The Red Summer of 1919-The Race War you Never knew about...

[cole phelps]

The Red Summer refers to the race riots that occurred in more than three dozen cities in the United States during the summer and early autumn of 1919. In most instances, whites attacked African Americans. In some cases many blacks fought back, notably in Chicago, where, along with Washington, D.C. and Elaine, Arkansas, the greatest number of fatalities occurred.[1] The riots followed postwar social tensions related to the demobilization of veterans of World War I, both black and white, and competition for jobs among ethnic whites and blacks. The riots were extensively documented in the press, which along with the federal government conflated black movements to bolshevism. "Armed resistance" movements started as a response to the riots. Dr. George Edmund Haynes wrote a report stating that lynching was a major problem within the United States.
The activist and author James Weldon Johnson coined the term "Red Summer." Employed since 1916 by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as a field secretary, he built and revived local chapters of that organization. In 1919, he organized peaceful protests against the racial violence of that summer.[2][3]

With the manpower mobilization of World War I and immigration from Europe cut off, the industrial cities of the North and Midwest experienced severe labor shortages. Northern manufacturers recruited throughout the South and an exodus ensued.[4] By 1919, an estimated 500,000 African Americans had emigrated from the South to the industrial cities of the North and Midwest in the first wave of the Great Migration, which continued until 1940.[1] They were also migrating to escape the lynchings, Jim Crow laws, lack of protected franchise and poor economy of the rural South, where the boll weevil was devastating cotton crops. African-American workers filled new positions in expanding industries, such as the railroads, as well as many jobs formerly held by whites. In some cities, they were hired as strikebreakers, especially during the strikes of 1917.[4] This increased resentment among many working class whites, immigrants or first-generation Americans. Following the war, rapid demobilization of the military without a plan for absorbing veterans into the job market, and the removal of price controls, led to unemployment and inflation that increased competition for jobs.
During the Red Scare of 1919-20, following the Russian Revolution, anti-Bolshevik sentiment in the United States quickly replaced the anti-German sentiment of the war years. Many politicians and government officials, together with much of the press and the public, feared an imminent attempt to overthrow the US government to create a new regime modeled on that of the Soviets. Authorities viewed African Americans' advocacy of racial equality, labor rights, or the rights of victims of mobs to defend themselves with alarm. In a private conversation in March 1919, President Wilson said that "the American Negro returning from abroad would be our greatest medium in conveying bolshevism to America."[5] Other whites expressed a wide range of opinions, some anticipating unsettled times and others seeing no signs of tension.[6]

Early in 1919, Dr. George E. Haynes, an educator employed as director of Negro Economics for the U.S. Department of Labor, wrote: "The return of the Negro soldier to civil life is one of the most delicate and difficult questions confronting the Nation, north and south."[7] One black veteran wrote a letter to the editor of the Chicago Daily News saying the returning black veterans
"are now new men and world men, if you please; and their possibilities for direction, guidance, honest use and power are limitless, only they must be instructed and led. They have awakened, but they have not yet the complete conception of what they have awakened to."[8]
W. E. B. Du Bois, an official of the NAACP and editor of its monthly magazine, saw an opportunity: "By the God of Heaven, we are cowards and jackasses if now that the war is over, we do not marshal every ounce of our brain and brawn to fight a sterner, longer, more unbending battle against the forces of hell in our own land."[9] In May, following the first serious racial incidents, he published his essay "Returning Soldiers":[10]

"We return from the slavery of uniform which the world's madness demanded us to don to the freedom of civil garb. We stand again to look America squarely in the face and call a spade a spade. We sing: This country of ours, despite all its better souls have done and dreamed, is yet a shameful land....
We return.
We return from fighting.
We return fighting."​

 

[cole phelps]

