Chicago Riot of 1919

By: Marian Aguiar

Source:

 Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition

Chicago Riot of 1919

One of the largest race riots in the United States during the “Red Summer” of 1919, inflamed by segregation and police discrimination.

In July 1919 Chicago, Illinois, erupted in a race riot that left 23 blacks and 15 whites dead, 537 people injured, and more than a million dollars of property damage. One of twenty-five race riots that swept through the country during the “Red Summer” of 1919, the conflict in Chicago was galvanized, as historian William M. Tuttle Jr. pointed out, by “gut-level animosities” between the city's white and black residents, for whom competition for residential housing and good union jobs had inflamed racial tensions.

Between 1910 and 1920, the population of the Black Belt on the South Side of Chicago had almost tripled, while the perimeter of the neighborhood had remained relatively the same. Under the pressure of the Great Migration, a mass movement of blacks from the South to the North, the conditions and quality of inner-city living declined drastically, with the black newcomers facing a mortality rate twice that of whites. Meanwhile, middle-class African Americans were making their way into previously all-white neighborhoods. For many African Americans, leaving squalid, overcrowded ghettos and seeking better jobs was an expression of the pride and self-respect forged during World War I. These upwardly mobile families were often targeted by community-organized white violence directed at keeping the lines of segregation intact. Between 1917 and 1919, twenty-six bombs exploded at black residences in Chicago's white neighborhoods.

Adding to the racial antipathy that led to the riots were historic conflicts over labor. For decades the mostly-white unions representing workers in Chicago's stockyards had excluded black workers; denied membership, blacks had often allowed themselves to be used as replacement labor during strikes. Despite some positive movement toward integration of labor unions, by the summer of 1919, most white workers were unionized and most black workers were not, and attitudes of resentment and mistrust had hardened on both sides.

The spark that ignited this overheated atmosphere came on July 27, 1919, when Eugene Williams, a seventeen-year-old African American, swam over the invisible line of racial segregation at the 29th Street Beach. An angry mob of whites stoned him as he swam in, and Williams drowned. When the police arrived, they refused to arrest any of the whites who had been seen throwing stones and instead arrested one African American. A fight broke out between a growing crowd of blacks on one side and the police and whites on the other. The riot soon spread from the beach, sweeping through the rest of the city.

Violence raged throughout Chicago over the next week. White workmen attacked their black counterparts as they entered the stockyards. On both sides of the color line, gangs of youth attacked those who crossed the lines of the segregated neighborhoods. The property damage was extensive, especially in black neighborhoods, with thousands of African Americans left homeless. In addition, in a summer already marked by an unprecedented number of strikes, many workers stayed home as the rioting continued, bringing some industries and services to a virtual standstill.

The violence persisted and Chicago mayor William H. Thompson asked Governor Frank O. Lowden to mobilize the state militia, but for reasons that are still unclear, Lowden did not deploy the 3,500 troops until July 30, when there had already been dozens of deaths and hundreds of casualties. Before then the Chicago police, overburdened and often racist themselves, had been solely responsible for containing the violence. Seven black men, but no whites, were shot by the police during this time. The killing had ended by August 8, the day the militia was recalled. Despite calls for calm by African American organizations, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the National Urban League, and the Negro Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), tensions—especially in the stockyards—remained.

Racial Riots (Major) 1890–1930

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In the aftermath of the rioting, the governor appointed the Chicago Commission on Race Relations. Its groundbreaking 1922 report, The Negro in Chicago, warned that discrimination and segregation in labor and housing would continue to prove fertile grounds for violence.

See also Segregation in the United States; World War I and African Americans.

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