Lynching of African-American veterans after World War I

After young African-American men volunteered to fight against the Central Powers, during World War I, many of them returned home but instead of being rewarded for their military service, they were subjected to discrimination, racism and lynchings by the citizens and the government. Labor shortages in essential industries caused a massive migration of southern African-Americans to northern cities leading to a wide-spread emergency of segregation in the north and the regeneration of the Ku Klux Klan. For many African-American veterans, as well as the majority of the African-Americans in the United States, the times which followed the war were fraught with challenges similar to those they faced overseas. Discrimination and segregation were at the forefront of everyday life, but most prevalent in schools, public revenues, and housing. Although members of different races who had fought in World War I believed that military service was a price which was worth paying in exchange for equal citizenship, this was not the case for African-Americans. The decades which followed World War I included blatant acts of racism and nationally recognized events which conveyed American society's portrayal of African-Americans as 2nd class citizens. Although the United States had just won The Great War in 1918, the national fight for equal rights was just beginning.

Background

World War I

World War I began with the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914 and it ended with the signing of the Armistice of November 11, 1918. Though the fighting stopped, the war's potential to resume still existed and peace was only reached when representatives of Germany signed the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. On April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson declared war on Germany after Germany resumed its submarine attacks on merchant and passenger ships. When the United States sent men to the fronts of Europe, the United States Armed Forces remained segregated, with all-black and all-white units. Despite the segregation and the mistreatment which they were constantly being subjected to by everyday society, many African Americans volunteered to join the Allied war effort. By the time of the signing of the armistice with Germany, more than 350,000 African Americans had joined the military and served with the American Expeditionary Forces on the Western Front. Around 50,000 of those 350,000 experienced combat and a total of 770 African-Americans who fought for their country paid with their lives. On top of that, during the course of World War 1, over 400,000 black citizens who were searching for defense jobs migrated from the rural south to the urban north in order to fill the need for laborers which existed in essential industries. Although this provided new opportunities for many African American, it would go on to encourage widespread segregation and discrimination in the north after the war was over.

Reaction to returning veterans

Historically, when a war is over, those who served are lauded for their heroism and patriotism. However, that has not always been the case for American soldiers of African descent. African American soldiers who served in World War 1 were treated worse before, during, and after the war than any other group of American soldiers.
During a homecoming celebration for African-American veterans of World War I in Norfolk, Virginia a race riot broke out on July 21, 1919. At least two people were killed and three others were injured. City officials had to call in the Marines and Navy personnel to restore order.
On August 16, 1917, Senator James K. Vardaman of Mississippi spoke of his fear of black veterans returning to the South, as he viewed that it would "inevitably lead to disaster." To the American South, the use of black soldiers in the military was a threat, not a virtue. "Impress the negro with the fact that he is defending the flag, inflate his untutored soul with military airs, teach him that it is his duty to keep the emblem of the Nation flying triumphantly in the air," and, the senator cautioned, "it is but a short step to the conclusion that his political rights must be respected."
Often violence broke out between serving members of the military. In both the Bisbee Riot and the New London riots of 1919 active African-American service members were attacked by white mobs or white military units.
Many black soldiers in the years after the war were threatened with violence if they were caught wearing their uniform. Many others were even physically attacked, sometimes barely escaping with their lives. During an April 5, 1919, market day in Sylvester, Georgia, black veteran Daniel Mack was walking through a busy street and brushed against a white man. The white man was offended that Mack did not show the proper amount of respect and the two got in a scuffle; police came on the scene and promptly arrested Mack for assault. He was sentenced to 30 days in prison. A few days into his sentence, on April 14, a white mob broke into the prison, took him out into the wilderness and lynched Mack; he survived by playing dead. No arrests were ever made. Elisha Harper, 25 years old, was the son of the Rev. T. F. Harper, a respectable and "well-behaved preacher" living in Helena. He fought in the army during World War I and just returned from Europe. On July 24, 1919, while walking the streets of Newberry, South Carolina, he allegedly insulted a 14-year-old girl, who promptly reported him to the authorities. Harper was arrested and thrown in jail. Soon a white mob had gathered and would have lynched Harper if it was not for the local Sheriff who hid him away.
Military service provided by African-Americans overseas and at home made little difference in citizenship for African-Americans. American society still perceived African Americans the same after the war as they did before the war.

Lynched African-American veterans

The following is an incomplete list of African Americans who had served in the military during WWI and were killed by white mobs with no trials for alleged crimes. Lynching is embedded deep in America's racial psyche. By 1919, lynching had developed into a programmatic ritual of torture and empowerment to the white race. The accurate number of African American veterans lynched in military uniform is unknown, but there were several cases of beatings and lynchings for the refusal to remove a military uniform, most notably the lynching of Wilbur Little in the spring of 1919. Apparent from the table, the vast majority of lynchings took place in the southeast region of the United States. The three states with the largest number of African American lynchings from 1850 - 1929 were Georgia, Mississippi and Texas.

Name	City	County or parish	State	Date	Accusation	Lynching	Ref
Unknown	Pine Bluff	Jefferson	Arkansas		Insult of white woman – refused to move off a sidewalk for a white woman	Tied to a tree with tire chains, and shot as many as 50 times
	Tyler Station	Fulton	Kentucky		Alleged robbery	Masked men stormed the jail, smashed the locks with a sledgehammer, and hanged him from a tree
Black vet and a black woman	Pickens	Holmes	Mississippi		Insult of white woman – black woman wrote an "improper note" to a young white woman
	Birmingham	Jefferson	Alabama		Asking for change from a conductor aboard a segregated outbound Pratt-Endsley streetcar to Dozier Park	Shot three times in the head
	Louise	Humphreys	Mississippi		Insult of white woman – alleged indecent proposal to a white woman	Hanged Robert Truett, a veteran who was 18 years old
	Lincoln	Washington	Arkansas		Insult of white woman – moved too slowly out of white woman's way	Chained to a tree, shot till dead
	Clarksdale	Coahoma	Mississippi		Suspected of having a relationship with a white woman	Hanged from the bridge across the Sunflower River
	Montgomery	Montgomery	Alabama		Alleged assault of a white woman	Shot by a mob
	Montgomery	Montgomery	Alabama		Alleged assault of a white woman	Shot by a mob
	El Dorado	Union	Arkansas		Alleged murder	100 people gathered to burn Mr. Livingston alive
	Pace	Santa Rosa	Florida		Alleged assault of a white woman	Chained to a stake, burnt alive, his skull was split with a hatchet and pieces given to onlookers as souvenirs
	Bogalusa	Washington	Louisiana		Alleged attempted assault of a white woman	Mob dragged his body behind a car killing him before burning his corpse in a bonfire
		Franklin	North Carolina		Allegedly shot R. M. Brown, the white owner of a movie theater in Franklinton	Rope tied around neck, dragged for behind an automobile, then hanged from a pine sapling
	Paris	Lamar	Texas		Alleged fatal shootout with sharecropper landlord and son over a dispute	Herman and his little brother, Ervie, tied to a stake and burnt alive
	Blakely	Early	Georgia		Refusal to remove military uniform	Beaten to death in uniform by a mob
	Helena	Phillips	Arkansas		Was killed by a mob during the Elaine massacre, after the mob claimed they fired first.	He, along with his three brothers, were pulled off a train by a group of white men. All were shot several times and killed during a scuffle. Leroy was a bugler in the Harlem Hellfighters.