Never Been a Time: The 1917 Race Riot That Sparked the Civil Rights Movement [Hardcover]

Harper Barnes (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0802715753 | ISBN-13: 978-0802715753 | Publication Date: June 24, 2008 | Edition: First Edition

The dramatic and first popular account of one of the deadliest racial confrontations in the 20th century—in East St. Louis in the summer of 1917—which paved the way for the civil rights movement.

In the 1910s, half a million African Americans moved from the impoverished rural South to booming industrial cities of the North in search of jobs and freedom from Jim Crow laws. But Northern whites responded with rage, attacking blacks in the streets and laying waste to black neighborhoods in a horrific series of deadly race riots that broke out in dozens of cities across the nation, including Philadelphia, Chicago, Tulsa, Houston, and Washington, D.C. In East St. Louis, Illinois, corrupt city officials and industrialists had openly courted Southern blacks, luring them North to replace striking white laborers.  This tinderbox erupted on July 2, 1917 into what would become one of the bloodiest American riots of the World War era. Its impact was enormous. “There has never been a time when the riot was not alive in the oral tradition,” remarks Professor Eugene Redmond. Indeed, prominent blacks like W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, and Josephine Baker were forever influenced by it.

Celebrated St. Louis journalist Harper Barnes has written the first full account of this dramatic turning point in American history, decisively placing it in the continuum of racial tensions flowing from Reconstruction and as a catalyst of civil rights action in the decades to come. Drawing from accounts and sources never before utilized, Harper Barnes has crafted a compelling and definitive story that enshrines the riot as an historical rallying cry for all who deplore racial violence.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With this account of the East St. Louis, Ill., race riot, the deadliest of a series of devastating racial battles that swept through American cities in the World War I era, Barnes (Blue Monday) chronicles one of the devastating assaults on African- American communities across the nation that culminated in the Red Summer of 1919. Barnes's account of the 1917 riot is a tale of labor unrest as blacks were used as strikebreakers, of the power of rumor, of corrupt local politics, of the ineffective (when not complicit) response of police power (local and military) and of sickening savagery. Barnes is attentive to the role of the press, citing both the national and black press, but he focuses most sharply upon two St. LouisPost-Dispatch figures, Paul Y. Anderson and Carlos Hurd. Between their dispatches and the military and congressional hearings in the aftermath of the riot, Barnes offers a nearly block-by-block, minute-by-minute account, solid in reportage, pedestrian in the telling, useful to students of American and African-American history and accessible to the general reader. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School—Barnes does a fabulous job of providing the broad cultural context of the violence that took place in East St. Louis, IL, in 1917, exploring both what led up to it and how it became a symbolic rallying cry for civil rights activists. The city was one of the main migration points for Southern blacks searching for jobs and equality during an era when labor unions were organizing and workers were striking for employee rights; many companies took advantage of African Americans willing to work for less money by using them to cross picket lines. Spurred by job loss and old racism, the white population blamed the black residents for their problems, both real and imagined. Violence erupted between the two groups, culminating in coordinated lynching that ended with the murder of at least 150 black residents. It becomes clear, however, that racism was not just a local issue, as evidenced by the strong anti-black coverage in leading newspapers, actions by leaders as high up as Woodrow Wilson, and other riots across the nation. Key features of the volume include photographs of the major political players of the time and a detailed bibliography. Based on key academic sources and original research, this is a work of strong scholarship. But just as important, Barnes's journalistic style brings this nearly forgotten tragedy of U.S. history to a wide audience in an accessible and meaningful way.—Matthew L. Moffett, Pohick Regional Library, Burke, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Walker & Company; First Edition edition (June 24, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802715753
• ISBN-13: 978-0802715753
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #728,466 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Solid Work on an Important Part of US History, January 23, 2009

By 

Douglas S. Wood "Vicarious Life" (Monona, WI) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Never Been a Time: The 1917 Race Riot That Sparked the Civil Rights Movement (Hardcover)

Despite growing up just 60 miles away in mostly white Southern Illinois, I had never heard of the 1917 race riot in East St. Louis until this past year when I read Dennis Lehane's historically detailed story of the 1919 Boston police strike, The Given Day: A Novel. White resentment and fear against thousands of recent black migrants from the Deep South exploded into a two-day riot as whites reacted to the shooting of two police officers by killing blacks and burning down a large part of the black area of the city. The police and National Guard were at best criminally negligent and inept and at worst, actively supported the rioters. The riots were ended only when a new officer took charge of the guard.

