Chicago 1919 Race Riot-- Part 10: A Call for Historical Markers

Efforts are underway for a public art project that would erect markers at the visited sites where people were killed ir riot events occurred.

I would definitely like for this to happen as before reading this article I had heard of the 1919 racial conflict but didn't know much about it.  I am a firm supporter of markers (or as they call them in North Carolina, "History On a Stick").  Also memorials and statues.  History must be told.

"My grandmother was about four when the riots happened and had very vivid memories of it" recalled Rebecca Connie, program manager at Blackstone, which trained youth participants as marshals to guide the bike tour.

"I remember she told me the story of how she and her 3-year-old sister and infant brother were hiding in the basement, guarded by an uncle with a shotgun.  He had been injured in the war (WW I).  All the other men were out in the neighborhood standing post," she said.

A Way Too Horrible Thing To Forget.

Chicago 1919 Race Riot-- Part 9: "Firing Indiscriminately at African Americans"

Most of the riot violence against Blacks came during the day as workers going to and from their jobs were attacked by Whites, particularly in the Stockyards.  Injuries to Blacks occurred all around Chicago, but the deaths of Whites came primarily in black neighborhoods where they had gone with the purpose of attacking.

According to records, after the incident at the beach, white people "loaded into automobiles and sped through black streets, firing indiscriminately at African Americans and their homes.  As whites attacked , black people fought back in unprecedented numbers: a street-level expression of the growing race consciousness catching fire across the country."

It continued:  "...Only a handful were tried or saw any prison time -- most of them black.  Many of the riot's most vicious were whites protected by law enforcement and local politicians."

From the historic stockyards gate, the bike tour circles back to culminate at 31st Street Beach.

Chicago 1919 Race Riot-- Part 8: Wendell Phillips High School

Continuing with the bike tour:

**  244 Pershing Road, Wendell Phillips High School, where racial demographics were shifting before the riots.  It became Chicago's first predominantly black high school in 1920.  Notable grads include Nat King Cole, Sam Cooke and John H. Johnson.

Some others:  Gwendolyn Brooks and Herbie Hancock.

Today it is Phillips Academy, one of the best schools in Chicago and a football powerhouse.

**  318-324 E. 43rd St., The Forum, built in 1897, was once the hub for social, political and civic events in the black community.  Shuttered in the 1990s and abandoned and now reclaimed for revitalization.

BRIDGEPORT and BACK OF THE YARDS stops:

**  Armour Square Park at 33rd and Wentworth streets on the dividing line between black and white communities.  Opened in 1905, it's been the site of racial violence since 1913, including the 1997 savage beating of black teen Lenard Clark.

**  The Union Stockyards Gate, at Exchange Avenue and Peoria Street, where tensions between Blacks and Whites over competition for meatpacking jobs exploded during the riots.

Chicago Race Riot 1919-- Part 7: On the Bike Tour

You can find details of those who died that week, both Black and White on an interactive map created by Univ. of Chicago Professor John D. Clegg that also lists the injured and incidents of bombing and arson.

**  The next stop on the bike tour is 3624 S. King Dr., once home to famed civil rights activist Ida B. Wells-Barnett, who took testimony from victims and appeared before a grand jury on their behalf.

**  Then to 3365 S. Indiana Ave., a home bomb with homemade explosions or Molotav cocktails which white gangs used to destroy homes in the "Black Belt."

**  Next is 3501 S. Wabash Ave., now the Chicago Police Dept. headquarters parking lot.  In 1919, it was the site of the Angelus, the only building in the "Black Belt" with predominantly white residents.  Four people were killed here in a clash between Blacks and police.

**  Across the street is De La Salle Institute, where the late Mayor Richard J. Daley graduated in 1919.  Daley was a member of the Hamburg Athletic Club, a Bridgeport Irish gang cited for some of the beatings and bombings.  Daley always denied that he took part in the riots.

Chicago Race Riot of 1919-- Part 6: James Crawford Shoots at Police and Is Killed

BIKE TOUR

The first stop after the beach is at the city's oldest black Baptist church, the 145-year-old Oliver Baptist at 3101 S. King Drive.  During the 1920s it had  some 10,000 members and was the largest black church in the United States and the largest Protestant church in the world.

It was an active station on the Underground Railroad during slavery and in effect was the community center in Chicago's segregated "Black Belt" at the time, home of 40 different social, economic and cultural organizations and, during the riots it was headquarters for those trying to stop the violence.

D. Bradford Hunt of Chicago's Newberry Library who helped lead the bike tour said:  "Eugene Williams drowns.  Police refuse to arrest the white guy.  African Americans on the beach are furious.  At some point an African American man shoots a gun at police.  Someone gets injured.  Police chase him over the tracks, toward Olivet, and about two blocks northeast, they shoot and kill the guy."

