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Understanding 9/11tv Never Been a Time CSPAN July 9, 2017 8:00am-8:51am EDT
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>> up next on history bookshelf, author harper barnes recalls the events that led to one of america's deadliest race riot. he is the author of "never been a time." recorded in st. louis in 2008. >> i would like to quote if i from a review. he says "this is the most compelling writing yet produced on the seminal event on race in america.
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it tells us a lot about who we are, and what we can and will be." the details of innocence lost to greed, corruption, and lust to power. the author shows the ability of to beack community capable of destruction. barnes tells the story -- i am really -- sorry, i had not planned on that. before we begin, i would like to
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say a few personal things about harper. 1977, when we moved to this location from the loop, harper wrote an article in the post about us for the sunday paper. at midnight saturday night, we waited anxiously for the paper to be delivered. what a thrill. harper was the first journalist to recognize us and it was the most welcome and truly appreciated article that has ever been written about us. novel, he gavet us a galley. which i still have. harper -- blue monday, -- harper barnes publication, 1991. and then he did a book siding -- a book signing when the book
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finally came out on monday and he inscribed it to us. i just want to read it. ,t says -- to left bank books my old friends. i cannot imagine a better start for my book. thanks and love to you while come harper barnes. and now, harper barnes. [applause] thank you, i cannot imagine i'd better start to this one either. i am going to read a few very short from the book in them we will discuss it and i will answer questions. i hope there will be some. the 91st008, anniversary of the east st. louis race riot. the first and officious -- and officially the deadliest of the racial battles that swept
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through american cities in the world war i era. in the lead -- in the years , blacks moved by the south -- by the thousands to st. louis. destroyed white unions and continued to drop blacks north with promises of employment long pass the time when the job market was saturated. many blacks ended up homeless or crowded into shanties downtown ledsensationalist stories many whites to believe that blacks were on a rampage for crime. blacks were attacked by white mobs. wently 1, armed whites into black neighborhoods. blacks finally fought back. two policemen were killed. almost certainly because they were mistaken for the vigilantes terrorizing black neighborhoods.
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in retaliation, on the morning of july 2, whites begin attacking blacks on the street and a full-scale riot workout. at the end of the day, hundreds of black men and women, and children had been brutally assaulted with at least 39 killed. thousands fled the city. more than 3000 homes and places of business had been destroyed by fire. the riots grew worse as the day when along. and i'm going to pick up a little section that takes place in the late afternoon. this is called "a storm coming." about 5:00, a spectacular conflagration, four rickety houses where blacks lived near the downtown east st. louis railroad yards, seemed to burst into flames simultaneously as if from the coordinated actions of several men. the houses were at main street
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and grady avenue. half a dozen black men tried to run out of the torched houses. armed rioters fired at them hitting several. the wounded men were thrown back into the learning buildings. a half-dozen soldiers were leaning against a wall across the street, watching. they held rifles with full cartridge belts but they did nothing. they were leaderless and seemed overwhelmed. said a reporter. even if they wanted to stop the riots, which nothing in there cost your suggested that they were leaderless. the mob had broken up at that time moving through the streets of downtown with the center of the riot at fourth and broadway. alarm0 p.m., another fire started signaling a new fire at walnut avenue. the siren kept ringing. were that.ires
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sirens sounded unheated into the night. as a smoke from the flames rose into the air, thousands of blacks fled across the mississippi river to missouri, clouds of st. louis citizens came down to the levy to watch the exodus. among them, was an 11-year-old girl named frieda josephine mcdonald's. had years later, after she become internationally famous as josephine baker, she wrote down what she saw and heard. she and her family lived in a shanty shack -- a tiny shack. she often woke up hungry as she did on july 2. that afternoon she wrote -- "an ominous humming sound filled the air. it seemed to be drawing nearer. is there a storm coming, mama? not a storm child, it is the whites."
