Germany [in World War I] has nothing on East St. Louis when it comes to “frightfulness.” Indeed in one respect Germany does not even approximate her ill-famed sister. In all the accounts given of German atrocities, no one, we believe, has accused the Germans of taking pleasure in the sufferings of their victims. But these [white] rioters combined business and pleasure.

—W. E. B. Du Bois

 

There has never been a time when the riot was not alive in the oral tradition.

—Eugene Redmond, poet laureate of East St. Louis