Postwar anti-alien mob violence burned out entire immigrant districts

Evidence

During the night of August 5, 1920, and all through the following day hundreds of people laden with clothing and household goods filled the roads leading out of West Frankfort, a mining town in southern Illinois. Back in town their homes were burning. Mobs bent on driving every foreigner from the area surged through the streets. Foreigners of all descriptions were beaten on sight, although the Italian population was the chief objective. Time and again the crowds burst into the Italian district, dragged cowering residents from their homes, clubbed and stoned them, and set fire to their dwellings. The havoc went on for three days, although five hundred state troops were rushed to the scene. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 1586

Categorization

• SHARE: Send to a historian friend — West Frankfort 1920 anti-Italian pogrom is a striking, under-known event.
• XREF: connects to: Vigilante anti-Arab violence against immigrant store owners spiked after September 11 — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 504

Broader Connections

• Vigilante anti-Arab violence against immigrant store owners spiked after September 11 #exemplifies (0.85) — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 504