Red Summer Race Riot in Washington newspaper cartoon

As this newspaper cartoon suggested, the nation's capital was overtaken by mob rule during the bloody Red Summer race riots in 1919. (Source: Afro American, July 25, 1919)

Back to Southwest Waterfront

Red Summer Race Riot in Washington, 1919

Washington DC
 by
Mark Jones

By all accounts, Saturday, July 19, 1919 was a hot, muggy night in Washington, D.C. The stifling heat probably didn’t help the disposition of patrons in the city’s saloons which, in this era of early-Prohibition, could only offer the tamest of liquid refreshments. (Though, undoubtedly many barflies acquired stiffer drinks at one of the city’s many speakeasies.) It probably didn’t help matters, either, that many of the soldiers and sailors who had recently returned home from the battlefields of World War I were struggling to find work.

View full article on Boundary Stones