Bayeté Ross Smith’s project on the Red Summer of 1919 reveals ‘uncanny’ likeness to today’s political violence
Last modified on Mon 3 Jan 2022 16.56 GMT
In the past year, film-maker Bayeté Ross Smith has traveled across the country, trying to find the exact locations where Black people were brutally attacked and killed a century ago. He wanted to make films that showed his viewers that they are living on top of a history of racial violence that was rarely taught or discussed.
He started by studying pictures of white mobs climbing buildings, destroying neighborhoods and killing Black people – all part of a white backlash to the progress Black Americans made after the first world war. Incidents of racial terror were so numerous in the summer of 1919 that it was given a name: Red Summer.