Following the violence-filled summer, in the autumn of 1919, Haynes reported on the events. His report was to be the brief for an investigation of the issues by the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. He identified 38 separate riots in widely scattered cities, in which whites attacked blacks .[1] In addition, Haynes reported that between January 1 and September 14, 1919, white mobs lynched at least forty-three African Americans, with sixteen hanged and others shot; while another eight men were burned at the stake. The states appeared powerless or unwilling to interfere or prosecute such mob murders.[1] Unlike earlier race riots in U.S. history, the 1919 events were among the first in which blacks in number resisted white attacks. A. Philip Randolph, a civil rights activist and leader of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, defended the right of blacks to self-defense.[2]

In the words of the Navy investigation, “a disturbance which assumed the nature and proportions of a race riot took place in the city of Charleston, South Carolina, on the night of May 10-11, 1919, between the hours of 7:00 p.m., and 3:00 a.m.” Charleston in 1920 numbered 80,000 people, more than half of whom were black. On one side of the conflict were black civilians, and on the other was “a mixed crowd of whites” including mostly sailors, along with civilians, and “a scattering of soldiers and marines.” The incident started when an unidentified black man allegedly pushed Roscoe Coleman, U.S. Navy, off the sidewalk. A group of sailors and civilians chased the man, who took refuge in a house on St. Philip Street.

A fight then took place there, with both sides throwing bricks, bottles, and stones. The crowd dispersed when one of the black civilians “drew a revolver and fired four shots without injuring anyone.” There followed “wild rumors and stories of a sailor having been shot by a negro” and general rioting. Beginning near Harry Polices’ Poolroom at the corner of Charles and Market streets, rioting spread to other parts of the city and continued with varying intensity until about 3:00 a.m. Charleston’s Mayor Hyde requested assistance in restoring order. The Charleston


Navy Yard sent a detachment of soldiers and marines to help.“Bluejackets” were rounded up by the Marines and either taken back to the Navy Yard or held at the police station. All blacks were told to get off the streets.



During the riot, both sides used firearms. Sailors stole thirteen 22-calibre rifles from the shooting galleries of H.B. Morris and Fred M. Faress. Rioters robbed and vandalized W. G. Fridie’s barber shop at 305 King Street and James Freyer’s shoe shop, both black-owned businesses. Eighteen black men were seriously injured, as were five white men. Three black men, William Brown, Isaac Doctor, and James Talbot, died of gunshot wounds.
The Navy report sets out the final analysis. The riot was “of spontaneous origin and was precipitated by the actions of certain negroes, sailors, and at least one white civilian. . . [A]n active part in this initial disturbance was taken by the following men: G.W. Biggs, Coppersmith, second class, U.S. Navy, USS Hartford; Roscoe Coleman, Fireman third class, U.S. Navy, Machinist Mates School; Robert Morton, Fireman, third class, U.S. Navy, Machinist Mates School, and Alexander Lanneau, white civilian, a resident of Charleston, South Carolina, who . . . was responsible for stirring up strife and inciting others to violence against the negroes. . . . Ralph Stone, Fireman, third class, U.S. Navy, Machinist Mates School, was one of the leaders and inciters of a mob. . . . [T]he wound in the right chest of Isaac Doctor . . . was inflicted by a 22-calibre bullet fired from a rifle in the hands of either Jacob Cohen, Fireman, third class, U.S. Navy, or George T. Holliday, Fireman, third class, U.S. Navy, who are jointly responsible for his death. . . [A]ll property damage, . . except in the case of Harry Police’s poolroom where damage was caused by negroes, was caused by the unlawful actions of mobs, which in all cases were composed principally of sailors. . . [A]ll injuries to negro men. . . were inflicted by mobs composed prinicipally of sailors.”


The Charleston rioting demonstrates a typical characteristic of white mob violence in the United States. Despite a thorough, dispassionate investigation, despite evidence and the naming of culpable individuals, and despite it being well within the purview of the military authorities to do so, very little punishment was exacted. Cohen and Holliday, although the Navy report held them responsible for the death of Isaac Doctor, were eventually sentenced for their involvement in the riot to only a year in Parris Island, South Carolina.

