The Anatomy of a Riot

A sequel to last week's piece.

How do we define a "riot?" Why do people riot? How are different groups of people perceived and treated when they riot?

This past Sunday, sports fans took to the streets to celebrate the Eagles' Super Bowl victory. Local police shelled out approximately $1500 to grease poles to prevent people from scaling them. Despite the playful banter and indulgent humor surrounding reports of damage and ruckus, let us reflect back on the lessons of the 1918 Philadelphia "Race Riots."

Yesterday, Black Lives Matter New York President Hawk Newsome told Newsweek –

"Somehow, it seems there's a line drawn in the sand where destruction of property because of a sports victory is OK and acceptable in America. However, if you have people who are fighting for their most basic human right, the right to live, they will be condemned."

White privilege is embodied by both the lack of social condemnation and the official accommodation of such behavior.

Bearing this in mind, I set out to find other examples of rioting from one hundred years ago. I came across a January 1918 article from the Kansas Advocate (a Black newspaper that ran from 1917-1926). Through it, I came to learn of the Houston "Riots" of 1917 (also known as the Houston Mutiny) and the largest murder trial in the history of the United States.

^{Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons}

On August 23, 1917, model office, Corporal Charles Baltimore, was beaten by white Houston police officers for interfering in the interrogation of a Black woman. However, members of the Third Battalion of the all-Black Twenty-fourth U.S. Infantry Regiment heard a rumor that he had been killed. In response, over one hundred and fifty men marched through the city in protest. Local white residents took up arms, sparking violence that left sixteen dead and a dozen wounded. That November, forty-one of these soldiers were given life in prison, while nineteen were sentenced to death.

The article I found featured the last letter that Corporal Baltimore wrote, the day before he was scheduled to be executed. In it, he wrote –

"I now write you for the last time in this world, as I am to be executed tomorrow morning. But I want to say right here that I am prepared to go. I was convited of being in the riot of last August 23rd. Am innocent of killing anyone, but in the excitement in the camp that night, marched down town with the column. Don't worry; I am prepared to go. Meet me in Heaven."

^{Courtesy of African American Newspapers Collection on Readex}

It is said this event foreshadowed the 1919 “Red Summer riots," in which many Black servicemen reacted against the racist postwar environment. In much the same way the mass media will dehumanize Brown people as terrorists and Black people as thugs, we find the historiography has bought into the racialized language used to sanctify whiteness. In a world where Black Lives Matter protestors are arrested for blocking transit to the Super Bowl, while sports fans get leeway to be public nuisances and destroy thousands of dollars worth of property – how will we trace the anatomy of a riot?

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^{100% of the SBD rewards from this #explore1918 post will support the Philadelphia History Initiative @phillyhistory. This crypto-experiment conducted by graduate courses at Temple University's Center for Public History and MLA Program, is exploring history and empowering education. Click here to learn more.}