After leaving college, Toomer returned to Washington, DC. He published some short stories and continued writing during the volatile social period following World War I. He worked for some months in a shipyard in 1919, then escaped to middle-class life. Labor strikes and race riots of whites attacking blacks occurred in numerous major industrial cities during the summer of 1919, which became known as Red Summer as a result. People in the working class were competing after World War I for jobs and housing, and tensions erupted in violence. In Chicago and other places, blacks fought back. At the same time, it was a period of artistic ferment.