THE COMMISSION 595-651
The Chicago Riot 595
The Migration of Negroes from the South 602
The Negro Population of Chicago 605
Racial Contacts 613
Crime and Vicious Environment 621
The Negro in Chicago Industries 623
Public Opinion in Race Relations 629
Opinions of Whites and Negroes 629
Factors in the Making of Public Opinion 634
The Recommendations of the Commission 640
APPENDIX 652
Biographical Data of Members of the Commission 652
The Staff of the Commission 653
Epitome of Facts in Riot Deaths 655
Table Showing Number of Persons Injured in Chicago Riot
by Date and by Race 667
INDEX 669
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING
PAGE
WHITES AND NEGROES LEAVING TWENTY-NINTH STREET BEACH iii
CROWDS ARMED WITH BRICKS SEARCHING FOR A NEGRO 12
WHITES STONING NEGRO TO DEATH 12
THE ARRIVAL OF THE POLICE 12
SCENES FROM FIRE IN IMMIGRANT NEIGHBORHOOD 16, 22, 28
NEGROES LEAVING WRECKED HOUSE IN RIOT ZONE 16
WRECKED HOUSE OF A NEGRO FAMILY IN RIOT ZONE 28
NEGROES AND WHITES LEAVING THE STOCK YARDS 28
NEGROES BEING ESCORTED TO SAFETY ZONE 34
SEARCHING NEGROES FOR ARMS IN POLICE STATION 34
NEGROES BUYING PROVISIONS BROUGHT INTO THEIR NEIGHBORHOOD 40
THE MILITIA AND NEGROES ON FRIENDLY TERMS 40
NEGRO STOCK YARDS WORKERS RECEIVING WAGES 44
BUYING ICE FROM FREIGHT CAR 44
MILK WAS DISTRIBUTED FOR THE BABIES 48
PROVISIONS SUPPLIED BY THE RED CROSS 48
PROPAGANDA LITERATURE USED BY "ABYSSINIANS" 60
AFTER THE "ABYSSINIAN MURDERS" 64
TYPICAL PLANTATION HOMES IN THE SOUTH 80
NEGRO FAMILY JUST ARRIVED IN CHICAGO 92
NEGRO CHURCH IN THE SOUTH 92
RACIAL CONTACTS AMONG CHILDREN 108
A SAVINGS BANK IN THE NEGRO RESIDENCE AREA 112
CHILDREN AT WORK IN A COMMUNITY GARDEN 112
DAMAGE DONE BY A BOMB 128
A NEGRO CHORAL SOCIETY 136
OLIVET BAPTIST CHURCH 140
ST. MARK'S M.E. CHURCH 140
TRINITY M.E. CHURCH AND COMMUNITY HOUSE 146
SOUTH PARK M.E. CHURCH 146
PILGRIM BAPTIST CHURCH 146
THE CHICAGO URBAN LEAGUE BUILDING 150
THE SOUTH SIDE COMMUNITY SERVICE BUILDING 150
HOMES OWNED BY NEGROES ON SOUTH PARK AVENUE 188
AN ABANDONED RESIDENCE IN THE PRAIRIE AVENUE BLOCK 188
HOMES OCCUPIED AND IN PART OWNED BY NEGROES 194
HOMES OCCUPIED BY NEGROES ON FOREST AVENUE 202
REAR VIEW OF HOUSES OCCUPIED BY NEGROES ON FEDERAL STREET 202
MOSELEY SCHOOL 242
FARREN SCHOOL 248
WENDELL PHILLIPS HIGH SCHOOL 252
A TYPICAL SCHOOL YARD PLAYGROUND IN A WHITE NEIGHBORHOOD 276
BEUTNER PLAYGROUND 280
FIELD HOUSE EQUIPMENT AT BEUTNER PLAYGROUND 280
NEGRO ATHLETIC TEAM IN CITY-WIDE MEET 280
FRIENDLY RIVALRY 280
ARMOUR SQUARE RECREATION CENTER 286
BEUTNER PLAYGROUND 286
A NEGRO AMATEUR BASEBALL TEAM 292
NEGRO WOMEN AND GIRLS EMPLOYED IN A LAMP-SHADE FACTORY 378
NEGRO WOMEN EMPLOYED ON POWER MACHINES 380
NEGRO WOMEN AND GIRLS IN A LARGE HAT-MAKING CONCERN 384
OFFICERS OF THE RAILWAY MEN'S BENEVOLENT INDUSTRIAL
ASSOCIATION 410
LIST OF MAPS
FACING
PAGE
THE CHICAGO RIOT 8
DISTRIBUTION OF NEGRO POPULATION, 1910 106
DISTRIBUTION OF NEGRO POPULATION, 1920 110
PROPORTION OF NEGROES TO TOTAL POPULATION, 1910 116
PROPORTION OF NEGROES TO TOTAL POPULATION, 1920 120
HOMES BOMBED 124
NEGRO CHURCHES 144
SOCIAL AGENCIES 148
HOMES OF WHITE AND NEGRO EMPLOYEES 154
TYPES OF NEGRO HOUSING 184
A CHANGING NEIGHBORHOOD 212
RECREATION FACILITIES 272
TRANSPORTATION CONTACTS, MORNING 7:00 TO 9:00 300
TRANSPORTATION CONTACTS, EVENING 4:00 TO 6:00 300
HOUSES OF PROSTITUTION, 1916 342
HOUSES OF PROSTITUTION, 1918 342
RESORTS 346
INDUSTRIAL PLANTS 360
FOREWORD
There is no domestic problem in America which has given thoughtful men
more concern than the problem of the relations between the white and
the Negro races. In earlier days the colonization of the Negro, as in
Liberia, was put forward as a solution. That idea was abandoned long ago.
It is now recognized generally that the two races are here in America
to stay.
It is also certain that the problem will not be solved by methods of
