Chester's neighborhoods, largely white and black middle- and working-class, were generally segregated by race, income and social status.
[1] The increase in industrial manufacturing due to economic production related to World War I brought massive and disruptive growth to Chester.
The Sun Shipbuilding & Drydock Co. opened in 1917 to build tanker ships,[2] the idled Delaware River Iron Ship Building and Engine Works shipyard was revived as the Merchant Shipbuilding Corporation[3] and the Baldwin Locomotive Works in nearby Eddystone produced locomotives and railway gun carriages for the war.
[7] Black workers lived in filthy and overpopulated segregated work camps hastily erected near factories.
Bethel Court was the "red-light district" of Chester, located in one of poorest black neighborhoods in the West end.
[12] On July 27, the mayor of Chester, Wesley S. McDowell, ordered all hotels, pool halls and liquor stores closed; forbade the carrying of weapons and implemented a curfew after dark.
Delaware County Sheriff John H. Heyburn, Jr. declared a "state of riot" in Chester and forbade public assembly in the city.
[12] By July 30, seven people had been killed, twenty-eight suffered gunshot wounds,[16] 360 arrested[10] and hundreds treated for injuries at the hospital.