Nearly 100 years before Michael Brown was killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, one of the largest race riots in history broke out just across the Mississippi River from downtown St. Louis. The July 1917 riot in East St. Louis, Illinois, turned into a massacre, leaving 39 Black people dead, according to official records. Historians estimate that hundreds more likely died.
At the time of the massacre, Dhati Kennedy’s father was living in East St. Louis. The PBS NewsHour’s Yamiche Alcindor spoke with Kennedy about his family’s experience, living through and surviving what they call a race war.
“We never saw him as traumatized or with PTSD,” Kennedy said about his father. “Those are things we didn’t understand at the time. I’m sure he was.”
Stream your PBS favorites with the PBS app: https://to.pbs.org/2Jb8twG
Find more from PBS NewsHour at https://www.pbs.org/newshour
Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/2HfsCD6
Follow us:
Facebook: http://www.pbs.org/newshour
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/newshour
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/newshour
Subscribe:
PBS NewsHour podcasts: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/podcasts
Newsletters: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/subscribe