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i had discovered the two puppies half dead in a trashcan. they barely had the strength to one. gathering up my babies, i hurried up behind mama. we were pushing richard and my sister margaret in front of us. this was the apocalypse. clouds blowing from the incandescent light with huge flames. the entire black community appeared to be fling. a precocious child putting into womanhood, josephine had already been planning on leaving st. louis and heading to broadway. louis lessade st. bearable as mistrust increased between the races. two years later, the 13-year-old girl stepped onto a train at union station, a few blocks from
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the ghetto where she lived and headed east. before josephine baker was out of her teens, her singing and dancing, her wit and her beauty, her powerful ambition and the unstoppable desire to never live even remotely close to racist st. louis, had made her a star in new york and then in paris where she remained. a half-dozen blocks south, as night fell, catherine kennedy decided it was time to leave the house on pickett avenue where she was raising her nine children. earlier that day, white men passing by fired into the house. flames were spreading towards her. she had been warned that white mobs were attacking blacks at the nearby bridge that she and
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her younger brother eddie gathered together the six boys and girls at her home and headed west to the river. they carried with them stockings and long strips of cloth and likes of close line. , they gathered scrap lumber from shanties that had been torn down. at the river's edge, they built a raft. when they launched the raft, the clumsy vessel just kept turning around in circles. eventually, the boat headed west across the river. the missouri shore was 500 yards away. , theya long struggle landed on the western shore of the mississippi, well south of downtown st. louis. samuel kennedy look back across the river and he would never forget what you sow. it looked like the whole horizon was on fire.
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in early july, 19 97, st. louis and gary kennedy, his grandmother katherine had escaped from the riot on a raft, let a ceremony in downtown east st. louis to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the tragedy. several hundred people from st. louis and eight -- and east st. louis including survivors and their descendents joined the commemoration. he said he wanted to honor both races and to encourage unity and healing. he also spoke of his father, who after a long struggle with poverty, at one point he made the street,oxing on became the president of a local textile union and in 1962, as st. louis alderman. the following year, his son, was elected to succeed him. still annedy is alderman.
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on broadway between seventh and eighth streets, a black policeman saw the fires. he and his wife were in their 30's with no children. he had come home at noon to be with her. he told her to leave but she refused. white men had fired into the building several times. the nelsons were sitting on the floor in the middle room of their flat keeping away from the windows. about 7:00, a white man's through a -- a white man through a brick into the window. dozen men came a into view. mrs. nelson ran to the front of the house. when she appeared in the front window, several white men fired into the house. the soldiers did nothing. nelson yelled to his wife, let
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us get out the back way but the rickety wooden accepts were already burning. with his wife hanging onto him, nelson walked out the back door, down the steps and into the flames. her dress caught on fire. he turned and slapped on the flames of her dress. they jumped half of flight of steps through the planes -- through the flames to the ground. nelson and his wife ran out the backyard and started up 8th street towards broadway. awake man was standing nearby watching the fires. when he saw the nelsons, he waved them back. he said -- do not go that way. go toward the alley. hands, nelson ran across the alley and they hid and watched. then did they discover the
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painful burns on their hands. sunhe light of the rising came dimly through the smoke, auto nelson and his wife cautiously wrote -- cautiously rose. well over 200 buildings, homes, stores, cafés, barbershops had been destroyed. most of them were in black neighborhoods downtown and on the south and. but the writers also attacked many areas where the whites -- where whites lived. they stretched aching muscles and looked around at a scene that for several blocks in several directions looked like the aftermath of house to house fighting in the great war. they did not see any white people or soldiers. they began walking slowly to the east. ride.oped to pick up a when they got to their friends
