The roots of the 1919 Race Riot lay in the complex swirl of events and social upheaval associated with World War I and the Great Migration. More than 50,000 African Americans arrived in Chicago between 1916 and 1920, more than doubling the size of the city’s black population. Most settled south of Twelfth Street in an area known as the Black Belt, where a small community of African Americans had been living since the 1890s. Not surprisingly, the large and rapid influx of blacks created tension in a city long dominated by whites. The Great Migration of African Americans from the South to northern cities transformed the nation, but it also created new social tensions. ICHi-28567 On Sunday, July 27, 1919, Eugene Williams, a black teenager, and four of his friends decided to go swimming. Excluded from the city’s “white” beaches, they patronized the Twenty-Fifth Street Beach. They used a large, homemade raft as a safety platform, propelling it forward by kicking their legs. As they floated by a breakwater at Twenty-Sixth Street, a white man began throwing rocks at them. One struck Williams in the forehead, knocking him into the water. His panic-stricken friends tried to help, but to no avail. One of them, John Harris, swam to shore and notified a lifeguard, who called for a rescue boat, but by the time it arrived, Williams had drowned. A black policeman took Williams’s friends to the Twenty-Ninth Street Beach, an area controlled by whites where a fight between blacks and whites had recently erupted. There, they identified the rock-thrower standing in the crowd. The white officer on duty, Daniel Callahan, refused to arrest the man. Soon, hundreds had gathered at the beach. The Chicago Race Riot began at the Twenty-Ninth Street Beach on July 27, 1919. Photographer Jun Fujita documented the events as they unfolded in a series of dramatic photographs. ICHi-30315 After Officer Callahan arrested a black man, the crowd began to throw rocks and bricks. A black man, James Crawford, fired a gun at several white policemen, injuring one of them. In return, a black policeman fired at Crawford, killing him. Many others in the crowd were armed and began shooting. As word spread, whites and blacks across the city responded with extreme acts of violence, attacking one another in mobs, looting homes, and setting fires. Rioting quickly spread across the South Side. Fujita followed a mob carrying rocks and stones as they chased a black man through the streets and alleyways. ICHi-31915 During the riot, bands of white youth entered black neighborhoods to intimidate residents. Fujita captured one such group raiding a home and throwing its contents onto the street. ICHi-59452 In response, Mayor William “Big Bill” Thompson ordered nearly 3,000 police officers to the Black Belt. Eventually he was forced to call in the state militia. Finally, on August 8, twelve days after the rioting began, the state troops left the city. Their departure signaled the official end of the riot, which claimed 38 lives (23 black, 15 white), injured 537 people (342 black, 195 white), left 900 homeless, and damaged millions of dollars worth of property. A map of the riot documents that most fighting took place in the Black Belt, east of the dividing line between whites and blacks on the South Side. Note the cluster of deaths and injuries at Thirty-Fifth and State streets, the heart of the black community. ICHi-40053 Ultimately, the 1919 riot exposed and exacerbated the city’s racial problems. In its aftermath, a wall of racial fear, mistrust, and hatred went up across the city, forming distinct residential zones where blacks and whites led separate lives. Eventually, that wall made Chicago one of the most racially segregated urban crossroads in America. - See more at: blog.chicagohistory.org/index.php/2012/07/the-1919-race-riot/#sthash.dyx2vSpu.dpuf
Posted on: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 18:58:30 +0000
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