Black man: Come on man!! Come on!!
Thanks for reading @Hill1News
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