The Bloody Summer of 1915
The
Bloody Summer of 1915 was an armed insurrection of white Dixians in the summer of 1915 aimed primarily at putting an end to the newfound rights that Black Dixians had gained following the full abolition of slavery in 1899.
During the
Populist Era (1886-1916), a widespread movement of social and political activism grew largely made up of poorer whites in Dixie with the aim to elevate their standard of living and to weaken the power of the wealthy landowners and businessmen. One of the main goals of the Populists of the era was the full abolition of slavery claiming that the practice damaged the wages that poor white farmers and factory workers could earn. Earlier efforts largely led by the National Party in the past had restricted it (such as Missouri's and Kentucky's ban on slavery in the 1870's), but those effort failed to fully end the practice. In 1899, Populist
President Tom Watson of Georgia would be successful in passing the 12th amendment to the Dixie Constitution to completely abolish slavery, but the question remained as to what would happen with the now freed slaves in the country.
While the Democrats wanted Black Dixians to remain as second class citizens without voting rights, a large subsection of the Populists and many Nationals began advocating for the the freed slaves and the poor whites to ally politically to further their common interests. In several cities and states across the country, Populists helped to give Black Dixians the vote and formed coalitions with the parties and politicians they would elect. These coalitions were called the
"Fusionists". The Fusionists began to take power in many areas of the country in the early 20th century, and were instrumental in the 1910 election of Populist
President William Jennings Bryan of Missouri.
President Bryan was much more sympathetic to the Fusionists and giving voting rights to Black Dixians than any president before him, but the backlash to President Bryan's support was fierce. Reactionary violence in the form of lynchings and other intimidation techniques against black voters and their Fusionist allies ramped up considerably during this period. The
Knights of Dixie, an organization formed to further white supremacy in Dixie, began to gain popularity in the country as well as other paramilitary organizations called the
Blue Shirts. In the 1913 midterms, hundreds of reactionary whites were swept in to office across the country in a wave of race baiting propaganda. In 1915 this violence reached its peak.
On June 11, 1915, in
Mobile, West Florida, the local chapter of the Knights of Dixie began rallying in the city after an ordinance passed by the Fusionist city government outlawed armed demonstrations at polling places. What first was a small rally however became a mod numbering in thousands that began rampaging through the city attacking black residents and destroying their homes and businesses. That night 11 black residents would be killed and dozens of homes and businesses were burned or vandalized. However, the violence did not end that night; it continued for several days afterward with groups killing nearly 200 and destroying huge swaths of the city. One of the white Fusionist city councilmen was also killed by the mob after he came out to try to settle them down. Black and Fusionist residents fled the city en mass to escape the bloodshed. Bryan on June 15 made his famous and consequential "Bloody Summer Address" where he announced that he planned on send in the army to quell the violence soon if the fighting did not halt quickly in Mobile, but this only multiplied the issue several times over.
Following Bryan's address, outraged white mobs led by the Knights of Dixie and the Blue Shirts began rising up and attacking Fusionists and Black Dixians wherever they held political power all across Dixie. Within a few weeks, the violence had taken over in almost every city with a Fusionist presence. In the state governments that the Fusionists controlled, the Fusionist politicians began to abandon their black allies to placate the reactionary mobs. The violence would continue for over two months before it would finally settle, but now many former Fusionist local governments were controlled by white supremacists. Bryan, faced with opposition from the federal government and the military he was commander of, never actually sent the army to stop riots anywhere.
The Populists were stunned and were divided with how to continue to operate, either by continuing to try and ally with the black population, or pandering to the white reactionaries to keep their goals. The Democrats, however, would beat them to the punch. With the Populists frozen with how to act, many Democratic leaders had begun co-opting Populist economic ideas and combined it with white supremacy to great success. Democrats such as Mississippi Senator
James Vardaman, and Georgia Governor
Woodrow Wilson used this combination as a way to attain huge popularity among white Dixians while the Populists faded into obscurity. In 1916, in the first direct popular vote for president and vice president (a central policy touted and passed by Bryan), Wilson and Vardaman would easily win election to the presidency and the vice presidency respectively. With this new regime in power, the federal government would be segregated and the states were given free reign to restrict voting access and segregate the black population at their will. The
Exclusion Era had begun.
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