Summary

Despite their service in World War One, African American veterans and civilians alike continued to be denied their civil rights in the United States. From April to November 1919, a series of riots rooted in racial prejudice and inequality "rocked the United States" (65). This period is known as the "Red Summer," hundreds of people were killed and thousands were injured or forced to flee their homes (66). Most of the people killed or injured were black. After World War One, many African Americans moved North, either to find work or to escape discrimination in the South. Discrimination and acts of terror perpetrated by organizations like the Ku Klux Klan were on the rise at the time. Sandler cites several examples in which black people were lynched without being charged and typically without having committed any actual crime. Lynchings were presented as public...