when I set out to explore how the early
years of the first wave of the great
migration transformed Chicago I
initially assumed I'd be telling an
optimistic story one about
african-americans who took control of
their own destiny by fleeing the South
for better opportunities in the north
and while I did find that most black
migrants who arrived between 1915 and
1920 believed life in the north was
better than in the south as my research
began to pile up I realized the real
story I needed to tell was in the
exclusion and violence inflicted upon
the black community even in a northern
city where formal legal segregation
didn't exist what I found in Chicago was
a pattern of racial violence that
culminated in the most destructive event
in the city's history the race riot of
1919 for me understanding the experience
of Chicago's black community began with
exploring the racial divisions of the
city
Chicago's residential neighborhoods
during this era practiced a form of
unofficial segregation with
african-americans confined to an
overcrowded part of the southside known
as the Black Belt imaginary dividing
lines between white and black
neighborhoods were maintained by white
gangs through routine violence and
intimidation for a black Chicagoan
merely walking through the wrong
neighborhood could easily result in
being beaten and bloodied by a posse of
young white men African Americans who
dared buy property in a white
neighborhood risked having their homes
shattered by bombs between 1917 and the
summer of 1919 dozens of bombings were
perpetrated by white gangs against black
homeowners
my study of the 1919 race riot started
with the story of one young
african-american boy named Eugene
Williams Eugene and several of his
friends took a makeshift raft down to
the shores of Lake Michigan in order to
escape the unusually warm summer heat on
the afternoon of July 27th public spaces
in Chicago like beaches were also
governed by an unofficial but very much
present form of segregation when the
currents caused Eugene to accidentally
drift too close to the white section of
the beach a man standing on the shore
began to throw rocks at him one of which
struck Eugene in the head causing him to
drown police arrived on the scene to
find a commotion between black and white
beachgoers but rather than arresting the
white man who threw the stone the police
instead attempted to arrest a black man
following a separate complaint while
this was happening an outraged bystander
stepped from the crowd and began firing
a pistol marking the panic beginning of
the riot even though no one could have
predicted the beginning of this riot my
sources have led me to believe that the
riot was far from an accident I found
that as soon as news of what had
happened at the beach began to spread
around the city white gangs immediately
saw the news as an invitation to
terrorize black neighborhoods during the
riot these gangs sought out individual
black men near the edges of the Black
Belt who were easy targets their
assaults left victims either badly
beaten or oftentimes dead
in my mind there is no doubt that these
young white men were primarily
responsible for instigating the days of
bloodshed that followed the incident on
the beach picking through historical
newspapers provided me with an
interesting challenge because each
article reflected the fog of confusion
and misinformation that existed during
the riot
I discovered that newspapers frequently
recorded exaggerated numbers of deaths
and injuries one newspaper exaggerated
the numbers five fold while others
reported that black men were routinely
attacking white women in reality only
ten women had sustained injuries during
the riot eight of which were the result
of accidents the true human toll of the
five days of rioting was 23 blacks and
15 White's killed and 537 people had
been injured approximately two-thirds of
whom were black for people living
through the event sensational news
reports stimulated a desire for
retribution which exacerbated the riot
after reaching the end of my research I
realized just how much this period
defied my expectations I was mostly
surprised by the level of violence that
underpinned Chicago's bridgid social
barriers ultimately I believed the
city's racial divide along with the
indiscriminate violence perpetrated by
street gangs were critical in creating
the conditions needed to bring about the
horrific violence of the summer of 1919
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