A century ago (last month) on July 28,
1917, around 10,000 black (kids, men and women) marched in silence down Fifth
Avenue to protest against racial violence in the United States. This was one of
the first mass protests of anti-black violence in America. It was entitled Silent Parade.
To mark this, Google honored the
centenary with a Google Doodle, “honor[ing] those whose silence resonates a
century later.”
Organized by W.E.B Du Bois and James
Weldon Johnson (NAACP leaders), it was put together as a reaction to the 1917
East St. Louis Riots during which a slew of blacks were killed and thousands
displaced. The non-speaking march from Fifth Avenue to Madison Square
symbolically represented an anti-violence stance by participants who marched
with signs like: “We march because we deem it a crime to be silent in the face
of such barbaric acts,” and “We march because we want our children to live in a
better land," etc.
