The parade was held on July 28, 1917, along Fifth Avenue in New York City, and as Google points out the only noise, "was the battle away from the battery." Google chose the Google Doodle Silent Parade to honor "one century later."
At that time the parade was also called "silent protest parade". The NAACP organizers wrote in a PR brochure for the parade marched to awaken "conscience country".
On July 28, 1917, Google said, "The only sound on Fifth Avenue in New York City was clunk of the drums, while about 10,000 children, women and African-American men marched in silence in what became known as the Silent Parade."
This was followed by historical violence scenes in East St Louis on July 2, 1917, Williams wrote, where "the white mob's knife shovel, shot and indiscriminately blasted someone with black skin. Men, women, children, elderly, disabled - no one was spared". According to Black Past.org, violence of the audience also called slaughter of San Luis del Este and "was an important catalyst for silent parade. This terrible event took fire six thousand blacks from their homes and left hundreds of deaths."
The silent parade of 1917 was in part a protest against mob violence and lynchings of African Americans, according to Chad Williams at the University of Brandeis "had become even more scary."
Williams told the violence that preceded the parade in a column published by The Miami Herald. "In Waco, a crowd of 10,000 white Texans attended May 15, 1916, lynchning a black farmer, Jesse Washington. A year later, May 22, 1917 a black forest shaker, Ell people, was killed by more than 5,000 white seek revenge in Memphis "Wrote Williams.
