By July 21, 1919, Washington, DC was on fire – like several other cities around the country during the Red Summer. Mobs of white supremacist civilians and police were attacking Black people in the streets. But Black residents fought back – including 17-year-old Carrie Johnson.
That night, a squad of officers broke into the home where Johnson and her father lived. But when they entered her bedroom, a shot rang out, fatally piercing one of them in the chest. After police fired back, they found her father under the bed and Johnson in the corner, a blue revolver laying beside her.
“He can only blame himself,” wrote one Black journalist about the killed officer. “[H]e was vindictive toward the colored people. Did he have the right to invade the home of the person who shot him?” Still, Johnson and her father were jailed for 18 months.
Then, her father was released, leaving her alone.
In January 1921, a white jury heard her case. But Johnson’s Black attorney managed a shocking move – securing her a new trial to argue self-defense, making the prosecution fearful of losing again. Instead, they acquitted. That same year, Carrie Johnson walked free!
Johnson defended herself against police violence, just like Black women and girls are still forced to do today. We always have the right to resist, by any means necessary!