violence. Every race riot, every instance in which men of either race
defy legal authority and take the law into their own hands, but postpones
the day when the two races shall live together amicably. The law must
be maintained and enforced vigorously and completely before any real
progress can be made towards better race relations.
Means must be found, therefore, whereby the two races can live together on
terms of amity. This will be possible only if the two races are brought
to understand each other better. It is believed that such understanding
will result in each having a higher degree of respect for the other,
and that such respect will form the basis for greatly improved relations
between the races.
The Commission on Race Relations, composed of distinguished
representatives of both races, has made the most thorough and complete
survey of the race situation that I have seen anywhere. While its field
of study was necessarily limited to Chicago, the conditions there may
be regarded as fairly typical of conditions in other large cities where
there is a large colored population.
The report does not pretend to have discovered any new formula by which
all race trouble will disappear. The subject is too complex for any such
simple solution. It finds certain facts, however, the mere recognition
of which will go a long way towards allaying race feeling. It finds that
in that portion of Chicago in which colored persons have lived longest
and in the largest numbers relatively there has been the minimum of
friction. This is a fact of the first importance. For it tends to show
that the presence of Negroes in large numbers in our great cities is
not a menace in itself.
There is one recommendation (No. 31) to which I desire to call special
attention: that a permanent local commission on race relations be created.
When as Governor of Illinois I withdrew troops from Chicago after the
riots, I was not at all persuaded that all danger of their recurrence
was past. I kept observers from the Adjutant General's office on the
ground to watch for any signs of fresh trouble. The Commission on Race
Relations was appointed, and conditions at once began to improve. The
activities of this Commission, composed of the best representatives of
both races, were, as I believe, the principal cause for this improved
condition.
Causes of friction, insignificant in themselves, but capable of leading to
serious results, were discovered by the Commission and by its suggestion
were removed in time to avoid grave consequences. Gross exaggerations
of some fancied grievance by either the one race or the other were
examined into and were found to rest upon nothing else than idle rumor
or prejudice. In the light of truth which the Commission was able to
throw upon the subject, these grievances disappeared. In other words,
misunderstanding, which had been so prolific a source of trouble between
the races, was greatly reduced.
The report contains recommendations, which, if acted upon, will make
impossible, in my opinion, a repetition of the appalling tragedy which
brought disgrace to Chicago in July of 1919.
Men may differ as to some of the conclusions reached, but all fair-minded
men must admit, I think, that the report of the Commission on Race
Relations is a most important contribution to this important subject.
FRANK O. LOWDEN
INTRODUCTION
On Sunday, July 27, 1919, there was a clash of white people and Negroes
at a bathing-beach in Chicago, which resulted in the drowning of a
Negro boy. This led to a race riot in which thirty-eight lives were
lost--twenty-three Negroes and fifteen whites--and 537 persons were
injured. After three days of mob violence, affecting several sections
of the city, the state militia was called out to assist the police in
restoring order. It was not until August 6 that danger of further clashes
was regarded as past.
