In the aftermath, the East St. Louis Chamber of Commerce called for the resignation of the local police chief because officers were told not to shoot white rioters and were unable to suppress the violence and destruction.

Many would-be workers were drafted or enlisted into military service, creating a shortage of labor for industrial employers in major cities, which had long been destinations for European immigrants.

Concurrently, African Americans began the Great Migration from the rural Southern United States to seek better work and education in the North, as well as to escape from lynchings and the second-class status of the Jim Crow era.

When industries became embroiled in labor strikes, the traditionally white unions often sought to strengthen their bargaining positions by hindering or excluding black workers.

Conversely, industry owners hired black people as replacements or strikebreakers, deepening existing segregation and inter-racial hostility.

[citation needed] While in New Orleans on a lecture tour, Jamaican black nationalist Marcus Garvey, who founded the UNIA in 1916, became aware that Louisiana planters and the city's Board of Trade were worried about losing their labor force.

In a speech the following year, he said that Mayor Fred Mollman of East St. Louis had been visiting New Orleans the same week, and city leaders had asked for his assistance to help discourage black migration to the North.

[6] In the summer of 1916, 2,500 white employees of the meatpacking industry near East St. Louis went on strike for higher wages, and the companies imported black workers as strikebreakers to replace them.

[10][page needed][11] Following the May 28 meeting, some 1,000–3,000 white men marched into downtown East St. Louis and began attacking African Americans on the street and in streetcars, and burning some buildings.

After cutting the water hoses of the fire department, white rioters burned entire sections of the city and shot black residents as they escaped the flames.

[18]Hundreds of blacks fled across the Eads Bridge over the Mississippi River to St. Louis to escape the violence, while 1,500 sought refuge in city buildings.

The Red Cross Emergency Committee met daily with Acting Mayor Aloe, members of his administration, and representatives of the charities to discuss how to aid the refugees.

The New York Times reported that "ten or fifteen young girls about 18 years old, chased a negro woman at the Relay Depot at about 5 o'clock.

A Congressional Investigating Committee, which met in the fall of that year, concluded that no precise death toll could be determined, but reported that at least 8 whites and 39 African Americans died.

[26] The ferocious brutality of the attacks and the failure of authorities to protect civilian lives contributed to the radicalization of many blacks in St. Louis and the nation.

[27] Marcus Garvey, black nationalist leader of the UNIA from Jamaica, declared in a July 8 speech that the riot proved that the United States' claim to be a "dispenser of democracy" and its criticism of the Empire of Germany for human rights abuses in the Great War was hypocritical.

"[6][28] In New York City on July 28, ten thousand black people marched down Fifth Avenue in a Silent Parade, protesting the East St. Louis Riot.

In a mass meeting in Carnegie Hall on July 12 in New York City, Samuel Gompers, the president of the American Federation of Labor, tried to diminish the role in the massacre attributed to trade unions.

President Woodrow Wilson wrote to him on July 28, saying that special agents of the Department of Justice could not find enough evidence to justify federal action in the matter.

The representatives of the Department of Justice are so far as possible lending aid to the State authorities in their efforts to restore tranquility and guard against further outbreaks.

[citation needed] In October the state tried 25 blacks and 10 whites on charges related to the massacre, including homicide and incitement to riot.

While not charged with the deaths of Cook's family, John Dow, Charles Hanna, and Harry Robinson were tried for the murder of William Keyser, a white merchant who'd been killed by a bullet which passed through the body of Lurizza Beard.

[33][34] On October 12, 1917, two whites, Herbert Wood, 40, and Leo Keane, 17, were found guilty of murder in the death of Scott Clark, a black man.

However, the jury instead fixed the sentences at 14 years, the same punishment recently imposed on ten black men who were convicted of murdering a white police officer during the riots.