 

[cole phelps]

Washington dc riot
WASHINGTON, July 19 1919 -- White soldiers, sailors, and marines on liberty in the city, said to have been aroused by repeated attacks on white women by colored men during the last few days, invaded a colored residential district tonight and one colored man George Montgomery, 55-year-old was severely beaten.
Several shots were fired before police and provost guards got to the scene.
Several other negroes were caught by the crowd, but made their escape with only trifling injuries, though shots were fired at them.
The uniformed men participating in the attack were gathered together in the downtown district after individual fights had taken place and were inflamed, it was said, by reports that another white woman, and the wife of a sailor, had been attacked by a negro.
Reserves from three police stations besides the military guard and a detachment of marines on guard answered emergency calls, but found the mob dispersed when they arrived at the scene of trouble. About 100 service men were said to have been involved.
A patrol was continued after midnight through the area to prevent any repetition of the violence.

race riots renewed white soldiers and sailors attack negroes on Pennsylvania Avenue July 20 1919-- Police reserves rushed to the heart of Washington, DC, in the "Centre Market district, Seventh and Pennsylvania Avenue," to quell several hundred white soldiers, sailors, marines, and a thousand civilians who made attacks on negroes "in retaliation for attacks on white women in Washington during the past month," "Negroes were hauled from street cars and from automobiles, Francis Thomas, a black 17-year-old, reported to the NAACP,"A mob of sailors and soldiers jumped on the [street]car and pulled me off, beating me unmercifully from head to foot, leaving me in such a condition that I could hardly crawl back home." Thomas said he saw three other blacks being beaten, including two women."Before I became unconscious, I


could hear them pleading with the Lord to keep them from being killed." Aggression toward blacks had started on sweltering Saturday and Sunday, July 19 and 20, 1919, when white civilians, and soldiers, sailors, and Marines freshly home from Europe collected in a spot and pointed to any black who might be passing and yelled,"There he goes!""Such outcries generally were followed by an attack upon the negro by some of the sailors and soldiers." Lawrence Johnson, a black man was beaten up by rioting white Marines just spitting distance from the White House. Using rocks wrapped in handkerchiefs, they beat him about the head, until one finally pulled out a club and knocked him to the pavement. He lay there, bleeding, until an ambulance picked him up 20 minutes later. At Fourteenth street and Pennsylvania Avenue an white overseas soldier climbed through an open window of a street car and, grabbing a negro passenger by the coat collar, dragged him from the car. Police put the number of negroes taken to the hospital at 15, one of the men attacked on 7th street had his collar bone broken. ''White women being assaulted by negroes in washington'' is what we all have noticed in our every-day papers as each publication comes into our hands. But my fellow

citizens, as I glanced throught the papers last evening and saw our white soldiers, sailors and marines have taken the matter into their own hands, it filled my heart with joy. Are we going to allow Negroes to assault our sisters, wives and possibly mothers? I will say no, never, not if it costs the life of every true American. Allow me to say, dear editor, that I am not prejudiced toward the negro race, but when our women, whom we crossed the sea to fight and die for, are assaulted in our own country,it boils the blood in our veins, and if the police department in



Washington are incapable of protecting our women, then our white service men who crossed the sea to protect them will, if need be, protect them in our grand and glorious capital. Allow me to say that in my opinion our capital is today being run by Negroes, and a white man has about as much chance of accomplishing anything as a Bolshevik has. Why are white men being discharged from positions in various departments in Washington and Negroes put in their places? I recollect one case where an Assistant Librarian of one of our Government Libraries who has the ''honor'' of the civilized white man.

 

[cole phelps]

Continued

Fighting Spreads to Many Sections
After Troops Form a Cordon
Around Center of City.
Martial Law Virtually in Force Downtown
From White House to Mall and Capitol,
Thence to H, K and L Streets Northwest.,
One Policeman Wounded—Negroes Fired
on Whites From Speeding Autos.
BULLETIN.