To discuss this serious situation and means of preventing its recurrence,
a group of eighty-one citizens, representing forty-eight social, civic,
commercial, and professional organizations of Chicago, met on August 1,
1919, at the Union League Club. Mr. Charles W. Folds, president of the
Club, presided. Brief addresses were made by Mr. H. H. Merrick, president
of the Chicago Association of Commerce, Dr. Graham Taylor, Miss Harriet
Vittum, Major John S. Bonner, Mr. Charles J. Boyd, and Rev. William C.
Covert.
Resolutions were passed and given to the press, and the following letter
to the Governor of Illinois was authorized:
_To His Excellency, Frank O. Lowden_
_Governor of Illinois_
DEAR SIR: A meeting was held today at the Union League Club
to take up the matter of the present race riots.
This meeting was attended by 81 representatives of 48 prominent
civic, professional and commercial organizations, such as
Chicago Medical Association, Chicago Bar Association, Federation
of Churches, Association of Commerce, Packing House Industries,
Urban League, Woman's City Club, Chicago Woman's Club, Foreign
Language Division, representing foreign-born population, etc.
A resolution was adopted unanimously, appointing the undersigned
as a committee to wait upon you and ask that you appoint at
your earliest convenience an emergency state committee to study
the psychological, social and economic causes underlying the
conditions resulting in the present race riot and to make such
recommendations as will tend to prevent a recurrence of such
conditions in the future.
The committee would welcome an opportunity to meet you at any
time convenient to yourself and to talk over with you details
and give you such information as has been gathered through
these various organizations.
Respectfully,
CHARLES W. FOLDS
GRAHAM TAYLOR
WILLIAM C. GRAVES
HARRIET E. VITTUM
T. ARNOLD HILL
FELIX J. STREYCKMANS
In response to this and other urgent requests by various citizens and
organizations, and pursuant to his personal knowledge of the situation
derived from investigations made by him in Chicago during the period of
the riot, Governor Lowden announced on August 20, 1919, the appointment
of a Commission on Race Relations, consisting of twelve members, six from
each race, as follows--Mr. Bancroft being designated by him as chairman:
Representing the white people: Edgar A. Bancroft, William Scott Bond,
Edward Osgood Brown, Harry Eugene Kelly, Victor F. Lawson, Julius
Rosenwald.
Representing the Negro people: Robert S. Abbott, George Cleveland Hall,
George H. Jackson, Edward H. Morris, Adelbert H. Roberts, Lacey Kirk
Williams.[1]
In announcing the appointment of this Commission, Governor Lowden made
public the following statement:
I have been requested by many citizens and by many civic
organizations in Chicago to appoint a Commission to study
and report upon the broad question of the relations between
the two races. These riots were the work of the worst element
of both races. They did not represent the great overwhelming
majority of either race. The two are here and will remain here.
The great majority of each realizes the necessity of their
living upon terms of cordial good will and respect, each for
the other. That condition must be brought about.
To say that we cannot solve this problem is to confess the
failure of self-government. I offer no solution of the problem.
I do know, however, that the question cannot be answered by
mob violence. I do know that every time men, white or colored,
take the law into their own hands, instead of helping they
only postpone the settlement of the question. When we admit
the existence of a problem and courageously face it, we have
gone half-way toward its solution.
I have with the utmost care, in response to the requests above
set forth, appointed a Commission to undertake this great
work. I have sought only the most representative men of the
two races. I have not even asked them whether they had views
as to how the question could be met. I have asked them only
to approach the difficult subject with an open mind, and in
a spirit of fairness and justice to all. This is a tribunal
that has been constituted to get the facts and interpret them
and to find a way out. I believe that great good can come out
of the work of this Commission.
I ask that our people, white and colored, give their fullest
co-operation to the Commission. I ask, too, as I have a right to
ask, that both races exercise that patience and self-restraint
which are indispensable to self-government while we are working
out this problem.
During an absence of the chairman, due to ill health, Governor Lowden
requested Dr. Francis W. Shepardson, director of the State Department
of Registration and Education, to serve as acting chairman. On Mr.
Bancroft's return and at the Commission's request, the Governor appointed
Dr. Shepardson a member and vice-chairman of the Commission.
