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MAN WHO COULD RECITE          NORRICK

"They say-that is, the papers said-that more than 100 persons were killed, but I say there was no way of counting and it will never be known.

"And you couldn't do anything. Even the ambulances couldn't get in to pick up the dead and the dying.  Horses pulled ambulances then. The people took hold of the horses and dared the driver to move. Same with the fire wagons. The rioters stopped them dead.  Once the firemen managed to get a hose out and attached to a hydrant. I saw this.  What did the people do?  They cut the hose.  All that saved East St. Louis from burning to the ground that night was that the wind was blowing over the river toward St. Louis and not back over the town."

a night and day of horror

And, lest my father's story not be believed, there is that Congres-sional record again, telling even worse, and observing-"Scenes of horror...were viewed with placid unconcern by thousands.  Negroes were followed into their homes, and torches set to those wooden shacks.  Negroes were then shot down as they tried to flee.  A Negro child was thrown into a burning building.  Bodies were thrown into the morgue like so many dead hogs."

The police, who "could have quelled the rioting in the beginning" left their stations and fled to safety, or "listlessly watched and in many instances shared in the mob's work."  They charged reporters and photographers with their billies, broke their machines, and destroyed their negatives, and threatened them with arrests.  The soldiers who were sent in "fraternized with the rioters," and a militia-man, in uniform, "led one section of the mob."

On and on the record goes of that night and day of carnage.  An old man, remembering it, fifty years away from it, broke off the story.

"Don't ever ask me anything about this ever again," he said.  "I don't like to think about it, don't like to think that people would do a thing like that."

He had to go on, had to tell the story to the end.

"The saddest sight of all - and this I'll never forget -" he said, "was the way the Negroes were rounded up - those lucky enough to be alive - and marched right down Collinsville Avenue, the soldiers doing that.  I looked up to see if Harris - that fellow I was telling you about - was there, but he wasn't.  I couldn't take my eyes off a young couple with a baby.  She was carrying the baby.  The man had his arms up, as they were made to do.  Such a nice, good-looking couple,

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---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-15 11:35:52