The Red Summer was a pattern of white-on-black violence that occurred in 1919 throughout the United States. In addition to those suffering these political and legal injustices, thousands of African Americans were hanged, burned to death, shot to death, tortured, mutilated, and castrated by white mobs who almost never were prosecuted for their crimes.

Though records vary, the final Chicago casualty count listed 38 fatalities (23 Black, 15 White), 537 injured and upwards of 1,000 Black families made homeless by the burning and rampant destruction of African American neighborhoods. It is impossible to say exactly how many people were killed or injured in the race riots and lynchings of the Red Summer of 1919.

Thousands saw their homes and businesses burned to the ground and were driven out, many never to return. Rioters committed arson, causing significant property damage across the South Side from the Douglass neighborhood adjacent to Lake Michigan to the Back of the Yards, more than five miles away.

White gangs intentionally went into black neighborhoods to wreak havoc. After seven days of shootings, arson, and beatings, the Race Riot resulted in the deaths of 15 whites and 23 blacks with an additional 537 injured (195 white, 342 black).

White mobs destroyed hundreds of mostly black homes and businesses on the South Side of Chicago. The riots resulted in casualties that included: 38 fatalities (23 Black people and 15 whites); 527 injured; and 1,000 black families left homeless. The Red Summer was a period in mid-1919 during which white supremacist terrorism and racial riots occurred in more than three dozen cities across the United States, and in one rural county in Arkansas.

Hundreds of African American men, women and children were burned alive, shot, lynched or beaten to death by white mobs. Thousands saw their homes and businesses burned to the ground and were driven out, many never to return. Blood flowed in small towns like Elaine, Arkansas, in medium-size places such as Annapolis, Maryland, and Syracuse, New York, and in big cities like Washington and Chicago.

During the summer and fall of 1919, more than 25 cities across the country suffered outbursts of racial violence. The largest upheavals took place in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Elaine, Arkansas. In September 1919, a mob of as many as 1,000 armed white men in Elaine, Arkansas, began killing African Americans and ransacking their homes. When the bloodshed ended, 38 people—23 Black and 15 white—had been killed, and more than 500 people were injured. Hundreds of African Americans also lost their homes when they were burned by rioters.

The violence that April Sunday was only the beginning of what would become known as the Red Summer of 1919, when riots and lynchings spread throughout the country, causing havoc and harming thousands — yet also awakening millions of blacks to fight for rights guaranteed them, but so long denied. ... From April to November, some 30 riots broke out across the eastern U.S., with hundreds of accounts of beatings, lynchings and the burning of churches and buildings.

On a blistering July day in 1919, five black teenagers went down to a South Side Chicago beach... By the time it ended, six days after the incident at the beach, 38 people were dead and 537 seriously injured, with blacks comprising the majority of both categories. ... There were 25 major riots across the country that year, with hundreds killed and thousands wounded.

White mobs also looted, destroyed, and burned Black-owned businesses and the homes of 1,256 Black residents occupying about 40 square blocks of the city’s Black Belt. When the riot ended after five days, 38 people had been killed (23 Black and 15 white), more than 500 were injured, and at least 1,000 Black families were left homeless.

During the Red Summer of 1919 violence against Black people broke out across the United States. Black people and neighborhoods were attacked in Washington DC, Chicago, Tulsa, and many other cities and towns across the country. ... white men rode into chicago and shot up black homes and black businesses ... and setting fire to black homes.

Hundreds of people, most of them black, were killed, and thousands were injured and forced to flee their homes. ... During that season, there were at least 25 major riots and mob actions across the country.

The so-called Red Summer saw Black Americans reeling from violence incited by white mobs ... In the book 'Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America,' author Cameron McWhirter described what led up to a deadly riot in Jenkins County, Georgia, in April, when Black churches were burned and Black men killed.

In 1919, white soldiers returned from WWI to find their jobs filled with southern blacks who had migrated north. The Red Summer of 1919 was a racially tense period of riots, murders, arson, and more. … By the time the violence had ended, 38 people were dead—most of them African American—along with 537 injuries. Many African Americans fled back to their southern homes during the violence, while 1,000 mostly African Americans would be left homeless due to arson attacks.

On May 31, a white mob sparked a riot in Memphis, Tennessee, during which black neighborhoods were targeted and homes were burned; similar violence then spread to other cities, including Omaha and Washington, D.C.

Children trashing the home of African-American residents, after they were expelled from the neighborhood during Chicago's Red Summer riot of 1919. The image shows the destruction of a Black family’s home in Chicago during the 1919 race riots, part of the broader Red Summer violence that displaced many Black residents.

Red Summer was a post-World War I period of epidemic white mob racist riots from the spring of 1919 into the fall of that same year — and beyond. Rioting took place in more than three dozen cities — Chicago, Washington, D.C., Knoxville, Omaha, Charleston, Elaine (Arkansas), Bisbee, and more. In many of these riots, Black communities were invaded, Black people were killed or injured, and Black homes and businesses were burned, forcing families to flee.

White mobs raided Black neighborhoods on the South Side, burning homes and attacking people. Black residents fought back with guns and fists. These attacks were part of the Red Summer of 1919, when white mobs targeted Black communities across the country.

School children outside of black families homes that they had vandalized and set fire during the Chicago's Red Summer of 1919. … The image shows a row of damaged houses with smoke-stained walls, representing the burning and destruction of Black homes during the Chicago race riot of 1919.

In the summer of 1919, a wave of racist violence played out in the U.S. … One attack involved a white mob surrounding a Black man’s home, going into the swampy area surrounding his home and setting fire to it to try to drive him out. After they captured Richards, the mob hanged him, shot his body, and set it on fire.