July 22 1919- In the negro district along u street to fourteenth streets the negroes began early in the evening to take
vengeance for the assaults on their race in the downtown
district the night before
As blacks realized that authorities were not protecting them, many took up arms. More than 500 guns were sold by pawnshops and gun dealers that Monday, when the worst violence occurred. White mobs were met by black mobs up and down the Seventh Street commercial corridor. Black Army veterans took out their old guns; sharpshooters climbed to the roof of the Howard Theatre; blacks manned barricades at New Jersey Avenue and at U Street.

Black men were driving around the city firing randomly at whites. Blacks turned the tables and pulled whites off streetcars. At Seventh and G streets NW, a black rioter emptied his revolver into a crowded streetcar before taking five bullets from police. At 12th and G NW, a 17-year-old black girl barricaded herself in her house and shot and killed an MPD detective. In all, 10 whites and five blacks were killed or mortally wounded that night.
In the early evening crowds of colored men formed and
roughly handled half a dozen white men in this section. As the evening
progressed the crowds of negroes grew, knives and guns appeared
and the serious conflicts began. W.E. Mitchell, white, of 1436 V street northwest. was taken to the hospital at 5 o'clock suffering from bruises and cuts on the head. He was attacked by a crowd of negroes. Phelan William Eatman, of the nanceman apartments, Twenty-second and N street

northwest, was set upon by 4 negroes as he was leaving his apartment about 10;45 and was cut on the shoulder and arm. He was taken to the hospital in a private automobile. From trolley cars and swiftly moving automobiles, negro desperados dispatched in parties, singly and in pairs rained revolver shots into groups of whites whenever they found them. All night there was scattered firing from houses where negroes terror stricken but not quelled barricaded themselves. William H. Thomas, white, seventeen, was taken to the hospital at 11;45 o'clock with a bullet in his hip. He said he had been shot by a negro from a southbound car on Seventh street, near Pennsylvania Avenue. Frank Daosod, white of 415 Franklin street Northwest, was shot in the head at Florida avenue northwest he died. Vernon Pemleff, white twenty years old, of 1242 Eleventh street northwest, shot in the head died. James H McGuigan, white, seventeen, of 1406 A street southeast, shot in the left knee. Frank Mancuso, white, 14, of 733 I street northwest, shot in leg.Carl Martin, white, age 16 shot in hip. Shots

fired from a street car resulted in the injury of two whites, Albert Finlayson, age 31, and Ernest, Albert Giovanetti. The negro who fired was George Gentry, and he was shot five times by Detective Scrivenver before he was captured. All three was sent to the hospital. Finlayson was shot in the hip and Giovanetti was shot in the foot. Gentry's condition is serious. Inspecter Grant, and Detectives Sweeney, Hewlett, Kelley, and Beckley helped catch Gentry. randell Neal, 22, black, died he was shot and his skull crushed by the butt of a rifle, he was killed by

white marine. Herbert Barber, black, was taken to the hospital at 11 o'clock, he was beaten by white soldiers, sailors and civilians. Harris Gross, black was taken to the hospital at 11'40 , beaten by white soldiers, sailors and civilians. Kenneth Crall, white, seventeen, Shot in head, died. George H Parker, age fifty, jaw dislocated when attacked and knocked down by 4 negroes on Thirteenth Street between N and O Streets Northwest. The rioting grew in intensity after midnight and 11 whites and 5 negroes were killed and fully a dozen persons

 

[cole phelps]

continued
wounded, some fatally, in clashes along New York avenue and Florida avenue section of the city. race war galloped wildley through the streets of Washington last night, reaping a death toll of 16 and a list of wounded running wildley into the hundreds. Bands of blacks and whites hunted for each other like clansmen throughout the night. From nightfall to dawn ambulances bore there steady stream of dead and wounded to the hospital.The fighting cost the life if a policeman, Detective Sergeant Wilson,white. Wilson was shot by a negro girl. Carrie Minor Johnson, seventeen, turned to sniping from the second story window of her home 220 G Street Northwest, and Detectives decided to go up and get her. He broke the door down but was felled by a bullet. Inspecter Grant Hurried Wilson to an automobile, which flashed through Pennsylvania Avenue at fast speeds. The machine skidded beyond control and in front of Willard it leaped the street car platforms and crashed into a store front of Poli's Theater. Wilson died on his way to the hospital before the accident. white crowds swelled along Pennsylvania avenue near the white house. Black men by the thousands gathered in the streets of their neighborhoods, waiting. both sides were armed with razors, pistols,clubs,bats, lead pipes, bricks, and knives. black men set up barricades near howard university and the LeDroit Park neighborhood. Some black men (a few of them war veterans) manned the rooftops with rifles.