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house, the car was gone and so was the house. they found themselves part of the stream of black refugees leaving east st. louis. they walked nine miles that day and did not return for two weeks. other brief section. on july 8, 1917, w.e.b. dubois took the train along with a social worker to investigate the riot on behalf of the double on behalf of the naacp. the assembled a staff to stay for about a week. aftered with anger hearing dozens of tales of herible abuse and murder, learned that at least as many as 200 blacks had died in the riots. pleas for federal
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, a hand-delivered petition from the naacp containing 15,000 signatures that called for an investigation and federal anti-lynching legislative, president woodrow wilson continued to ignore the riot. prominent blacks led by weldon johnson decided to catch the attention with an unprecedented demonstration in america's largest city. they waited until w.e.b. dubois returned and he and johnson joined 8000-10,000 blacks marching down central avenue. theilent protesting against riots calling for immediate action on federal anti-lynching legislation. some of the marchers carried signs addressed to wilson. mr. president, why not make
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america safe for democracy question mark your hands are full of blood. the silent parade was america's first major civil rights march. along the parade route, black fliersounts handed out saying -- we march because we want to make impossible the repetition of eight -- of east st. louis. primal element of a race only half a century out of slavery. 1930's, growing up almost 600 miles east of east st. louis, young toni morrison heard the stories and like miles davis, she never forgot what she had been told about the summer that whites slaughtered blacks in the state of abraham lincoln and thousands of american blacks marched in protest. the riot hovers like a dark
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"jazz"ver the novel whose doomed central character never feels safe even in the midst of harlem. protagonist is so shattered by the experience of the riot that she cannot speak of it. she stands silently in harlem for three hours and watches the silent parade. the two of them marveling at the coal black faces and listening to the drums what the marching men and graceful women cannot. it was july, 19 17, and the beautiful faces were cold and quiet moving slowly into the space that the drums were building for them. they were speechless and him blinking. what they meant to say, the drums set for them. thank you. [applause]
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harper: i would be happy to answer any questions. have ay said, if you question, wait for the microphone. we are going to be on tv, maybe. yes. oh hello, and. how are you doing? >> the josephine baker part -- a lot of us are under the impression that josephine baker actually lived in ace -- in east st. louis. harper: ok. >> how do we begin clarifying that? even if you look at the movie "josephine baker" they say st. louis that they show a little like that has a trap door
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the shotgun houses had in rush city and that is where they would stash their goods and that is how the family in that depiction of the movie escaped the burning house. harper: all i know is that in her autobiography, she talks about growing up in the chestnut valley which would have been near union station. i had not heard about the rush city idea but, it could be. know, much of black history is oral history. it is only in the last 20-30 years, that historians have come to realize that oral history israel history just as written history is. it could be. i just do not know. yes, sir. >> i had heard from my parents the same thing -- that they in brushthat she lived
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city. i am 72 so this goes back. that she lived in russia city also. they were talking about the actual house that she had lived in. they had of them said met her later ron and she was so devastated by her experience that she just did not want to talk about that. that is what my grandmother was telling me. another question -- harper: the gentleman was talking about the possibility that she had lived in brush city, and area of east st. louis south of the south end. this.asked to repeat and she would not speak a bit later. as if she had blotted it from her mind. >> the other question i had -- we keep hearing different numbers. has anyone tried to really determine in research terms, just what the numbers were?
