Remembering the Silent Parade

New York City has a long history of peaceful protest, and one of the biggest calls for change happened over a century ago right here in what are currently the Bryant Park and 34th Street districts. On July 28, 1917, thousands of African Americans marched down Fifth Avenue from 57th Street to Madison Square in the Silent Parade, the first-ever large demonstration for civil rights in New York City. Marchers passed Bryant Park, the recently completed New York Public Library, and the site of what would one day become the Empire State Building.

The Silent Parade was a response to several racially-charged incidents that had recently occurred in the United States, including lynchings in Waco, TX, and Memphis, TN, as well as a race riot in East St. Louis, IL.

Organized by the NAACP, the Silent Parade was intended to protest violence against African Americans, promote anti-lynching legislation, and bring attention to contributions made by African Americans to the economy and military. Prominent African American church leaders were appointed to serve as executives for the parade, which was advertised in The New York Age as a “mute but solemn protest against the atrocities and discrimination practiced in various parts of the country.”

Marching in the parade was a wide-ranging group that included Boy Scouts, emergency ambulance corps personnel, veterans from past wars, and, to emphasize that thousands of African American troops were currently in France under the command of General Pershing, men in “the khaki of the U.S. Army.”

Contemporaneous estimates of the number of marchers ranged from 8,000 to 15,000, with many more looking on. As the New York Times reported, “the parade was, in all respects, one of the most quiet and orderly demonstrations ever witnessed on Fifth Avenue.”

Nonviolent protest has been an effective tool to drive change for a very long time, and we applaud those who continue to make their voices heard in peaceful ways.