Google Doodle Commemorates 100th Anniversary of the Silent Parade

Today’s Google Doodle is commemorating the 100 year anniversary of the Silent Parade, a demonstration on July 28, 1917, where nearly 10,000 people marched in silence down New York’s Fifth Avenue to Madison Square protesting about African-American rights in the U.S..

The demonstration was one of America’s first mass protests of lynching and other anti-black violence and was led by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), including leaders James Weldon Johnson and W.E.B Du Bois.

The protesters, who carried banners with slogans reading “Thou Shalt Not Kill” and “Your Hands Are Full of Blood”, were demanding then-President Woodrow Wilson take legislative action to protect the civil rights of African Americans, which he had spoken about during his presidential campaign.

“Today’s Doodle commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Silent Parade, and honors those whose silence resonates a century later,” a statement by Google explains.