following the violence-filled summer, in the autumn of 1919, haynes reported on the events as a prelude to an investigation by the united states senate committee on the judiciary. he identified 38 separate racial riots against blacks in widely scattered cities, in which whites attacked black people. unlike earlier racial riots against blacks in u.s. history, the 1919 events were among the first in which black people in number resisted white attacks and fought back. a. philip randolph, a civil rights activist and leader of the brotherhood of sleeping car porters, publicly defended the right of black people to self-defense.