This article was written by Joe Kovacs
It's something of an oddity to mention writers and Washington, DC, in the same sentence; one traditionally associates the city with the federal government and policy-making. But in the years immediately following World War I, one of the most significant social and cultural movements of the 20th century, the Harlem Renaissance, received substantial support from an artistic cadre within Washington, including the young poet Langston Hughes. The Harlem Renaissance, ultimately centered in New York, was characterized during the 1920s and 1930s by an outpouring of literature and intellectual thought from black artists and activists who helped define black pride and identity in a society dominated by whites.
The seeds of the movement were planted in one respect through incidents of interracial tension and rioting that rippled through the United States during in the summer of 1919. The migration of unemployed blacks to northern cities was at an all-time high during the Great War, as servicemen left positions to fight overseas. In many cases, the racial flux of neighborhoods in already cramped cities led to deep anxieties once these servicemen returned from Europe. Discomfited from events witnessed on the global stage and restless from unemployment, many were drawn into the Red Summer riots, from June to September, as violence swept through 15 cities. In Washington, DC, it began with a rumored sexual attack on a white woman by a black predator, an event never confirmed but which incited inflammatory responses from the four daily newspapers. A mob of several hundred whites drew together from Murder Bay off Pennsylvania Avenue, an infamous neighborhood of ruffians and prostitution, and assaulted a black couple walking on 9th and D Streets, SW on July 19.
Over the next several days, as the politics of segregation made blacks the target of police action rather than its object of protection, the community would successfully gather together to resist future mobs. As whites headed confidently down the Seventh Street commercial corridor in Shaw, a neighborhood popular for Southern migrants, they were surprised to be met by an equally-organized group of black men who fended them off and countered with severe damage of their own. Four days of brutal street fighting resulted in 39 deaths and over 150 injuries, including the fatal shootings of two DC policemen. The attitude of the white mobs particularly incensed black servicemen who hoped that by defending the United States overseas, they would return to a newly respected position in their own country. Instead, heightened Ku Klux Klan activities in the District of Columbia had resulted that year in 28 lynchings, including seven black war veterans who were hung in their uniforms. What many recognized most about the Red Summer riots in Washington, DC, was how blacks responded with resistance to white mobs, setting a tone for organized action and racial pride not seen in the past.
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