The Commission's first meeting was held on October 9, 1919. Nine other
meetings were held during the remainder of that year to canvass the
possible fields of inquiry, and to provide for the organization of
studies and investigations.
The Commission was seriously handicapped at the outset by a complete
lack of funds. The legislative session of 1919 had ended before the riot,
and the next regular session was not to convene until January, 1921. The
Commission felt that it could not with propriety seek to raise funds on
its own appeal. To meet this situation a group of citizens offered to
serve as a co-operating committee to finance the Commission's inquiry and
the preparation and publication of its report. This Committee, consisting
of Messrs. James B. Forgan, chairman, Abel Davis, treasurer, Arthur
Meeker, John J. Mitchell, and John G. Shedd, gave effective aid, being
most actively assisted by Messrs. R. B. Beach and John F. Bowman, of the
staff of the Chicago Association of Commerce. Without the co-operation of
these gentlemen and the resulting financial assistance of many generous
contributors the Commission could not have carried on its work. It here
expresses its most grateful appreciation.
The Commission organized its staff, inviting Mr. Graham Romeyn Taylor, as
executive secretary, and Mr. Charles S. Johnson, as associate executive
secretary, to assume charge of the inquiries and investigations under
its direction. They began their work on December 7, 1919.
While the Commission recognized the importance of studying the facts of
the riot, it felt that even greater emphasis should be placed on the
study and interpretation of the conditions of Negro life in Chicago
and of the relations between the two races. Therefore, after a brief
survey of the data already collected and of the broad field for its
inquiries, it organized into six committees, as follows: Committee on
Racial Clashes, Committee on Housing, Committee on Industry, Committee
on Crime, Committee on Racial Contacts, Committee on Public Opinion.
Along all these lines of inquiry information was sought in two general
ways: through a series of conferences or informal hearings, and through
research and field work carried on by a staff of trained investigators,
white and Negro. Thus both races were represented in the membership of
the Commission, in its executive secretaries, and in the field and office
staff organized by the executive secretaries.
It is not without significance that in securing office quarters the
Commission found several agents of buildings who declined to make a
lease when they learned that Negroes as well as whites were among the
prospective tenants. They stated their objections as based, not upon
their own prejudices, but upon the fear that other tenants would resent
the presence of Negroes. Office space at 118 North La Salle Street was
leased to the Commission by the L. J. McCormick estate, beginning February
1, 1920. When these offices were vacated, May 1, 1921, the agents of
the estate informed the Commission that no tenant of the building had
complained of the presence of Negroes.
By March 1, 1920, the staff of investigators had been organized and
was at work. The personnel was recruited as far as possible from social
workers of both races whose training and experience had fitted them for
intelligent and sympathetic handling of research and field work along
the lines mapped out by the Commission.[2]
The period of investigations and conferences or informal hearings lasted
until November, 1920. The work of compiling material and writing the
various sections of the report had begun in October, 1920. Including its
business meetings and thirty conferences the Commission held more than
seventy-five meetings; forty of these were devoted to the consideration
of the text of the report.
The executive secretaries with their staff collected the materials
during 1920, and soon after presented the first draft of a report. This
was considered and discussed by the Commission in numerous sessions,
and the general outlines of the report were decided upon. Then a second
draft, in accordance with its directions, was prepared by subjects, and
a copy was submitted to each member of the Commission for suggestions
and criticisms. Afterward the Commission met and discussed the questions
raised by the different members, and determined upon the changes to
be made in substance and form. After the entire report had been thus
revised, the Commission in many conferences decided what recommendations
to make. These recommendations, with a summary of the report, were then
prepared, and were reviewed by the Commission after they had been sent
to each member. After full consideration they were further revised and
then adopted by the Commission. In all these conferences upon the report,
all of the Commissioners, with one exception, conferred frequently and
agreed unanimously. Mr. Morris, on account of his duties as a member of
the Constitutional Convention, did not attend any of these conferences
upon the report, summary, or recommendations, and does not concur in them.
The Commission received the cordial assistance of many agencies,
organizations, and individuals. The Chicago Urban League placed at its
disposal a large amount of material from its files. It also gave a leave
of absence to the head of its Department of Research and Investigation,
Mr. Charles S. Johnson, the Commission's associate executive secretary.
