The Chicago riot provoked probably the first full expressions of sentiment from Negroes in their own press. Underlying them are attitudes toward present race relations. There is a strong note of resentment, and the announcement of the birth of a "New Negro."
The war is credited with bringing about this change. More than 250,000 young Negroes, the pick of the race in health and intelligence, had returned to the United States, presumably with changed ideas, and perhaps with growing cynicism as to promises of fair treatment. Perhaps for the first time in American history the Negro group fought in the 1919 riot as a body against mob violence. The idea that these disorders are a result of active opposition to distasteful practices is prominent in practically every Negro discussion. "The Negro race is facing about" is a familiar statement. Said one Negro newspaper:
It is the utter ignoring of the Negro in the community life that is responsible for these outbreaks. The controlling whites were absolutely out of touch with the Negroes, and the races came together in a quarrel and there was no means by which the trouble could be settled.
A monthly magazine, the Favorite, said:
If the white man thinks that the rights, privileges and ordinary pursuits of the Negro can now be annulled at this stage of the world's affairs, he certainly has "another thought coming." This Washington revolt is only the "handwriting on the wall." Don't squeeze the Negro too hard; if you do you squeeze him to the bursting point. The young Negro of today is far different from his foreparents, and will not be content with anything less than a fair deal.
The New York American said:
The dangerous enemy of his race is the colored man that advocates force as a remedy. There is such a thing as being outnumbered beyond any hope.
A Negro newspaper replied:
There is such a thing, too, as a noble preference of death to a life of slavery. Do Hearst and Arthur Brisbane think the sentiment of "Give me Liberty or Give me Death" belongs exclusively to a white skin?
A poem in the Crusader and republished in the Messenger and several other periodicals, carries this same idea: