Modes of Fighting Back

Armed Self-Defense: Many Black communities relied on veterans, such as Harry Haywood, who argued that their military training should be used to protect their homes rather than fight foreign wars.

The Black Press: Newspapers like the Chicago Defender documented white violence and encouraged self-defense, countering narratives that blamed Black residents for the "riots".

Legal & Political Resistance: The NAACP, founded in 1909 in response to racial violence, fought against lynching and for voting rights, including legal challenges against "grandfather clauses".

Economic Independence: Movements to build black-owned businesses and neighborhoods, such as in Durham, North Carolina, or Greenwood, Oklahoma, served as a direct challenge to the idea of white economic superiority.
New-York Historical Society

Throughout these periods, Black residents often faced, in addition to white mobs, efforts by police and state militias to disarm them, often leading to lynchings or mass arrests of the victims of the violence.
Zinn Education Project