The event was organized by the NAACP, church, and community leaders to protest violence directed towards African Americans, such as recent lynchings in Waco and Memphis.

The Encyclopedia of the Harlem Rennaissance states that "Eyewitnesses likened the mob to a manhunt, describing how rioters sought out blacks to beat, mutilate, stab, shoot, hang, and burn.

"[2] The brutality of the attacks by mobs of white people and the refusal by the authorities to protect innocent lives contributed to the responsive measures taken by some African Americans in St. Louis and the nation.

"[9] Writers and civil rights activists, W.E.B DuBois and Martha Gruening visited the city after the riot on July 2 in order to speak to witnesses and survivors.

[10][11] James Weldon Johnson, the Field Secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP),[12][13] worked with a group of influential community leaders at the St. Philip's Church in New York to decide how to protest the riots.

[9] However, for this protest, organizers felt that it was important that only black people participate because they were the main victims of the recent violence.

The parade was advertised in The New York Age where it was described as a "mute but solemn protest against the atrocities and discrimination practiced against the race in various parts of the country.

[20][21][22] In the midst of record heat[23] in New York City on July 28, an estimated 8,000 to 15,000 African Americans[24][25] marched in silent protest to the lynchings, as in Waco, Memphis, and especially the East St. Louis riots.

[27] The New York Times described it the following day:[24] To the beat of muffled drums 8,000 negro men, women and children marched down Fifth Avenue yesterday in a parade of "silent protest against acts of discrimination and oppression" inflicted upon them in this country, and in other parts of the world.

Without a shout or a cheer they made their cause known through many banners which they carried, calling attention to "Jim Crowism," segregation, disenfranchisement, and the riots of Waco, Memphis, and East St. Louis.Media coverage of the march helped to counter the dehumanization of black people in the United States.

[28] Marchers hoped to influence Democratic President Wilson to carry through on his election promises to African American voters to implement anti-lynching legislation and promote Black causes.

"[29] They left their petition for Wilson, which reminded him of African Americans serving in World War I and urged him to prevent riots and lynchings in the future.

While the parade was put on under the banner of the Harlem branch of the NAACP, a who's who of the Church and business community helped plan the event.

Du Bois were in the line of officers.The parade was the very first protest of its kind in New York, and the second instance of African Americans publicly demonstrating for civil rights.

[32] The Silent Parade evoked empathy by Jewish people who remembered pogroms against them and also inspired the media to express support of African Americans in their struggle against lynching and oppression.

[38] Around 300 people marched from the SIUE East St. Louis Higher Learning Center to the Eads Bridge.

[42] The event, with around 100 people and many participants wearing white, was not able to march down Fifth Avenue because the city would not grant access due to Trump Tower being located there.

[43] The commemoration took place on Sixth Avenue instead, and the group held up portraits of contemporary victims of violence by both police and vigilantes in the United States.