Entry · catalog no. 8306
Red Summer
/ /ˌɹɛd ˈsʌmɚ/ /RED SUM-er
noun · United States · 1910s
✓ Verified
1.
The months of 1919 in which white supremacist attacks and riots struck Black communities across the United States, including Chicago, Washington, D.C. and Elaine, Arkansas. Black residents often fought back. The name was given by James Weldon Johnson of the NAACP.
“Her great-grandfather kept his rifle after the Red Summer and never said why until she was grown.”
Origin & Attribution
Coined in 1919 by James Weldon Johnson, author and NAACP field secretary since 1916, who organized peaceful protests against that year's racial violence. It followed World War I demobilization, recession and competition for jobs between white workers and Black migrants who had moved north, along with official fear of communism after 1917. More than three dozen cities saw attacks. The Chicago riot ran July 27 to August 3 (38 dead, 527 injured, about 1,000 Black families homeless); the Washington, D.C. riot ran July 19 to 24 (15 dead, with notable Black resistance); the Elaine, Arkansas massacre of September 30 to October 1 is estimated at 100 to 240 Black deaths. Dr. George Edmund Haynes reported on the violence to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in October 1919.
1919
James Weldon Johnson names the summer's violence Red Summer
1919
Haynes reports to the Senate Judiciary Committee
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide
United States · 1910s
Spoken by
Black Americans and historians of the period
$REDSUMThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Rising0 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
35/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1919
in the culture
Mainstream crossover
1919
search interest spikes
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
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Citations & Sources
■
James Weldon Johnson, NAACP, coining Red Summer (1919)
1919
■
+ Cite a sourceGeorge Edmund Haynes, report to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, October 1919
1919
See also