a closed automobile which had followed the parade and was standing near by, and fired into the cigar store. One of these bullets killed Joseph Hoyt, a clerk in the store. The sailor, Rose, also died from his wound. In all about twenty-five shots were fired during the fracas, and several persons were injured.
The men who did the shooting escaped but were arrested later. Crowds attracted by the demonstration quickly dispersed when the shooting began, and from then on there was virtually no disorder except for attacks at a railroad station on three Negro ministers who were returning to the city and knew nothing of the shooting. Nine Negroes were arrested and held to the grand jury. One of them was Grover Cleveland Redding, thirty-seven or thirty-eight years of age, who was the "prophet" of the "Abyssinian" order in Chicago. Redding, who had admitted the shooting of Rose, was held with Oscar McGavick for murder, and the others as accessories after the fact.[11]
The exact reason for this flag-burning has not been disclosed, although it was apparently intended to symbolize the feeling of the "Abyssinian" followers that it was time to forswear allegiance to the American government and consider themselves under allegiance to the Abyssinian government.
The guns used in the shooting were found by the police in a garage, together with the regalia of the "Abyssinians," and much of their printed matter and other effects.[12]
The "Abyssinian" affair might easily have been turned into another great outbreak such as that of July, 1919. But the police, profiting by their experience of the previous year, were vigilant. They had organized an emergency force which was quickly mobilized and put in service in the district. Moreover, there was evident such a feeling of restraint on the part of both whites and Negroes that they combined to hunt down the offenders.
Indicative of this spirit of co-operation to prevent racial conflict, and helpful to it, was the careful handling of the matter by the press. Practically every newspaper gave prominence to the way in which the two races worked together to this end, and all dwelt on the courageous action of the Negro policeman. A picture printed in the Herald-Examiner the following morning showed people of the two races fraternizing after the shooting. The Daily News in reporting the affray said that only the co-operation of the white and Negro merchants of the district stopped the disturbance; that rowdies in the neighborhood were ready for a fight, but that "the better class of whites and Negroes worked directly with the police to stop any such trouble as a recurrence of the rioting last summer, which occurred in the same neighborhood."
To understand the "Abyssinian" affair an acquaintance with other characters, certain group propaganda and movements, is necessary. The "Back to Africa" movement, which lent fervor and enthusiasm to the development of lawlessness and wanton killing by this group of unlettered Negroes, has been in progress for more than two years. The Black Star Steamship Line and the Universal Improvement Association, headed by a Negro, Marcus Garvey, a British subject, were organized to establish commercial relations with Africa. To arouse interest and secure funds for the enterprise, sentiment has been created among Negroes for the developing of sections of Africa where they may govern themselves and build up their own institutions and commerce. The movement has gained thousands of adherents; although the language of its appeals has frequently been extreme, it has engaged in no dangerous or unpatriotic activities. Its connection with the tragic incident lies in the implication that "Back to Africa" means away from the land of unfair treatment, and thus suggests contempt for the United States.
PROPAGANDA LITERATURE USED BY "ABYSSINIANS" IN RECRUITING FOLLOWERS
The "Star Order of Ethiopia and Ethiopian Missionaries to Abyssinia" appears to be an illegitimate offspring of the Universal Improvement Association and the Black Star Steamship Line. The visit of the Abyssinian Mission to this country a year ago to renew a treaty between their country and the United States probably served as an added suggestion. The leaders of the movement were Redding, secretary of the order; Joseph Fernon, called the "Great Abyssinian," and his son, "The Prince." Together with a "Dr." R. D. Jonas, a white man who for several years has engaged in sundry activities among Negroes, they organized this movement among a class of Negroes too ignorant to exercise restraint over their racial resentments.
Emotionalism was aroused and a semi-religious twist was given through their appeals, which played more or less injudiciously on the desire of Negroes to improve their economic status and to escape from what some of them regard as oppression, either in this or in other countries. One or two other similar organizations are making such an appeal, not only to Negroes in this country, but to other dark-skinned races throughout the world. It is sought to weld them all together into a great nation. Glittering promises are set before the illiterate element of the Negro race, which has responded sufficiently to fatten the purses of some, at least, of the "prophets."
Redding was one of these "prophets." He was influenced by the white man, "Dr." R. D. Jonas, and had purchased from him the robe or toga which he wore during the parade of June 20. According to those who knew both men, he had first "stolen Jonas' thunder" and the following out of which the "Star Order of Ethiopia" had been manufactured. Having lost this, Jonas was willing to sell the regalia.
Jonas, it appears, had been promoting one movement after another among illiterate Negroes for six or seven years. At one time he conducted a co-operative store on State Street, in which he sold shares. He was often an orator at street gatherings and had been arrested a number of times. When Alexander Dowie of Zion City died, Jonas is said to have attempted to put himself into the vacant position. After the East St. Louis riots he appeared in Chicago in an express wagon with signs indicating that he was collecting funds for the Negroes of East St. Louis.
During the afternoon of the shooting, Jonas had been the principal speaker at a small, orderly meeting of Negroes in Johnson's Hall, 3516 South State Street, at which he had launched a campaign for Mayor Thompson as a third-party candidate for president of the United States. The Mayor, he said, was the only man who could be trusted "to carry out Roosevelt's work" and put through the treaty with Abyssinia which expired in 1917. He also referred to the efforts of the Jews to return to Palestine and of the Irish to free themselves from British domination, and suggested the desirability of a coalition of the Negro, Jewish, and Irish races. Redding's hold on many of the Negroes was partly due to the fact that he is a Negro and claims to be a native of Abyssinia, whereas Jonas is a white man.
Quite evidently the "Back to Abyssinia" movement was used as a means for exploiting credulous Negroes. For one dollar they could purchase an Abyssinian flag, a small pamphlet containing a prophecy relating to the return of the black-skinned people to Africa, a copy of a so-called treaty between the United States and Abyssinia, and a picture of the "Prince of the Abyssinians." Likewise when the propaganda had begun to take root, one might sign a blank form which would commit him to return to "my motherland of Ethiopia" in order that he might fill any one of forty-four positions, such as electrical engineer, mechanical draftsman, civil engineer, architect, chemist, sign-painter, cartoonist, illustrator, traffic manager, teacher, auto-repairing, agriculture, and poultry-raising. The blank itself was headed:
STAR ORDER OF ETHIOPIA
AND
THE ETHIOPIAN MISSIONARY TO ABYSSINIA
"A Prince shall come out of Egypt. Ethiopia shall soon stretch
out her hands to God."—Ps. 68:31.
This is to certify that my name was given to Elder Grover Redding, Missionary to Abyssinia, to show to my brothers in my motherland that I am with them, heart and soul.
Oh, Wonderful Land, God remembers Thee. He shall deliver Thee from under the heels of Thy Oppressors. He remembers when Asia condemned Him, and Europe put Him to death, and it was Africa who haven him until King Herod was dead. It was Africa's son who helped