The man was James Crawford, 37, a Southerner who had come up from Georgia, shot at 6 p.m. on July 27 at 29th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue.

Chicago Race Riot of 1919-- Part 5: The Results and Reasons

When the rioting ended five days later, 38 were dead (23 Black and 15 White), 520 injured (2/3 Black) and some 1,000 black residents had had their homes torched by Whites.

Chicago became a popular destination for Southern Blacks during the Great Migration and World War I.  Jobs were plentiful and opportunity abounding.  The black population of Chicago grew quickly.

Part of the problem was that of jobs.  Blacks were getting jobs that Whites had previously held.  And then there were all the white soldiers returning from World War I and looking for jobs.  Racial tensions grew until exploding in the most violent week in Chicago history (even more violent than present-day Chicago's woes).

It was among a string of nationwide outbreaks of racial and labor conflicts collectively known today as "Red Summer."

There is now a tour of some major sites pertaining to the riot.

The Chicago 1919 Race Riot-- Part 4: What Happened to Start It

Beaches were packed that hot day and black youths playing on a raft drifted over an invisible but accepted line that separated Blacks and Whites at 29th Street Beach.  This angered Whites.

The Chicago Tribune says the 29th Street Beach was for Whites and the 25th Street Beach was for Blacks.

George Stauber, a 24-year-old white man, hurled stones at the boys until 17-year-old Eugene Williams fell off the raft and drowned.  Daniel Callahan, the first police officer to arrive, refused to arrest Stauber -- angering Blacks.

Today, these two beaches are part of the Burnham Park Beaches which consist of 25th/26th Street Beaches and the Margaret Taylor Burroughs (31st Street) Beach

And, the riot started from that point.

The Chicago 1919 Race Riot-- Part 3: Bronzeville, Bridgeport and Back of the Yards

Recently about 150 bicyclists took a journey through this event's history, starting at the Lake Michigan shore front at 29th Street, the site of the only marker of the event.  They then went through sites in Chicago neighborhoods now called Bronzeville, Bridgeport and Back of the Yards.

This was "The Chicago 1919 Bike Tour: Visualizing the 1919 Riots in Today's Chicago."  It is part of "Chicago 1919: Confronting the Race Riots" which is a year-long initiative.

The Chicago Sun-Times first learned about this in March and interviewed  107-year-old Juanita Mitchell who now lives in south suburban Chicago, but in 1919 lived in the affected areas as an eight-year-old and remembers how women and children hid in her home as the men stood guard by the window.

The Chicago 1919 Race Riot-- Part 2: Sunday, July 27, 1919

Yesterday marked the 100th anniversary of the beginning of this tragic event in Chicago.  As I have already stated, 38 people -- 23 Black and 15 White; 520 injured -- 2/3 Black and Whites torched the homes of some 1,000 Blacks.

It lasted for a week.

From the July 26, 2019, Chicago Sun-Times  "Ride reflects on city's most violent week" by Maudlyne Ihejirika.

Sadly, there is little to mark it in Chicago.  The only permanent thing is a marker near 29th Street.  It reads:

"A RIOT IS THE LANGUAGE OF THE UNHEARD."   Dr. Martin Luther King.

Dedicated to all the victims of the Race Riot that began near this place.

Sunday, July 27, 1919 a group of boys rafting on Lake Michigan drifted over an invisible racial barrier.  Rocks were thrown from the breakwater and Eugene Williams was struck.  His drowning sparked a week-long race riot that resulted in scores of deaths and injuries.

"DARKNESS CANNOT DRIVE OUT DARKNESS:  ONLY LIGHT CAN DO THAT.  HATE CANNOT DRIVE OUT HATE:  ONLY LOVE CAN DO THAT."  Dr. martin Luther King.

Sponsored by the students from York High School, Elmhurst, Illinois and Chicago Park District 2002.

Just One Marker?

Today Marks the 100th Anniversary of a Sad Week in Chicago: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919-- Part 1

From Wikipedia.

I came across an article in the July 26, 2019, Chicago Sun-Times "Ride Reflects On City's Most Violent Week" by Maudline Ihejirika.

Today, July 27, marks the 100th anniversary of this sad event.  It was a violent racial incident provoked by Whites on Blacks in Chicago and last a week.  At the end of that time 38 people were dead (23 Black and 15 White) and 537 injured (2/3 Black) and 1,000 to 2,000  mostly Blacks lost their homes.

It is considered the worst of the 25 racial and labor riots that occurred  in the so-named "Red Summer"

It did not end until August 3, 1919.

There is only one marker telling of the events.

I will be writing more about this in the upcoming week.

There Should Definitely Be More Markers and Statues To the Event.