Chicago race riot of 1919 facts for kids
| Part of the Red Summer and the Nadir of American race relations | |
Five police officers and a National Guard soldier with a rifle and bayonet standing on a corner in the Douglas neighborhood
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| Date | July 27 – August 3, 1919 |
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| Location | Chicago, United States |
| Deaths | 38 |
The Chicago race riot of 1919 was a violent racial conflict between white Americans and black Americans that began on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, on July 27 and ended on August 3, 1919. During the riot, 38 people died (23 black and 15 white). Over the week, injuries attributed to the episodic confrontations stood at 537, with two thirds of the injured being black and one third white, and approximately 1,000 to 2,000, most of whom were black, lost their homes. Due to its sustained violence and widespread economic impact, it is considered the worst of the scores of riots and civil disturbances across the United States during the "Red Summer" of 1919, so named because of the racial and labor violence and fatalities. The prolonged conflict made it one of the worst riots in the history of Illinois.
In early 1919, the sociopolitical atmosphere of Chicago around and near its rapidly-growing black community was one of ethnic tension caused by racism and competition among new groups, an economic slump, and the social changes engendered by the involvement of the United States in World War I. With the Great Migration, thousands of African Americans from the American South had settled next to neighborhoods of European immigrants on Chicago's South Side near jobs in the stockyards, meatpacking plants, and industry. Meanwhile, the Irish had been established earlier, and they fiercely defended their territory and political power against all newcomers. Post-World War I racism and tensions caused inter-community frictions, especially in the competitive labor and housing markets. Overcrowding and the increased African American resistance against racism, especially by war veterans, contributed to the visible racial frictions. A combination of ethnic gangs and police neglect further exacerbated racial tensions.
The turmoil came to a boil during a summer heat wave with the murder of the 17-year-old Eugene Williams, an African American civilian who had inadvertently drifted into a white swimming area at an informally-segregated beach near 29th Street. Violence expanded into neighborhoods in which white mobs attacked innocent black residents. Tensions between groups arose in a melee, which became days of unrest. Black neighbors near white areas were attacked, white gangs went into black neighborhoods, and black workers seeking to get to and from work were attacked. Meanwhile, some black civilians organized to resist and protect each other, and some whites sought to lend aid to black civilians, but the Chicago Police Department often turned a blind eye, or worse. Chicago Mayor William Hale Thompson had a game of brinksmanship with Illinois Governor Frank Lowden, which may have exacerbated the riot since Thompson refused to ask Lowden to send in the Illinois Army National Guard for four days although Lowden had ensured that the guardsmen were called up, organized in Chicago's armories, and ready to intervene.
After the riots, Lowden convened the Chicago Commission on Race Relations, a nonpartisan interracial investigative committee, to investigate the causes and to propose solutions to racial tensions. Their conclusions were published in 1922 by the University of Chicago Press as The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot. US President Woodrow Wilson and the US Congress attempted to promote legislation and organizations to decrease racial discord in America. Governor Lowden took several actions at Thompson's request to quell the riot and promote greater harmony in its aftermath. Sections of the Chicago economy were shut down for several days during and after the riots since plants were closed to avoid interaction among the opposing groups. Thompson drew on his association with the riot to influence later political elections. Even so, one of the most lasting effects may have been decisions in both white and black communities to seek greater separation from each other.
Commemorations
Float, a public art performance conducted by Jefferson Pinder in 2019, commemorated the death of Eugene Williams, the first victim at 29th Street beach, who had accidentally floated into the racially segregated area of Lake Michigan. In it, an interracial group of participants were arranged on the water, floating near a Chicago beach.
A boulder at 29th Street near the lakefront with a plaque, installed in 2009, commemorates the Race Riots. (29th Street Beach no longer exists, as land reclamation has extended the lakeshore further into the lake)
The Chicago Race Riots Commemoration Project, launched in 2019, is working to install thirty-eight markers around the South Side to pay tribute to the thirty-eight lives that were lost.
In 2021, a grave marker was erected in Lincoln Cemetery at the previously unmarked grave of teenager Eugene Williams.
Images for kids
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The 29th Street Beach
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African-American men in front of Walgreen Drugs (now called Walgreens) at 35th and S. State St. in the Douglas community area
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Three African-American men moving furniture.
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House with broken windows and debris in front yard
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See also
In Spanish: Disturbios raciales de Chicago de 1919 para niños
