One hundred years ago today (28 July), around 10,000 African Americans gathered on Fifth Avenue to march against racial violence and discrimination in New York’s Silent Parade protest. To mark the centenary, the non-profit group Kindred Arts is organising a march memorialising the event, in partnership with the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and the arts initiative Inside Out.
The 1917 demonstration, organised by W.E.B. Du Bois and the NAACP, happened in the wake of the East St Louis riots in Illinois, where mobs of white men murdered somewhere between 40 and 200 African Americans with little to no police intervention (the exact death toll is unknown). The mob also caused substantial property damage, displacing nearly 6,000 African American residents in the city.
“Children aren’t taught about the protest in school and, while I was researching it, I realised there was no one was doing anything in New York to remember it—it was shocking that there nothing was going on," Marsha Reid, the executive director of Kindred Arts, tells The Art Newspaper. “I thought—well, I’m someone. That’s when I called the NAACP and we decided to do something."
Artists, poets, musicians and the participating public, who are encouraged to wear all white, as protestor did 100 years ago, will gather at 5pm EDT on the Fountain Terrace of Bryant Park, and, led by a drumline organised by the composer Brian Satz, march with art pieces and signs that reflect on the original demonstration and address current political and social concerns. Some artists slated to participate include the graphic artist Emory Douglas, who was once the Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party, the filmmaker and culture writer Dream Hampton and the activist and writer Jamal Joseph.