Many citizens, representing widely divergent lines of interest, who
were invited to attend conferences held by the Commission, gave most
generously of their time and knowledge. The L. J. McCormick estate
donated three months' office rent. Messrs. George C. Nimmons & Company,
architects, contributed valuable services, including study and supervision
by Frederick Jehnck of their office, in preparing maps and charts
designed to present most effectively data collected by the Commission.
The Federal Bureau of the Census made available advanced data from the
1920-21 censuses. Superintendent Peter A. Mortensen and many principals
and teachers in the Chicago public schools co-operated in the extensive
studies of race relations in the schools; and the Committee of Fifteen
provided a report showing important facts in the study of environment
and crime. The various park boards, many municipal, county, and state
officials, superintendents and others connected with industrial plants,
trades-union officers, and leaders in many civic and social agencies
greatly facilitated investigations in their respective fields. To all
these the Commission returns sincere thanks. But, perhaps, the greatest
debt of gratitude is due Mr. Ernest S. Simpson, who generously and
devotedly gave his spare time for many months to the editing of this
report.
The Commission's letter to Governor Lowden summarizing its work, and
his answer follow:
January 1, 1921
_Honorable Frank O. Lowden_
_Governor of Illinois_
SIR: Following the race riot in Chicago in July and August,
1919, in which fifteen white people and twenty-three Negroes
were killed and very many of both races were injured, you
appointed us as a Commission on Race Relations "to study and
report upon the broad question of the relations between the
two races." We have completed the investigations planned as
a basis for this study, and are now preparing a final report
of our findings, conclusions and recommendations. This report
will soon be ready.
The Commission began its work in October, 1919, and for eleven
months has had a staff of investigators assisting it in its
activities. While devoting much effort to the study of the
Chicago riot as presenting many phases of the race problem,
the Commission has placed greater emphasis upon the study of
the conditions of life of the Negro group in this community,
and of the broad questions of race relations. It therefore
organized itself into six committees on the following subjects:
Racial Clashes, Housing, Industry, Crime, Racial Contacts,
and Public Opinion.
In these fields the Commission's work has been done along two
main lines:
(_a_) a series of conferences, at which persons believed to
have special information and experience relating to these
subjects have been invited to give the Commission the benefit
of their knowledge and opinions;
(_b_) research and field work by a trained staff of
investigators, both white and Negro, to determine as accurately
as possible, from first-hand evidence, the actual conditions
in the above fields.
The series of conferences, numbering thirty, covered a wide
range of topics, such as: the race riot of 1919 as viewed by
the police, the militia, the grand jury, and state's attorney;
race friction and its remedies; contacts of whites and Negroes
in public schools and recreation places; special educational
problems of Negro children; Negro housing, its needs, type, and
financing, and its difficulties in mixed areas; Negro labor
in relation to employers, fellow-workers, and trade unions;
Negro women in industry; the Negro and social agencies; Negro
health; Negroes and whites in the courts and in correctional
institutions; and the Negro and white press in relation to
public opinion on race relations.
Of two hundred and sixty-three persons invited, one hundred
and seventy-five attended these conferences and presented
their information and views. They represented both races and
various groups and viewpoints; they included educators and
teachers, real estate men, bankers, managers of industrial
plants, housing experts, trades-union leaders, social workers,
physicians, park and playground directors, judges, clergymen,
superintendents of correctional and other institutions, police,
militia, and other public officials, and newspaper editors.
The research and field work done by the staff of investigators
covered in general the same broad range. The character is
indicated by a bare outline of the work in the six main fields:
Racial Clashes: 1919 Chicago riot, seventeen antecedent
clashes; three minor clashes in 1920; brief comparative study
of Springfield riot in 1908 and East St. Louis riot in 1917.
Racial Contacts: In schools, transportation lines, parks,
and other recreation places; contacts in mixed neighborhoods;
adjustment of southern Negro families coming to Chicago; survey
of Negro agencies and institutions.
Housing: Negro areas in Chicago and their expansion 1910-1920;
274 family histories showing housing experience, home life,
and social back-ground, including families from the South; 159
blocks covered in neighborhood survey; financing Negro housing;
depreciation in and near Negro areas; 52 house bombings,
1917-1920.
Industry: Data covering 22,448 Negroes in 192 plants; 101 plants
visited; quality of Negro labor; the widening opportunities and
chance for promotion studied; special study of trades unions
and the Negro worker.
