Charleston riot of 1919

The Charleston riot of 1919 started about 10 p.m. on Saturday, May 10, 1919, and ended after midnight. It began when five white sailors felt they had been cheated by a black man and, unable to find him, attacked African Americans at random. A black man named Isaac Doctor shot at them and was killed. "Within an hour, word of the street brawls and shooting got back to the Charleston Naval Yard and carloads of sailors poured into the black district." The fighting started at a pool parlor near Beaufain Street and Charles Street (later renamed as Archdale Street) but eventually spread over much of the commercial section of King Street from Queen Street to Columbus Street. By 2:30 a.m., order had been reestablished and the riot was over. This was the worst violence in Charleston since the Civil War. Five blacks were killed, and another died later. Seventeen black men, seven white sailors, and one police officer suffered serious injuries; 35 blacks and eight sailors were admitted to hospitals. Stores had been ransacked, and black businesses and homes damaged, in some cases extensively. Restrictions were put by the Navy on men going into Charleston, and naval troops patrolled the streets. Two sailors, Jacob Cohen, and Frank Holliday, were court-martialed for manslaughter in the death of 20-year-old William Brown. Cohen and Holliday, who admitted to shooting and killing Brown, were acquitted on the grounds that Brown had failed to heed their orders to halt. However, they were convicted of a lesser charge of rioting. They were each sentenced to a year in a naval prison and given dishonorable discharges. A third sailor, 16-year-old Roscoe Jackson was acquitted of any wrongdoing. "Forty-nine men, most of them white, were arraigned on charges from murder to rioting to assaulting police officers." Two black and one white man were acquitted of inciting a riot. Charges against the remainder were dropped — police were overwhelmed that night, with little time to spare for taking statements and securing evidence. 8 men received $50 ($ in ) fines for carrying a concealed weapon. ==Aftermath==

One of Charleston's leading newspapers, The Evening Post, printed an editorial the day after the riots in which blame for the riots was placed squarely on servicemen who were not familiar with Charleston's ways. The piece included the following defense for the city: This uprising was one of several incidents of civil unrest that began in the so-called American Red Summer, of 1919. The Summer consisted of terrorist attacks on black communities, and white oppression in over three dozen cities and counties. In most cases, white mobs attacked African American neighborhoods. In some cases, black community groups resisted the attacks, especially in Chicago and Washington, D.C. Most deaths occurred in rural areas during events like the Elaine Race Riot in Arkansas, where an estimated 100 to 240 black people and 5 white people were killed. Also occurring in 1919 were the Chicago Race Riot and Washington D.C. race riot which killed 38 and 39 people respectively, and with both having many more non-fatal injuries and extensive property damage reaching up into the millions of dollars. ==Bibliography==