While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Tensions on the beach escalated and a skirmish ensued when the officer arrested a black man instead. Chicago Tribune editorial: A century after the city's deadly race riots of 1919, prejudices and frictions still divide Chicagoans. “As the riot demonstrated, personal prejudice among patrolmen had always been a problem, even though the city employed a surprising number of black officers,” wrote Green. Champaign, University of Illinois Press, 1970. The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 Commemoration Project (CRR19) exists to commemorate the worst incident of racial violence in the city’s history. (Chicago History Museum/Getty Images). The Chicago Race Riot began at the 29th Street Beach, after the drowning death of Eugene Williams, an African-American teenager who had crossed … Deeply rooted factors and injustices within the city kindled the flame. Chicago was not strictly segregated, but black renters and homeowners were increasingly restricted to what became known as the “Black Belt,” a narrow band of neighborhoods in South Side Chicago. Although riots occurred in more than thirty cities throughout the U.S., the bloodiest events were in Chicago, Washington D.C., and Elaine, Arkansas. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree.... African Americans and whites leaving the beach along Lake Michigan in Chicago, c. 1919. This boundary even extended into the waters of Lake Michigan. “The riot was under way,” the study noted. [3] Woodrow Wilson castigated the “white race” as “the aggressor” in both the Chicago and Washington riots, and efforts were launched to promote racial harmony through voluntary organizations and ameliorative legislation in Congress. By late Wednesday they had entered the city, and after 13 days, one of the nation’s bloodiest race riots came to an end—the toll was ghastly. To achieve racial equality, first we must address the past. On Monday July 28, with the Chicago police unable to quell the riot, Governor Frank Lowden ordered the state militia to mobilize. According to, And it was there that 2,800 officers out of Chicago’s 3,500 deployed. On the afternoon of July 27, 1919, Eugene Williams drifted across an imaginary color line in the water at 29th Street Beach. From 1910 to 1920 the black population in Chicago rose from 44,103 to 109,504—an increase of 148 percent. Although in the autopsy, Williams’ body showed no bruises. In addition to a discussion of the immediate riot, there are chapters devoted to such subjects as: In 1919 Chicago was in the throes of an exhausting heat wave. The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 is long forgotten, despite its huge impact on the subsequent shape and development of the city. Lowden said in announcing the commission. Support Us Learn More Richard Allen, first black ordained by a Methodist-Episcopal church. Due to the cordon, only two police officers were assigned to cover the entire downtown area of Chicago. A member of the state militia faces off against an African-American veteran during the 1919 Chicago Race Riot. How Communists Became a Scapegoat for the Red Summer 'Race Riots' of 1919. [1] During the riot, thirty-eight people died and over five hundred were injured. “The existence of prejudice among individual police did not necessarily mean that Chicago’s police department was, institutionally speaking, racist. The three-year study by the Chicago Commission on Race Relations, published in 1922, was the culmination of a landmark evaluation of the race riot that tore through the city in the summer of 1919. For those who lived on the south side, the beaches were divided Stolpersteine, an ongoing German project to honor Holocaust victims, offers a […] The official coroner’s report cited that Williams drowned because the stone throwing kept him from coming to shore. For the 100th anniversary of the riot, Dr. Peter Cole, a history professor at Western Illinois University, and Dr. Franklin Cosey-Gay, project director of the Chicago Center for Youth Violence Prevention at the University of Chicago formed the Chicago Race Riot of 1919 Commemoration Project (CRR19.) White mobs killed somewhere between 180 and 300 black people during riots in just three places: Elaine, Ark., Washington, D.C., and Chicago.