Crime: Police statistics of arrests and convictions of Negroes
and selected nationalities compared and analyzed for six
years[3]; also juvenile court cases; 698 cases (one month) in
three police courts studied, including detailed social data on
Negro cases; also 249 sex cases (two years) in criminal court;
record of eleven penal institutions; environmental survey of
Negro areas.
Public Opinion: Files of white and Negro newspapers studied
to analyze handling of matters relating to race relations;
study of rumor and its effects, and of racial propaganda of
white and Negro organizations.
We believe that the large volume of information collected
will prove, when properly set forth, of great value not only
in Chicago but in other communities where public-spirited
citizens are endeavoring to establish right relations between
the two races. This end can be attained only through a more
intelligent appreciation by both races of the gravity of the
problem, and by their earnest efforts toward a better mutual
understanding and a more sympathetic co-operation.
Hoping that our appreciation of the trust you have reposed in
us may appear in some measure in the aid our report may give
toward working out better race relations, we are,
Very respectfully yours,
(Signed by members of the Commission and its Executive
Secretaries)
* * * * *
STATE OF ILLINOIS
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
SPRINGFIELD
January 3, 1921
MY DEAR MR. BANCROFT:
I have received and read with great interest your letter of
January 1st transmitting to me a detailed statement of the
work of the Chicago Commission on Race Relations appointed by
me after the race riot in Chicago in 1919, which is signed by
yourself as chairman and by the other members of the Commission.
I am greatly pleased to know that the Commission has been
able to accomplish so much through its investigations and
that there has been such hearty co-operation on the part of
many citizens to make the inquiry in this important field as
valuable as possible.
I shall look forward with more than ordinary interest to the
appearance of the completed report in printed form. I suggest
that the Commission arrange for its publication as soon as
possible in order that your findings and recommendations may
be made available to all students of race relations in our
country.
I desire to express to you and through you to the members
of the Commission my great appreciation of the service which
you have rendered to the people of Chicago and of Illinois in
connection with the Commission. I have been advised from time to
time of your continuing interest, your fidelity in attendance
upon the meetings of the Commission, and your earnest desire
to render as accurate a judgment as possible.
Yours very sincerely,
(Signed) FRANK O. LOWDEN
HON. EDGAR A. BANCROFT
_Chairman, Chicago Commission on Race Relations_
In accordance with Governor Lowden's suggestion the Commission herewith
presents its report, with findings and recommendations, hoping that
it may prove of service in the efforts to bring about better relations
between the white and Negro races.
THE PROBLEM
The relation of whites and Negroes in the United States is our most grave
and perplexing domestic problem. It involves not only a difference of
race--which as to many immigrant races has been happily overcome--but
wider and more manifest differences in color and physical features.
These make an easy and natural basis for distinctions, discriminations,
and antipathies arising from the instinct of each race to preserve its
type. Many white Americans, while technically recognizing Negroes as
citizens, cannot bring themselves to feel that they should participate
in government as freely as other citizens.
Countless schemes have been proposed for solving or dismissing this
problem, most of them impracticable or impossible. Of this class are such
proposals as: (1) the deportation of 12,000,000 Negroes to Africa; (2)
the establishment of a separate Negro state in the United States; (3)
complete separation and segregation from the whites and the establishment
of a caste system or peasant class; and (4) hope for a solution through
the dying out of the Negro race. The only effect of such proposals is to
confuse thinking on the vital issues involved and to foster impatience
and intolerance.
Our race problem must be solved in harmony with the fundamental law of
the nation and with its free institutions. These prevent any deportation
of the Negro, as well as any restriction of his freedom of movement
within the United States. The problem must not be regarded as sectional
or political, and it should be studied and discussed seriously, frankly,
and with an open mind.
It is important for our white citizens always to remember that the Negroes
alone of all our immigrants came to America against their will by the
special compelling invitation of the whites; that the institution of
slavery was introduced, expanded, and maintained in the United States
by the white people and for their own benefit; and that they likewise
created the conditions that followed emancipation.
Our Negro problem, therefore, is not of the Negro's making. No group in
our population is less responsible for its existence. But every group is
responsible for its continuance; and every citizen, regardless of color
or racial origin, is in honor and conscience bound to seek and forward
its solution.
