The Chicago Race Riots, July, 1919

by Sandburg, Carl; McGill, Ralph

• ISBN13: 9780151171507
• ISBN10: 0151171505
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1969-12-01
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Summary

While Illinois did not segregate the races in public accommodations (as southern states did into the 1960s), public beaches in Chicago were clearly segregated. The most tragic result of this segregation was an incident that set off the 1919 Race Riot in Chicago, five days of rioting in which 23 African Americans and 15 whites were killed. On July 27, 1919 a black teenager named Eugene Williams and a few of his friends traveled to Lake Michigan to swim on a hot summer day. They took out a raft between the black beach at 29th street and the white beach at 26th street. A white man threw rocks at the raft, injuring Williams, who could not swim. A police officer at the 26th Street Beach was unwilling to either arrest the man or help Williams, who later died. Carl Sandburg, a reporter at the time for the Chicago Daily News, chronicled the ensuing race riot in The Chicago Race Riots.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Introductory Note	p. xix
The Chicago Race Riots	p. 3
The Background	p. 7
The Negro Migration	p. 12
Real Estate	p. 17
Demand for Negro Labor	p. 21
New Industrial Opportunities	p. 26
After Each Lynching	p. 31
Trades for Colored Women	p. 37
Negroes and Rising Rents	p. 45
Unions and the Color Line	p. 52
About Lynchings	p. 60
Negro Crime Tales	p. 64
Colored Gamblers	p. 68
An Official of the Packers	p. 73
Mr. Julius.Rosenwald.Interviewed	p. 76
For Federal Action	p. 79
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.