It's often called the East St. Louis Riot, but let's be clear on this: It was a mass lynching. It was a pogrom.
White mobs killed every black person they could find: Men, women, children, it made no difference. to have a dark skin in East St. Luis 100 years ago marked one for a brutal death.
The cops did nothing, other than to disarm black people. The National Guard joined in on the rioting.
President Wilson, who was probably one of the most virulent racists in the White House during the last century, made no real efforts to use the power of the Federal government to bring about any justice after the fact. About the only prominent politician who spoke up to denounce the rioters was Theodore Roosevelt.
The authorities engaged in victim-blaming and almost half of those prosecuted after the fact were black.
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Still significantly more unsafe for African Americans in the USA compared to Caucasians in July, 2017. And the victim is still usually blamed and their character slurred postmortum.
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