Why is it that,

the names of Fort Sumter,

Bull Run,

Shiloh,

and Gettysburg,

resound even today

after more than a century and a half?

Yet, what happened in 1919 during the red summer

leaves a resounding blankness.

Two years before the Tulsa Massacre,

America ran red with black blood.

From April to December Whites attacked blacks

many black servicemen returning from World War I.

The city streets ran red.

Tennessee, Georgia

Florida, West Virginia,

Mississippi, South Carolina

Arkansas, Connecticut,

Maryland, Arizona

Pennsylvania, Alabama

Texas, Arkansas

New York, Louisiana

Nebraska, Kentucky,

Delaware, and even Syracuse NY.

Even the famed Buffalo Soldiers,

were attacked by local police in Bisbee, Arizona.

In Elaine, Arkansas when black sharecroppers tried to unionize,

white militias came from miles around.

At the end, 100 to 237 blacks and 5 whites lay dead.

When Southern Justice came in,

seventy nine black people were tried and all convicted by,

all white juries and 12 were sentenced to death for murder.

So when someone tries to raise that rebel flag,

When someone wants to tell you “all lives matter”,

Just remember the red summer,

Remember that no whites went on trial in Elaine, Arkansas.

Then when you say that could not have happened again,

Then read about Tulsa,

Tuskegee,

Emmett Till,

those four young girls in Birmingham,

then remember,

Philando,

Sandra,

Ahmaud,

George,

Breonna

and Daniel Prude.

Do not tell me it can’t happen again,

because it is happening everyday.

© words by Daniel DeMarle 9/15/2020