Leonidas Carstarphen Dyer was an American politician, reformer, civil rights activist, and military officer. A Republican, he served eleven terms in the U.S. Congress as a U.S. Representative from Missouri from 1911 to 1933. In 1898, enrolling in the U.S. Army as a private, Dyer served notably in the Spanish–American War; and was promoted to colonel at the war's end.
Leonidas C. Dyer
Leonidas C. Dyer from Missouri was elected to Congress in 1910. In 1918 he authored the Dyer anti-lynching bill. Although passed in the House in 1922, the bill was defeated in the Senate by a Southern Democratic filibuster. Dyer's motto: "We have just begun to fight."
U.S. Sen. Lee Slater Overman from North Carolina, Harris & Ewing, 1914. Southern Democratic senators filibustered the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill in December 1922 and twice more to prevent its passage.
William Borah c. 1919–1925
The East St. Louis massacre was a series of violent attacks on African Americans by white Americans in East St. Louis, Illinois, between late May and early July of 1917. These attacks also displaced 6,000 African Americans and led to the destruction of approximately $400,000 worth of property. They occurred in East St. Louis, an industrial city on the east bank of the Mississippi River, directly opposite the city of St. Louis, Missouri. The July 1917 episode in particular was marked by white-led violence throughout the city. The multi-day rioting has been described as the "worst case of labor-related violence in 20th-century American history", and among the worst racial riots in U.S. history.
1917 political cartoon on the massacre. The caption reads, "Mr. President, why not make America safe for democracy?", referring to President Woodrow Wilson's catch-phrase "The world must be made safe for democracy".
