Anti- East Indian Bellingham, Washington Race Riot 1907. On September 4th, 1907 five hundred white working men in Bellingham, WA gathered to drive a community of South Asian migrant workers out of the city. With the mission of “scar[ing] them so badly that they will not crowd white labor out of the mills,” the growing mob rallied and went to work.
The rioters moved through town, breaking windows, throwing rocks, indiscriminately beating people, overpowering a few police officers, and pulling men out of their workplaces and homes. They eventually rounded up two hundred or so of the South Asian immigrant workers in the basement of City Hall to stay the night. The mob was successful in that within ten days the entire South Asian population departed town.
Despite promises of protections from city officials, the South Asian workers well understood that there was no protection for them in Bellingham and migrated up and down the Pacific coast looking for safer and saner living conditions.
The historical forces that lead to this outbreak of racist violence in this small town in the Pacific Northwest are complex and were long in the making.http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/bham_history.htm
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