Silent Parade

People

James Weldon Johnson (NAACP second vice president); W. E. B. Du Bois (NAACP leader); Oswald Garrison Villard (Organizer); Frederick A. Cullen (Chairman of the delegation); Madam C. J. Walker (Entrepreneur and activist); John E. Nail (Committee member); Everard W. Daniel (Committee member); George Frazier Miller (Committee member); Fred R. Moore (Committee member); A. B. Cosey (Committee member); D. Ivison Hoage (Committee member); Isaac B. Allen (Committee member); Maria C. Lawton (Committee member)

Outcome

unknown

On July 28, 1917, approximately 10,000 African Americans marched silently down Fifth Avenue in New York City in what became known as the Silent Parade. The march was conceived by James Weldon Johnson, the NAACP's second vice president, and organized by the NAACP alongside church and community leaders. The demonstration was a direct response to the East St. Louis Race Riot of July 1-3, 1917, in which between 50 and 200 African Americans were murdered and approximately 6,000 were left homeless by arson attacks. The marchers maintained complete silence throughout the procession, with the only sound being muffled drums. The parade was deliberately organized by demographic: children dressed in white led the procession, followed by women also dressed in white, with men in dark suits bringing up the rear carrying banners. The banners condemned racist violence and racial discrimination. Boy Scouts distributed informational flyers describing the NAACP's opposition to segregation, lynching, and racial discrimination. An additional 20,000 African American New Yorkers lined Fifth Avenue to witness the march. The Silent Parade was the first major mass demonstration by African Americans and the first large, exclusively African American protest in New York City. Historian Chad Williams described it as marking "the beginning of a new epoch in the long black freedom struggle," while historian Patricia Sullivan called it "one of the most stunning protest marches in the annals of the black freedom struggle."