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you hear different figures. what i did was i did not go back to the corner. -- the coroner. because a lot of blacks were not included in the coroner's report. the congressional investigating committee came up with a figure of dirty nine blacks. that has been established as the official amount of deaths. i believe as w.e.b. dubois as many plea -- as many people believe, that it was actually 100 or 200. there is one story that i found interesting. he talks about a widow who
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collected life insurance on her husband and her husband is not one of the official dead people. if the insurance company is going to pay off, that leads you to believe that they miss counted some people. the coroner's report. i think it was more. yeah. >> hello. we met earlier. as you met my father who lived and heriots, he said, has often told me since i was a child, that the number of whites killed was intentionally underreported for fear of empowering the black community that you knew that you had power and would not be taken advantage of. daddy told me a number of times that there were a whole lot of
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whites killed but they underreported her. harper: you make a point. that the death toll of the whites was not accurate because it would empower, if it was large, would empower blacks. i had not heard that. wasof the things the riots about was denying power to black people so i would not be surprised. st. louis was a haven. harper: i have heard rumors that st. louis police were actually shooting rioters to protect people fleeing from east st. louis. about 7000 people were treated at the municipal lodging house which was down by city hall. -- about half the
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population of east st. louis. the majority of the black population of east st. louis fled across the bridge into st. louis. where they were apparently while taking care of. yes, sir. -- in that question period of 1917, two years prior to that, the movie "the birth of a nation" was released. the most venomous movie that was shown and in circulation. wherever the movie was shown, riots broke out right after the screening of it. i wonder if that movie had recently been shown in east st. louis prior to this. harper: the gentleman makes a very good point about the showing of the movie "worth of a nation." when it first came out in 1915 across shown in cities the country, frequently attacks
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on blacks and riots broke out in the wake of the movie. as it turns out, "birth of a nation" finally made it to st. louis in 1917. there may very well have been a connection between the movie and the riot. >> what organized the riders -- the rioters, were there telephones? harper: i do not know. >> do you have any hope or expectation that what you wrote will be taught? harper: that would be nice. book -- inded of the thought again about the book when barack obama made the speech in reaction to the
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attacks on the reverend jeremiah wright. and he said in his speech in a lot of whiteat people just did not understand -- how terrible things had been and for how long for blacks in america. and particularly the generation of the reverend jeremiah wright who is about the same generation, a little younger than miles davis. miles davis was born in 1926. grew up hearing stories about the riot. he was born nine years after the riot. and yet, the stories that he heard growing up as a boy were so strong, that he says in his autobiography that he felt that they had affected his way of looking at white people for the rest of his life. he was very mistrustful of whites. and that was one of the reasons
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that i decided that the book might be interesting. if it's stuck with people that thenin the oral tradition, it must be something very powerful. and i think it was. of course, it would be great if it were taught in schools. >> in response to what he just a under the umbrella of the center for arts and humanities and doing a summer school at the alternative middle school and 25th in kansas , i taught it this morning in summer school. in east st. louis. thank you. i am just wondering how you found the coverage in the press, the st. louis press about the riots. harper: the coverage in the
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press was the question. in particularly the globe democrat was quite amazing. the post-dispatch in particular, carlos hurt.med she was one of the most famous reporters in america at the time. he had been the man that had gotten the scoop on the survivors of the spanish shipwreck. carlos heard was a rewrite man. he was sitting at his death in the poach dispatch building which in those days was on fourth and broadway. fieldreporters in the called in stories. and finally, what he was hearing was so terrible -- and he could look out his window and see the blacks streaming across the river, that he had to go see for himself. he took the streetcar to broadway and spent about two
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hours observing the riot for himself. what he saw horrified him. he wrote to a powerful piece that appeared on the front page of the post-dispatch. it was a first-person piece. 3000 words long. very long for a story in a newspaper. some of the other papers were not so hot. ,he st. louis daily journal which later became the metro eastern, did not do a very good job. some of the smaller newspapers in st. louis had a clearly racist slant on the whole thing. the st. louis republic, which is owned by the way i am man named david francis whose biography i wrote, i can excuse francis because he was experiencing the russian revolution at the time of the east st. louis right. but the st. louis republic
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basically blame to everything on blacks, going back long before the policeman was shot. add, thend i need to black newspaper, st. louis -- did a terrific job. and they sent reporters over. and they got what i think is probably a more accurate portrait of what really went on then most of the white papers. >> i would like to ask you a couple of questions. i was fortunate in the 1970's to meet 80-year-old men and women and had been interest in history. they were sharing information about the riots. i am a citizen of st. louis.
