The July 28, 1917 Silent Protest Parade on Fifth Avenue, one of the first major mass demonstrations by African Americans, will be the focus of a special display of four historic photographs at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, on view from Friday, July 21, through Sunday, June 30, 2017.
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library added 10 new photos.
The July 28, 1917 Silent Protest Parade on Fifth Avenue, one of the first major mass demonstrations by African Americans, will be the focus of a special display of four historic photographs at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, on view from Friday, July 21, through Sunday, June 30, 2017.
Conceived by James Weldon Johnson and organized by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored (NAACP) with church and community leaders, the protest parade united an estimated 10,000 African Americans who marched down Fifth Avenue from 55th-59th Streets to Madison Square, silently carrying banners condemning racial violence and racial discrimination. They gave powerful witness in the wake of brutal episodes of mass racial violence in the city of East St. Louis, where between fifty and two hundred African Americans were murdered and 6,000 were left homeless by arson attacks. The marchers indicted the U.S. and President Woodrow Wilson, who had just pledged to make the world safe for democracy.
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