there were at least 2000 negroes many with pistols showing declaring their purpose to die for their race and defy the white mob which was announced as coming to the colored sections. The NAACP sent a telegram of protest to President Wilson



...the shame put upon the country by the mobs, including United States soldiers, sailors, and marines, which have assaulted innocent and unoffending negroes in the national capital. Men in uniform have attacked negroes on the streets and pulled them from streetcars to beat them. Crowds are reported ...to have directed attacks against any passing negro....The effect of such riots in the national capital upon race antagonism will be to increase bitterness and danger of outbreaks elsewhere. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People calls upon you as President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the nation to make statement condemning mob violence and to enforce such military law as situation demands.
HOME GUARD IS SHOT DEAD; Halbfinger on Duty in Colored Section When Negro, Fires on Him. CARDON AROUND SLAYER Armed Men Picketed on Roofs to Prevent Escape--White Youth Badly Wounded. MAJ.GEN. HAAN IN CHARGE Takes Command of the Military Forces--House Calls for Declaration of Martial Law. Death Concealed From Widow. Jumps to Adjoining Roof. Says Situation Is Under Control. Strong Forces in the City. Acts With Police Chief. 300 Mounted Army Guards. Police Get Machine Guns. Suppressed Tension Everywhere Detective Killed Was New Yorker. Heavy Police Court Fines. MANY URGE MARTIAL LAW. House Members Attack Washington's Police for Failure in Riots.

 

[cole phelps]

In Norfolk, Virginia, a white mob attacked a homecoming celebration for African-American veterans of World War I. At least six people were shot, and the local police called in Marines and Navy personnel to restore order.

 

[Stuntone]

I'm always disgusted by most of American History. We deserve a lot more then reparations.

 

[cole phelps]

Chicago riot
Chicago Race Riot of 1919 was a major racial conflict that began in Chicago, Illinois on July 27, 1919 and ended on August 3.[1] During the riot, dozens died and hundreds were injured.[2] It is considered the worst of the approximately 25 riots during the Red Summer, so named because of the violence and fatalities across the nation.[3] The combination of prolonged arson, looting, and murder was the worst race rioting in the history of Illinois.[4]
The sociopolitical atmosphere of Chicago was one of ethnic tension caused by competition among many new groups. With the Great Migration, thousands of African Americans from the South had settled next to neighborhoods of European immigrants on Chicago's South Side, near jobs in the stockyards and meatpacking plants. The ethnic Irish had been established first, and fiercely defended their territory and political power against all newcomers.[5][6] Post World War I tensions caused frictions between the races, especially in the competitive labor and housing markets.[7] Overcrowding and increased African American militancy by veterans contributed to the visible racial frictions.[3] Also, a combination of ethnic gangs and police neglect strained the racial relationships.[7] According to official reports, the turmoil came to a boil after a young African American was struck by a rock and died at an informally segregated beach. Tensions between groups arose in a melee that blew up into days of unrest.[3]
William Hale Thompson was the Mayor of Chicago during the riot and a game of brinksmanship with Illinois Governor Frank Lowden may have exacerbated the riot since Thompson refused to ask Lowden to send in the militia for four days, despite Lowden ensuring the militia was in Chicago and ready to intervene.[8] Although future mayor Richard J. Daley never officially acknowledged being part of the violence, at age 17 he was an active member of the ethnic Irish Hamburg Athletic Club, which a post-riot investigation named instigators in attacks on blacks.[5] In the following decades, Daley continued to rise in politics to become mayor for twenty years.
United States President Woodrow Wilson and the United States Congress attempted to promote legislation and organizations to decrease racial discord in America.[3] Illinois Governor Frank Lowden took several actions at Thompson's request to quell the riot and promote greater harmony in its aftermath.[9][10] Sections of the Chicago economy were shut down for several days during and after the riots, as plants were closed to avoid interaction among bickering groups.[9][11] Mayor Thompson drew on his association with this riot to influence later political elections.[12]

