Story of the Riot

In the summer of 1900, violence erupted in the streets of New York. For three days, mobs attacked Black citizens while police stood by or joined in. This is the official record of what happened, compiled by journalist Frank Moss in the immediate aftermath, drawing from eyewitness testimony and affidavits. Moss gave voice to those the city wanted silent. Through survivor accounts and legal documentation, he preserved what the mainstream press ignored or distorted: the terror of Black New Yorkers abandoned by the institutions sworn to protect them, the arbitrary arrests, the beatings, the destruction of property. The riot began after a confrontation between police and a Black man named Robert G. Anderson, and spread through Harlem and the Tenderloin district. This isn't a polished history. It's raw, urgent, angry. It exists because someone believed these stories needed to be told. For anyone interested in the long arc of racial violence in America, or in how journalists have historically borne witness to injustice, this document remains essential.