Legalized murder: The RED summer of 1919

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News Desk – One

“The story of Red Summer is a story of a nation fraught from the clash between hope and threat, between the tension of new dreams encountering entangled fears — all rising until it finally exploded,” Lightfoot said at a ceremony to mark the centennial.  “Though we are gathered here to commemorate the events of 1919, it is the consequences of those very active forces that we are still reckoning with a century later. From the vantage point of 100 years ago, we can see our past has been present in both our capacity to overcome its brutal legacy and how we continue to struggle under its weight…learning from our history is also possible only by knowing our history.”

On Sunday, July 27, 1919, thousands of Chicagoans sought relief from the brutal heat on the shores of Lake Michigan. Among them was Eugene Williams, a seventeen-year-old African American. When he and his friends inadvertently drifted across an invisible line that divided the waters by race, a group of whites, insulted by such an act, began throwing stones at them, one of which struck Williams, causing him to drown. In the racial powder keg that was Chicago, his murder was the spark that ignited it during what became the Red Summer of 1919.

After the drowning of Eugene Williams, the police refused to arrest the white man who was considered responsible for his death. As the crowd grew, the tension escalated, and the fighting began.

The violence that started at the beach spread through Chicago’s Black belt on the South Side, especially in residential areas surrounding the Union Stock Yard.

he front page of the Chicago Defender on August 2, 1919, announced the turmoil in the city and listed the names of those who were slain and injured.

The police force, owing both to understaffing and the open sympathy of many officers with the white rioters, was ineffective. Only the long-delayed intervention of the Illinois national guard brought the violence to a halt.

Two white men stone an African American man during the riot. White gangs intentionally went into black neighborhoods to wreak havoc.Rioters ranged from children to adults.

After seven days of shootings, arson, and beatings, the Race Riot resulted in the deaths of 15 whites and 23 blacks with an additional 537 injured (195 white, 342 black). Since then, a century of African American activism has challenged the racism and social hypocrisy that allowed those responsible for Eugene Williams’s death to elude justice. Activists continue the fight against racial discrimination in Chicago and the United States.

The aftermath of World War II saw a revival of white attacks on African Americans. Here, two men at 31st Street and Cottage Grove Avenue stand next to a sign for a rally against lynching, August 1946.

Protests throughout the 1940s and 1950s sought to break down racial barriers in housing, public accommodations, and recreational activities. This one took place at the White City Roller Rink, 63rd Street and South Parkway (renamed Martin Luther King Drive in 1968), Chicago, 1946.In the 1960s, the Chicago community of Ashburn saw significant racial strife over school desegregation.

Some of the most violent and deadly riots took place in cities such as Chicago, Washington D.C., and Tulsa, Oklahoma. The riots resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people, most of whom were African Americans, as well as significant property damage and economic disruption.

The Red Summer of 1919 was a significant turning point in the history of race relations in the United States and highlighted the deep-seated racial tensions and inequalities that continued to persist in American society. It also spurred renewed efforts by civil rights organizations to push for greater racial justice and equality.