 

[cole phelps]

Background
Unlike southern cities through the 1960s, Chicago did not segregate most public accommodations.[2] According to Walter Francis White of the NAACP, pre-1915 Chicago had a reputation for equitable treatment of African Americans in general.[7] However, early 20th-century Chicago beaches were segregated.[13] African Americans had a long history in Chicago, with the city sending its first African-American representative to the state legislature in 1876, but the population expanded dramatically in the early 20th century. Late 19th-century tensions occurred between ethnic Irish and African Americans, as most members of both competed for jobs among the lower classes.[14]


Beginning in 1910, thousands of African Americans started moving from the South to Chicago as one destination in the Great Migration to northern and midwestern cities, fleeing lynchings, segregation and disfranchisement in the Deep South. The Ku Klux Klan committed 64 lynchings in 1918 and 83 in 1919 in southern states.[3] With the pull of industrial jobs in the stockyards and meatpacking industry beckoning as European immigration was cut off by World War I, from 1916 to 1919 the African-American population in Chicago increased from 44,000
to 109,000, for a total of 148 percent during the decade.[3][6]
African Americans settled in the South Side, where, as their population grew, they pressed against a neighborhood of ethnic Irish immigrant descendants established since the mid-19th century, and had to compete with them for jobs and housing. African-American migrants had arrived after waves of immigrants from eastern and southern Europe, who also added to the competition and tensions. Ethnic groups established territory in their areas of the city, which their young men often patrolled against outsiders. Because of agricultural problems, Southern whites also migrated to the city, about 20,000 by this period.[7] The rapid influx of migrants caused overcrowding as a result of a lack of adequate low-cost housing

The postwar period found tensions rising in numerous cities where populations were increasing rapidly. People from different cultures jostled against each other and competed for space. In 1917, the Chicago Real Estate Board established a policy of block by block segregation. New arrivals in the Great Migration generally joined old neighbors on the South Side. By 1920, the area held 85% of Chicago's African Americans--middle and upper class and poor.[5] In the postwar period, veterans of all groups were looking to re-enter the work force. Some whites resented African-American veterans. At the same time, African-American veterans exhibited greater militancy and pride as a result of having served to protect their country. They wanted to be treated as full citizens after fighting for the nation.[3] Meanwhile the younger black men rejected the passivity traditional in the South and promoted armed self-defense and control of their neighborhoods.[15]

 

[cole phelps]

continued
In Chicago, ethnic Irish dominated social and athletic clubs that were closely tied to the political structure of the city. Some had acted as enforcers for politicians. As the first major group of 19th-century European immigrants to settle in the city, the Irish had established formal and informal political strength.[16] In Chicago, ethnic white gangs had been attacking people in African-American neighborhoods, and the police, overwhelmingly white and increasingly ethnic Irish, seemed little inclined to try to stop them. Meanwhile, newspapers carried sensational accounts of any African American allegedly involved in crime.[7]
An example of territory was the Bridgeport community area, an ethnic Irish neighborhood just west of the Black Belt. Ethnic Irish had long patrolled their neighborhood boundaries against all other ethnic groups, especially African Americans. A group known as the Hamburg Athletic Club, whose members included a 17-year-old Richard J. Daley, future mayor of Chicago, contributed to gang violence in the area.[5

 

[TooLazyToMakeUp1]

