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Homicide in Chicago :: 1919: The Race Riot The Race Riot in Chicago in the summer of 1919 left 38 dead, including twenty three black men and boys; and 537 injured, of whom 342 were black, and hundreds homeless. Race riots in other Midwestern and northern cities took place about the same time, as social tensions were aggravated by economic and labor problems after the World War I armistice...... Read more |
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Gangs and the 1919 Chicago Race Riot Gangs have played an infamous role in supporting segregation by racist violence. The story of Chicago's white gangs is seldom told. The seminal event in the early industrial era was the 1919 race riot...... Read more |
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The riot began on July 27, after an African-American youth named Eugene Williams, while swimming with friends in Lake Michigan near 29th Street, strayed into an area informally reserved for the exclusive use of white bathers. For this, Williams was pelted with stones by an unruly group of young white men and soon drowned...... Read more |
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Chicago developed a reputation as a cauldron of specifically “racial” conflict and violence largely in the twentieth century. The determination of many whites to deny African Americans equal opportunities in employment, housing, and political representation has frequently resulted in sustained violent clashes, particularly during periods of economic crisis or postwar tension...... Read more |
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