The riot took place in one of the most corrupt and wide open cities in America. Corrupt politicians ruled the streets in cahoots with corrupt businessmen and directed a corrupt police force. White-run corporations encouraged the migration of blacks specifically to East St. Louis with false promises of easy jobs at good wages. Instead, the black workers were used as strikeworkers to break several strikes. East St. Louis also had an undue number of low-life violent, thugs, drunks, and pimps who were among the leaders in the riot. At least 100 blacks (possibly many more) and nine whites died.

Harper Barnes, a veteran writer and editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, is not a professional historian and at times it shows. Barnes's personal knowledge and commitment to the area is a strength of the book. Barnes's demonstrates his devotion to his fellow journalists by giving several reporters deservedly key roles in telling the story.

Barnes gives his book solid structure and comprehensive scope in just 240 pages or so. He develops the national historic context of the East St. Louis race riot by detailing racially-motivated violence against blacks throughout the country's history. He works in the contrasting views of W.EB. DuBois and Booker T. Washington. He explores the migration of blacks from the South to the North. His presentation of the riot is measured and detailed. He does not force the facts to be clearer than he knows them to be.

Barnes follows a chapter on the aftermath of the riots in the courts with one examining the psychology of the white rioters. He ends with a retrospective chapter on East St. Louis through the voices of its residents, including many notables like Miles Davis (Bags' Groove) and Katherine Dunham (Katherine Dunham: DANCING A LIFE). Barnes only briefly examines the subtitle's premise that the riot `sparked the civil rights movement'.

While the book is somewhat uneven, I highly recommend it for its thorough look at an important event in US racial history, a riot that has been almost totally ignored at least in the history books.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars good, though limited, work, December 16, 2008

By 

C. P. Anderson (Charlotte, NC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Never Been a Time: The 1917 Race Riot That Sparked the Civil Rights Movement (Hardcover)

This is a well-done, workmanlike monograph on the East St. Louis riots of 1919. If there weren't already a couple out there (American Pogrom: The East St. Louis Race Riot and Black Politics (Law Society & Politics in the Midwest) and Race Riot at East St. Louis, July 2, 1917 (Blacks in the New World)), I might have given this one higher marks, as the riot was a real turning point in American race relations. (I'm afraid I haven't read the others, so really can't compare this one to them.)

Though this a monograph, Barnes does an excellent job of putting this event in context. In fact, he really doesn't talk about East St. Louis in any detail until about 50 pages in. For someone like me, who's read a ton of this stuff, this made it pretty slow going at first, but it should be very helpful for readers with more of a local interest.

I'm not sure I'd recommend it to readers who are new to the whole subject however. What was lacking, for me, is the emotion that's typically involved in anything that touches on subjects like this. The incidents he relates are truly horrible, but I always felt I was seeing it all at one remove. I found that impossible to do in other books like The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction, Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America, and At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America (Modern Library Paperbacks).

Part of that may have had to do with Barnes' reliance on limited sources - in particular, on two local journalists, Anderson and Hurd. Unsurprisingly, they (and Barnes) focus on the story of the large personalities (the mayor, the commander of the National Guard, the local political "bosses"), most of whom are white.

Another thing that might have played a role is Barnes' constant attention to the causes of this particular incident, focusing specifically on labor relations (Black were often used as strike-breakers) and on local corruption. Though this is useful for a more local approach, it really detracts from the larger idea that the history of American race relations is very dark indeed, approaching that of Jews in Nazi Germany or apartheid in South Africa. There is something much bigger going on here than scabs and corrupt politicians.

Still, I'd recommend any book that sheds light on these foul instances of American race relations. I'm particularly happy to see the monographs that have come out recently, including The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction, Riot and Remembrance: America's Worst Race Riot and Its Legacy, and even a movie - Rosewood. If you have only a general interest in this topic, though, I'd probably recommend those books above this one.

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent read, December 31, 2008

By 

Paul Guyot (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Never Been a Time: The 1917 Race Riot That Sparked the Civil Rights Movement (Hardcover)

Harper Barnes has crafted an outstanding account of this largely forgotten, but historically significant race riot. He leaves emotion out of it, going at it like an old school reporter. And that's another one of the joys of this book - Barnes exposes us to a pair of newspaper men who were right there on the front lines, and it's a fascinating look into what real newspapermen were like.

I highly recommend this book.