One black veteran wrote a letter to the editor of the Chicago Daily News saying the returning black veterans
"are now new men and world men, if you please; and their possibilities for direction, guidance, honest use and power are limitless, only they must be instructed and led. They have awakened, but they have not yet the complete conception of what they have awakened to."[8]
W. E. B. Du Bois, an official of the NAACP and editor of its monthly magazine, saw an opportunity: "By the God of Heaven, we are cowards and jackasses if now that the war is over, we do not marshal every ounce of our brain and brawn to fight a sterner, longer, more unbending battle against the forces of hell in our own land."[9] In May, following the first serious racial incidents, he published his essay "Returning Soldiers":[10]

"We return from the slavery of uniform which the world's madness demanded us to don to the freedom of civil garb. We stand again to look America squarely in the face and call a spade a spade. We sing: This country of ours, despite all its better souls have done and dreamed, is yet a shameful land....
We return.
We return from fighting.
We return fighting."​

The virtues of a nikka with a passport, experiences and knowledge

Keep goin' breh, !

 

[cole phelps]

The Riots
The spark that ignited this overheated atmosphere came on July 27, 1919, when Eugene
Williams, a 17-year-old African American, swam over the invisible line of racial
segregation at the 29th Street Beach. An angry mob of whites stoned him as he swam in,
and Williams drowned. When the police were called in, they refused to arrest any of the
whites who had been seen throwing stones, and instead arrested one African American. A
fight broke out between a growing crowd of blacks on one side, and the police and whites
on the other. Soon the riot overflowed from the beach, sweeping out to the rest of the
city.
Further to the west, as darkness came on, white gangsters became active. Negores in whtie districts suffered severely at their hands. From 9:00pm until 3:00am twenty-seven Negores were beaten, seven were stabbed, and four were shot."
Over the next week, violence raged through Chicago. White workingmen attacked their
black counterparts as they entered the stockyards. On both sides of the color line, gangs
of youth attacked those who crossed the lines of the segregated neighborhoods. The
property damage was extensive, especially in black sections, with thousands of African
Americans left homeless. In addition, in a summer already marked by an unprecedented
number of strikes, many workers stayed home as the rioting continued, bringing some
industries and services to a near standstill.
At one point, a mob of white men threatened Provident Hospital, many of whose patients were African American. The police held them off. The riot lasted for nearly a week, ending only after the government deployed nearly 6,000 National Guard troops. They stationed them around the Black Belt to prevent further white attacks. By the night of July 30, most violence had ended.[9] Most of the rioting, murder, and arson was the result of ethnic whites attacking the African-American population in the city's Black Belt on the South Side. Most of the casualties and property damage were suffered by blacks. Newspaper accounts noted numerous attempts at arson; for instance, on July 31, more than 30 fires were started in the Black Belt before noon and were believed to be due to arson. Steel cables had been put across the streets to prevent fire trucks from entering the areas.[17] The Mayor's office was told of a plan to burn down the black area and run its residents out of town. There were also sporadic violent attacks in other areas of the city, including the Chicago Loop.[18] In the rioting, 38 people died (23 African Americans and 15 whites),[2] and 537 were injured (two-thirds were African Americans). Patrolman John W. Simpson was the only policeman who was killed in the riot.[6][19] Approximately 1000 residents, mostly African Americans, were left homeless after fires destroyed their homes. Numerous African-American families left the city by train before the rioting had ended, returning to families in the South.

 

[cole phelps]

For five days it raged, mostly on the South Side. White mobs attacked isolated blacks. Blacks attacked isolated whites. John Mills, a black Stockyards worker, was riding home when a mob stopped his streetcar and beat him to death. Casmero Lazeroni, a white peddler, was pulled from his horse-drawn wagon and stabbed to death
Black mobs retaliated against the white violence. As the violence increased, police fired into a crowd of black demonstrators, killing four. Whites became emboldened "Gangs in white districts grew bolder, finally taking the offensive in raids through territory "invaded" by Negro home seekers. Boys between sixteen and twenty-two banded together to enjoy the excitement of the chase….(60
White gangs even invented a new form, the drive-by shooting:
"Automobile raids were added to the rioting on Monday night. Cars from which rifle and revolver shots were fired were driven at great spead through sections inhabited by Negroes." (6) No white raiders were arrested and Blacks began "sniping" in retaliation. Chicago's Police Chief admitted to the Commission: "There is no doubt that a great many police officers were grossly unfair in making arrests. They shut their eyes to offenses committed by white men while they were veryvigorous in gettijng all the colored men they could get." (34). Twice as many blacks were arrested than whites.

