Document Analysis: Chicago Race Riots

Document A: Walter White, "Chicago and its Eight Reasons"The Crisis, October 1919

...when the migratory movement from the South assumed large populations, the situation has grown more tense. This was due in part to the introduction of many Negroes who were unfamiliar with city ways and could not, naturally, adapt themselves immediately to their new environment...equally important, though seldom considered, is the fact that man Southern whites have also come into the North, many of them to Chicago, drawn by the same economic advantages that attracted the colored workman...they have spread the same virus of race hatred...

The Negro in Chicago yet remembers the waiters' strike some years ago, when colored union workers walked out at the command of the unions and when the strike was settled, the unions did not insist that Negro waiters be given their jobs back along with whites, and, as a result, colored men have never been able to get back into some of the hotels even to the present day. The Negro is between "the devil and the deep blue sea." He feels that if he goes into the unions, he will lose the friendship of the employers. He knows that if he does not, he is going to be met with the bitter antagonism of the unions.

Since 1915 the colored population of Chicago has more than doubled, increasing in four years from a little over 50,000 to what is now estimated to be between 125,000 and 150,000. Most blacks lived in the area called the "Black Belt." Already overcrowded, this so- called "Black Belt" could not possibly hold the doubled colored population. One cannot put ten gallons of water in a five gallon pail. Whites who are afraid that blacks will move out of the "Black Belt" and into "white" neighborhoods have formed the "Property Owners' Association" to keep blacks out of white neighborhoods. Various plans were discussed for keeping the Negroes in "their part of town"...language of many speakers was vicious and strongly prejudicial and had the distinct effect of creating race bitterness... In a number of cases during the period from January 1918 to August 1919, there were bombings of colored homes and houses occupied by Negroes outside of the "Black Belt." During this period no less than twenty bombings took place, yet only two persons have been arrested and neither of the two has been convicted.

Document B:W.S. Scarborough "Race Riots & their Remedy"The Independent,August 1919

The spirit of the Negro who went across the seas -- who was in battle -- is different from the spirit of the Negro before the war. He is altogether a new man, with new ideas, new hopes, new dreams, and new desires. He will not quietly accept discrimination, and we should not ask him to do so. It is a new Negro that we have with us now. . . . The war transformed these men into new creatures -- citizens of another type....The war is now over, the negro soldier has returned. Note his treatment on the railroads, all of which are under government control. Many of these men are going into their homes with the laurels of victory worn in their country's defense, yet they are not permitted to ride but in the Jim Crow car...

Document C:Chicago Tribune, April 12th 1919

Many people in Chicago worked at meat-packing factories, where they prepared meat to be shipped around the country. These factories were also called "stockyards"... Outsiders who are thinking of coming to Chicago to take a "job at the yards" will not find the "welcome" sign out awaiting them. It became known yesterday that since the end of the Great War the force of workers has dropped by nearly 15,000. This is due both to a big drop in war orders. . . . Another problem is that the factories promised to return every employee who enlisted in the armed forces to "as good or better" a job than he held when he put on a uniform. [White] men are now returning in increasingly large numbers and none are being turned away. "No discrimination is being shown in the reducing of our forces," said an official of one of the packing companies, in discussing reports that southern colored men, who were hired during the war job shortage, were being fired. "It is a case of survival of the fittest, the best man staying on the job. It is a fact that the southern Negro cannot compete with the northerner."

Document D: "Ghastly Deeds of Rioters Told"The Chicago Defender,August 2 1919

Provident Hospital, 36th and Dearborn Streets, situated in the heart of the 'black belt', as well as other hospitals in the surrounding districts, are filled with the maimed and dying....

...Following the Sunday affray, the red tongues had blabbed their fill, and Monday morning found the thoroughfares in the white neighborhoods thronged with a sea of humans - everywhere - some armed with guns, bricks, clubs, and, an oath. The presence of a black face in their vicinity was the signal for a carnival of death....

In all parts of the city, white mobs dragged from...cars black passengers wholly ignorant of any trouble [and] set upon them....The homes of blacks isolated in white neighborhoods were burned to the ground and the owners and occupants beaten and thrown unconscious in the smoldering embers. Meanwhile rioters in the 'black belt' smashed windows and looted shops of white merchants on State Street. [Black] workers thronging the loop district to their work were set upon by mobs of sailors and marines roving the streets and several fatal casualties have been reported....The loop violence came as a surprise to the police...as no outbreaks had been expected in this quarter.

Document E:Chicago Daily TribuneJune 28th 1919

Shortly after 5 o'clock...white bathers at the 29th Street beach saw a colored boy on a raft paddling into what they termed 'white' territory. A snarl of protest went up from the whites and soon a volley of rocks and stones was sent in his direction. One rock, said to have been thrown by George Stauber of Cottage Grove Avenue, struck the lad and he toppled into the water. Colored men who were present attempted to go to his rescue, but they were kept back by the whites....Indignant [at the refusal of the police to arrest Stauber], the Negroes...commenced to pummel him. The whites came to his rescue and then the royal battle was on. Fists flew and rocks were hurled....Policeman John O'Brien and three blacks were shot... The battling spread along Cottage Grove Avenue and outbreaks were conspicuous at every corner....Meanwhile the fighting continued along the lake....Acting Police Chief Alcock...immediately sent out a call to every station in the city to rush all available men to the Black Belt [black neighborhood]. Before they arrived, colored and white men were mobbed in turn. The blacks added to the racial feeling by carrying guns and brandishing knives... By nightfall...whites stood at all prominent corners ready to avenge the beatings their brothers had received. Along Halsted and State Streets they were armed with clubs, and every Negro who appeared was pummeled...

Document F:Chicago Federation of Labor,The New Majority, August 9 1919

The profiteering meat packers of Chicago are responsible for the race riots that have disgraced the city. It is the outcome of their deliberate attempt to disrupt the labor union movement in the stockyards. Organized labor has no quarrel with the colored worker: workers, black and white, are fighting the same battle. The unions met the action of the packers by starting to organize the colored workers. As soon as this work commenced, the packers started to fight the unions with foul tactics. They subsidized Negro politicians and Negro preachers and sent them out among the colored men and women to induce them not to join the unions... Their purpose in this...was to play upon race prejudice and create dissension between whites and blacks which would prevent the colored workers from joining the unions and prejudice the white workers against them for that reason.

Document G:The Chicago Commission on Race RelationsThe Negro in Chicago(1922)

Wild rumors were in circulation by word of mouth and in the press throughout the riot and provoked many clashes. These included stories of atrocities committed by one race against the other. Reports of the numbers of white and Negro dead tended to produce a feeling that the score must be kept even...Newspaper reports...showed 6 percent more whites injured than Negroes. As a matter of fact, there were 28 percent more Negroes injured than whites. The Chicago Tribune on July 29 reported twenty persons killed, of whom 13 were white and seven colored. The true figures were exactly the opposite...

Task -Using the documents above, and your knowledge of US History, please complete the following:

Imagine it is fall of 1919 and you are writing an article on the Chicago race riots that took place earlier that year. You have assembled research from the sources above and are getting ready to write your article. In your article you want to include the following pieces of information:

• Contextualization: What pre-existing social and economic conditions most likely contributed to the tension that led to the race riot?
• Cause: What was the spark that incited the race riots in Chicago?
• Effect: What happened during the riot?
• Sourcing: From all of your research, whose perspectives on the riot are you missing? What do you suggest your readers do to learn more about the missing perspectives? Your article should be three paragraphs long, and include three pieces of evidence from three different sources to support at least three different claims made in your article. Make sure you choose your evidence wisely.