EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill — Last year, Empire 13 nonprofit Director JD Dixon lead about a hundred people on a march to commemorate the 1917 East St. Louis Race Riot.
"The white workers were striking, the black workers took the jobs and then the white terrorist mob got mad, came down here and murdered and slaughtered women, children, men and just destroyed homes and businesses," Dixon said.
He's teaming up with Metro East Organizing Coalition Director Larita Rice-Barnes to host the 2nd annual march on July 2.
"I grew up in the City of East St. Louis, and I didn't know about the race riot until well into my adult years that it even had happened. It's something that's been kept in secrecy," Barnes said.
White industrial workers on strike massacred black families in East St. Louis for three days, from July 1-3.
"It looks like an atomic bomb was dropped. Entire blocks are gone, destroyed, burned down, I mean it looks like a desolate land in those pictures," Dixon said. "They tried to say it was only a dozen or so that was murdered when it was over 200 murdered. They even tried to say it was only a few thousand dollars of property destroyed when it was millions."
The march not only honors the people who were killed more than 100 years ago in the riots but also calls for reparations for those still living in East St. Louis.
"Those businesses could've turned into fortune 500 companies today. Those homes could've been passed down to kids today," Dixon said.
"We know that reparations have happened for other races, and we also want to see it happen for our race and also our community," Barnes said.
"We are here to march for justice. We are here to march to bring equity to the Black communities, the Black Americans that have been oppressed for centuries since being here," Dixon said.
The march is on Saturday, July 2, at 11 a.m.
They're meeting at East St. Louis City Hall on Riverpark Drive.
The route is about 25 minutes long.