 

[cole phelps]

The next day gang violence grew worse:
"A white gang of soldiers and sailors in uniform, augmented by civilians, raide the "Loop" or downtown section of Chicago, early Tuesday, killing two Negroes and beating and robbing several others…..Gangs sprang up as far south as Sixty-third Street in Englewood and in the section west of Wentworth Avenue near Forty-seventh Street. Premeditated depredations were the order of the night. Many Negro homes in mixed districts were attacked, and several of them were burned." Lasalle Street railroad station was invaded twice, with white gangs hunting for Black workers or riders (20).
Rain seemed to calm the riot for a few days and fires in the Stock Yards left 948 people, mainly Lithuanians, homeless. While Blacks were blamed for the fires, the Grand Jury suspected they were started by back of the Yards white gangs "for the purpose of inciting race feeling by blaming same on the blacks." (16). But by then, the riot had run its course.

 

[cole phelps]

Ramifications
There were broad ramifications for the Chicago economy, as certain sectors on the industrial South Side were closed during rioting. Businesses in the Loop were also affected by closure of the street cars. Many workers stayed away from affected areas. The Union Stock Yard, one of Chicago's largest employers, was an example. Initially, all 15,000 African-American workers were expected to return to work on Monday August 4, 1919. But after arson in areas of ethnic white workers homes near the Stock Yards on August 3, the management banned African-American employees from the stockyards in fear of further rioting.[9][11] Governor Lowden noted his opinion that the troubles were related to labor issues rather than race. Nearly one-third of the African-American employees were non-union, and were resented by union employees for that reason. African-American workers were kept out of the stockyards for ten days after the end of the riot because of continued unrest. On August 8, 1919, about 3,000 non-union African Americans showed up for work under protection of special police, deputy sheriffs, and militia. The white union employees threatened to strike unless such security forces were discontinued. Their major grievance against African Americans was that they were non-union, and had been used by management as strikebreakers in earlier years against the union.[24] Many African Americans fled the city as a result of the riots and damage.[18]
Illinois Attorney General Edward Brundage and State's Attorney Hoyne gathered evidence to prepare for a Grand Jury investigation. The stated intention was to pursue all perpetrators and to seek the death penalty as necessary.[17] On August 4, 1919, seventeen indictments against African Americans were handed down.[25] Despite the coroner's report of white responsibility, extensive rioting by whites, and their causing damage to black areas, no whites were indicted.[citation needed]
Richard J. Daley was president of the Hamburg Athletic Club in Bridgeport. Daley served as the Chicago's mayor from 1955 to 1976. In his long political career, he never confirmed or denied whether he was involved in the violence of the riots.[5]
In 1922, six whites and six African-Americans were commissioned to discover the true roots of the riots. It was discovered that in fact returning soldiers from World War I not receiving their original jobs and homes instigated the riots.[2]
In 1930, the flamboyant Republican mayor William Hale Thompson invoked the riot in a misleading pamphlet when urging African Americans against voting for the Republican nominee Rep Ruth Hanna McCormick in the United States Senate race for her late husband's seat. She was the widow of Sen. Joseph Medill McCormick as well as the sister-in-law of Chicago Tribune publisher Robert Rutherford McCormick. The McCormicks were a powerful Chicago family whom Thompson opposed.[12]
United States President Woodrow Wilson pronounced white participants the instigators of the prolonged riots in Chicago and Washington, D.C.. As a result, he attempted to promote greater racial harmony through the promotion of voluntary organizations and through the enactment of legislative improvements by the United States Congress. He did not change the segregation of Federal departments which he had imposed early during his first administration, however. The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 shocked the nation and raised awareness of racial problems that African-Americans faced everyday from the white population in the United States.[3]