During the summer of 1919 racial tensions had reached an all-time high, evident in the 35 riots that took place during the summer. Riots in Chicago, Houston and North Carolina have called into question the role of race in America. Blacks pushed the status quo of these communities, such as the citizens of Chicago who refused to be regulated on a certain beach, or the soldiers of Houston who did not tolerate their second-class status. These Americans, particularly the Houston soldiers, allude to a change in race relations, on the part of blacks, but also reinforce the discriminatory Jim Crow policies accepted throughout the nation. In an editorial published in the Chicago Defender, Another Angle of the Trouble, Abbot proposes an alternative cause behind the Red Summer riots. Individual acts of violence may have been the trigger for racial tensions in America, but it was the root cause that gathered entire communities into lawless mobs. The racial tensions present throughout America at the end of the First World War were caused by the widespread belief in the inferiority of African Americans. These claims maintained a racial hierarchy, diminished the validity of law and order, and lost the support of otherwise loyal citizens. In an effort to maintain control over African Americans, Southern whites embraced forms of domestic terrorism through lynching and other methods of mass violence to keep the issue of race constantly present in the public mind. Justifying these acts as a necessity to “keep the black man in his place and prevent Negro domination,” whites maintain power by appealing to popular sentiments that define blacks as violent and out of control (Smith, 47). This popular support allowed a near-free reign of violence against blacks beyond… middle of paper… by offering protection to blacks, the nation gave the impression that “the government under which we should live… if necessary, to die, does not offer them the protection commensurate with that devotion and loyalty”7 (Abate, 1919). The nation cannot afford the consequences of this. America cannot risk losing an eighth of its population to lawlessness and betrayal. During a highly controversial period, Americans increasingly resorted to racial violence, causing large-scale civil unrest. What resulted were riots that engulfed the nation in racial tension. In an article from September 1919 Abbot states that the cause of this hatred came from the widespread belief in the inferiority of blacks. These claims have resulted in the maintenance of a racial hierarchy, diminished the validity of law and order, and lost the support of otherwise loyal African American citizens..