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i wanted to know if you found any information about the green , anral home on broadway african-american funeral home. information was always shared that the coffins, the force pulled coffins were used to bring weapons into e-cig st. louis because police went into , a lot of african-american men were working in the slaughterhouses. and also, the jewish relationship with the african-americans was aiding with supplying weapons for self-defense to those african-americans. i wonder if any of that came up in your research. lastless thing, -- one -- thatn npr you shared the citizens as
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the linchpin that kicked things off. okaying the government the lynching. it really set it off for the african-americans and the tradition is that the media has always played down the numbers of caucasians that were killed just as we have questions about the american soldiers killed and things of that nature. harper: that would make sense. in the book,y there -- that guns were brought coffins.e river in and there were pawnbrokers who to blacks when no one else would. i do not know if they were
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jewish or not. but they work -- they were pawnbrokers. regarding the number -- the fact that the number of white people killed was larger than reported would not surprise me. it would fit in with my general view of the riots. that it was a reaction against the power of black people. buried little power that they had. >> my question has to do with whether or not -- i have not backyour book -- but going to the period of the dred scott defense. as i understand it, the defense was that he had lived in illinois, a free state, and he moved back to missouri. of somehow, by the time 1917, it seemed like things had changed. missouri became a haven and
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was heavily negative towards the black community. harper: the question revolves around the difference between missouri and illinois and their treatment of blacks. -- dred scott decision ultimately, the decision was that he was not a freeman even though he had lived in the free state of illinois. free stated been a and missouri had been a slave state. people expected illinois to treat blacks better. i think that was not so true. there were anti-black riots in chicago st. louis and and springfield. and there were terrible riots in small towns in missouri. but i think what happened in east st. louis, one of the things that happened, was that blacks came north, to easing
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lewis, thinking they were coming to the north. , as miles davis says in his autobiography, ec lois at that time at least, and still is to a great extent, has a southern cast to it. remember the clue clucks clan -- klan was very active in border states. thatois was not the haven it was thought to be. that is not to say that except in the one instance of the east st. louis riots, when st. louis did except black refugees and took care of them, that is not to say that misery was welcoming either. about that period of time, the voters of st. louis passed a law the cityntially froze has a segregated entity.
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where lines were drawn on the map and blacks and whites did not move or cross those lines. later declared unconstitutional in the real estate agents figured out a way to do it anyway. it was about the time of the riots. i believe the law was passed the same year as the riots. i don't -- i think it was before the ride. i don't think the riot had anything to do directly with it because the campaign started around 1915 when "birth of a nation" came through. i heard your interview today. it was very well done and i appreciate that. as the moderator was asking you questions, one question came up about the horrors that were perpetuated against blacks. he did not want to go into specificity about it which sends me because i think there is a pattern. whenever it comes to the heart is perpetuated against
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african-americans, no one wants to speak to that. could you speak about the horrors perpetuated against the blacks. we know about the hangings. are there other things that stand out? harper: i can tell you a couple of stories. at least two men were hung from lampposts in downtown e-cig lewis. -- in downtown east st. louis. one of the incidence that carlos when they were trying to get one of the victims hisn the pole, a man put hand inside his scalp. yelled -- "yank for e st. louis." there were many stories like that. a widely reported story of a four-year-old boy who
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was picked up by two white men and thrown into a burning building and was never seen again. as the day went along, riots have a way of gathering momentum. no matter what kind of riots ar. the riot gathered momentum and it got uglier and uglier. it was horrible. yeah. >> hello. do you compare the riot in east st. louis to riots across the country at the same time? did you find that this riot differed in any substantial way in how it devolved or how it was sparked? and when did african-americans start returning and rebuilding in east st. louis? and i don't know if you did any research about the nature of the community and how it changed or
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how the boundaries changed as a means of protecting itself from further violence. harper: those are good questions. i am not sure i can answer them. riot to riotshe in other cities. they are different -- precipitating events in each one. a black boy was swimming at a beach and a white man did not want him there. at him, hitting him in the head, and the black boy drowned. riots broke out. riots ine two dozen 1919. in almost every case, you had blacks and whites competing for jobs. you had blacks being used as straight lakers. -- strike breakers. you had blacks living in substandard housing.
