New York City had never see anything quite like it . On July 28 , 1917 , between the building and business of Fifth Avenue , roughly10,000 bleak citizensmade their way down the street . Handwritten mark protesting racial discrimination and violence emerged from the sea of marchers ; police mingled with 20,000 onlooker , quick to interpose at the first sign of trouble . Whose defense they might come to was in query .
Known as the Silent Parade , the event was the first of its sort on American land — a heavily publicized , massive , and mastermind curse of civic rights violations that had been plaguing the country . In 1916 , black farmer Jesse Washington had been lynched in Waco , Texas ; a mob scene in East St. Louis just weeks prior to the march saw upwardly of 200 people killed .
To draw attention to these crimes , National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP ) theatre secretaire James Weldon Johnson rallied his Harlem offset to make a public spectacle of their ira . His countersign circulate throughout the contraband residential district , and by 1 p.m. that daytime , Johnson was part of an ocean of citizen walking in silence to decry the condemnable racism and clean supremacist natural process transfix American acculturation . The only sound heard was the pulse of barrel . Some onlookers cry .
The optical wallop was augmented by their option of dress . The woman and children wore white ; the men wear off black . Messages like " Thou shalt not defeat " and " Your hands are full of lineage " were publish on signaling . Some of them addressed President Woodrow Wilson , who they feel wasfailingto live up to campaign promise to make America a incorporated and liberal Carry Amelia Moore Nation .
The passive demonstrationbeganat 57th Street and ended at Madison Square Park , which go through the assembly cheer out of a horse sense of triumph . Displaying a mixing of benevolence and lamentation , they had demonstrated that the ignominious community would not stand passively while being victimized . Today , the Silent Parade — which is being remember with aGoogle Doodleto commemorate its 100th anniversary — is greet as being a pioneering step in the battle to attain par for all .
