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On July 28, 1917, in New York City, a silent parade was staged in protest of the East St. Louis, Illinois, massacre of July 2, 1917, as well as the recent lynchings in Waco, Texas, and Memphis, Tennessee. The march was organized by the NAACP, churchmen and other civic leaders to protest the violent events against African Americans around the country. The United States had just entered World War I and many were questioning the use of African-American soldiers to fight in a war that President Woodrow Wilson had described as necessary to the survival of democracy abroad, especially at a time when these same men and their families were denied their basic rights here in the United States. President Wilson continually dismissed the requests of African-American leadership to address the problem of lynching and was considered by many to be one of the most racist presidents ever to occupy the White House. The lynching and murdering of blacks was on the rise. And in the wartime climate many African Americans were migrating to the North, both to escape racial oppression in the South and to secure the plentiful jobs in the munitions centers and factories in the Northern urban centers.

The riots in East St. Louis began when whites, angry because African Americans were employed by a factory holding government contracts, went on a rampage. Over $400,000 worth of property was destroyed. At least 40 African Americans were killed. Men, women and children were beaten, stabbed, hanged and burned. Nearly 6,000 African Americans were driven from their homes.

Across the country, people were aghast at the violence. On July 28, 8,000 African Americans, primarily from Harlem, marched silently down Fifth Avenue. They were dressed in their finest clothes and marched to the sound of muffled drums. They carried picket signs while thousands of New Yorkers watched from the sidewalks. The children marched as well as the adults. Some of the banners read: "Mother, do lynchers go to heaven?" "Mr. President, why not make America safe for democracy?" "Thou shalt not kill." "Pray for the Lady Macbeths of East St. Louis." "Give us a Chance to Live."

The New York Age reported on the march:

They marched without uttering one word or making a single gesticulation and protested in respectful silence against the reign of mob law, segregation, "Jim Crowism" and many other indignities to which the race is unnecessarily subjected in the United States. (1917)

Lynching was never declared a felony by the judicial system of the United States.