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atmosphere ofral racial antagonism. generally, there was some sparking event. which was different in each case. tinder was-- the dry and ready for the flame. back to eastving st. louis in the 1920's and 1930's. interestingly enough, the black population in east st. louis in 1920 was the same as it was in 1910. all of those people or an , maybe 3000 orer in thehe people moved in 19 teens.the redman and -- eugene
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many people call it "east bookie it wasogie" because known for its music. a great deal of music came out of east st. louis and a great deal of lack culture in general came out of it. for whatrt of amazing a fairly small black population of accomplished in that town. it was several years before blacks started returning. the miles davis grew up in 1920's, 1930's, he was born in 1926, he grew up in the south end. and the neighborhood he lived in -- people got along fairly well, black and white. to some extent they had
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gotten over the riot. although clearly, they had not totally gotten over the riot. >> yes. this is a tough one. they have political question. the supreme court ruling last week allowing everyone to own handguns -- if that had taken place in 1917, would that have made things worse or better, in your opinion? in 1917, in east st. louis, everyone already owned a handgun. if they had any sense. [laughing] that last part -- strike that last remark. [laughing] there were a lot of guns in east st. louis. -- e st.ly want to add louis between appellation and ozarks-- applachia and
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was about 160 miles from the mason-dixon line. terroristsy had coming from all areas. defining therea rioters -- that is true. it is unknown how many came from little farming and mining towns around southern illinois and even kentucky. yes, they did come from those areas. two more questions. >> can you talk a little bit about the political atmosphere at the time? do you see any parallels as far as the issues of immigration then and the way that issues of immigration are painted today? issues at thecal
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time and immigration today. one of the reasons -- one of the many reasons that the white citizens of east st. louis ride rioting against the political system. it was not only deeply corrupt, but the blacks were the swing vote. and the mayor had received the white -- the black vote and many whites opposed him for that reason. yet, i think when you think about, in many cases, the jobs that blacks were taking at the stockyards for instance, were jobs that middle-class e st. louis people did not want. toertainly see a parallel -- furor about immigration that is a pretty complicated subject but yes, i do see parallels. one more question. >> i know you were speaking on
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this side of the river, but are you speaking in east st. louis? harper: this is my first speech. sure. i would be happy to. this is just getting started. the official launch of the book. yes. talk about doing it on the fifth. perhaps the 28th would be appropriate for us to do that silent processional to the bridge and still have time to plant it and you can be with us to speak on the east side. harper: that makes sense. and walker is the director of the center and the head of a historical african-american organization called "legacies of hope."
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legacies ofil -- hope." almost every year, she has organized a commemoration of the race riot which consists of a silent parade or march, a processional, i believe it is called from downtown east -- louis to the east ridge to the east bridge. she is talking about having it this time on the 28th in commemoration of the side the parade in new york. that makes sense to me. i guess i will be speaking in east st. louis. all very much. before anyone moves, i think we owe harper a big round of applause. >>[applause] barry: to start the book signing
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now, i would like to start the line going this way if you would not mind. we will move away some of the chairs. do not forget, there are refreshments in the back room including birthday cake. thank you again for coming. harper: please do not saying happy birthday. this ring out of here. >> interested in american history tv? our website, c-span.org/history. you can view our tv schedule, preview upcoming programs, and watch college lectures, museum tauris, and archive -- museum tours, and archival films.
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tonight, on q&a, -- >> i am not asking anyone to compromise their beliefs, i am just asking them to open their eyes to other people's so that you can figure out your place in this infinite worlds. >> brooke gladstone, cohost and managing editor of wnyc's "on the media." she discusses her book "the trouble with reality: a rumination on panic in our time ." she looks at what constitutes reality today and how that criteria has changed. >> i set up at the beginning of the book our biological wiring. i wanted to show how we had evolved to a culture that was designed to validate us and not to challenge us. certainly, not to contradict us. it gave us the illusion that our
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realities were watertight when really, they were riddled with weak spots and places that would crunch in. at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's "q&a." where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies and is brought to you today i your cable or satellite provider. >> philip leavy studies the places associated with george washington's life including his virginia birthplace. he discusses the archaeological record at the riverfront land on virginia's northern neck and the speculation that the national park service site is not the birthplace at all. mr. leavy argues thathe
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