Centuries of the Negro slave trade and of slavery as an institution
have created, and are often deemed to justify, the deep-seated prejudice
against Negroes. They placed a stamp upon the relations of the two races
which it will require many years to erase. The memory of these relations
has profoundly affected and still affects the industrial, commercial,
and social life of the southern states.
The great body of anti-Negro public opinion, preserved in the literature
and traditions of the white race during the long, unhappy progress of
the Negro from savagery through slavery to citizenship, has exercised
a persistent and powerful effect, both conscious and unconscious, upon
the thinking and the behavior of the white group generally. Racial
misunderstanding has been fostered by the ignorance and indifference of
many white citizens concerning the marvelous industry and courage shown
by the Negroes and the success they have achieved in their fifty-nine
years of freedom.
The Negro race must develop, as all races have developed, from lower
to higher planes of living; and must base its progress upon industry,
efficiency, and moral character. Training along these lines and general
opportunities for education are the fundamental needs. As the problem
is national in its scope and gravity, the solution must be national.
And the nation must make sure that the Negro is educated for citizenship.
It is of the first importance that old prejudices against the Negroes,
based upon their misfortunes and not on their faults, be supplanted with
respect, encouragement, and co-operation, and with a recognition of their
heroic struggles for self-improvement and of their worthy achievements
as loyal American citizens.
Both races need to understand that their rights and duties are mutual
and equal, and that their interests in the common good are identical;
that relations of amity are the only protection against race clashes;
that these relations cannot be forced, but will come naturally as the
leaders of each race develop within their own ranks a realization of
the gravity of this problem and a vital interest in its solution, and
an attitude of confidence, respect, and friendliness toward the people
of the other race.
All our citizens, regardless of color or racial origin, need to be taught
by their leaders that there is a common standard of superiority for them
all in self-respect, honesty, industry, fairness, forbearance, and above
all, in generous helpfulness. There is no help or healing in appraising
past responsibilities, or in present apportioning of praise or blame.
The past is of value only as it aids in understanding the present; and
an understanding of the facts of the problem--a magnanimous understanding
by both races--is the first step toward its solution.
CHAPTER I
THE CHICAGO RIOT
JULY 27-AUGUST 2, 1919
Thirty-eight persons killed, 537 injured, and about 1,000 rendered
homeless and destitute was the casualty list of the race riot which broke
out in Chicago on July 27, 1919, and swept uncontrolled through parts
of the city for four days. By August 2 it had yielded to the forces of
law and order, and on August 8 the state militia withdrew.
A clash between whites and Negroes on the shore of Lake Michigan at
Twenty-ninth Street, which involved much stone-throwing and resulted in
the drowning of a Negro boy, was the beginning of the riot. A policeman's
refusal to arrest a white man accused by Negroes of stoning the Negro
boy was an important factor in starting mob action. Within two hours the
riot was in full sway, had scored its second fatality, and was spreading
throughout the south and southwest parts of the city. Before the end came
it reached out to a section of the West Side and even invaded the "Loop,"
the heart of Chicago's downtown business district. Of the thirty-eight
killed, fifteen were whites and twenty-three Negroes; of 537 injured,
178 were whites, 342 were Negroes, and the race of seventeen was not
recorded.
In contrast with many other outbreaks of violence over racial friction the
Chicago riot was not preceded by excitement over reports of attacks on
women or of any other crimes alleged to have been committed by Negroes.
It is interesting to note that not one of the thirty-eight deaths was of
a woman or girl, and that only ten of the 537 persons injured were women
or girls. In further contrast with other outbreaks of racial violence,
the Chicago riot was marked by no hangings or burnings.
The rioting was characterized by much activity on the part of gangs of
hoodlums, and the clashes developed from sudden and spontaneous assaults
into organized raids against life and property.
In handling the emergency and restoring order, the police were effectively
reinforced by the state militia. Help was also rendered by deputy
sheriffs, and by ex-soldiers who volunteered.
In nine of the thirty-eight cases of death, indictments for murder
were voted by the grand jury, and in the ensuing trials there were four
convictions. In fifteen other cases the coroner's jury recommended that
unknown members of mobs be apprehended, but none of these was ever found.
The conditions underlying the Chicago riot are discussed in detail
in other sections of this report, especially in those which deal
with housing, industry, and racial contacts. The Commission's inquiry
concerning the facts of the riot included a critical analysis of the
5,584 pages of the testimony taken by the coroner's jury; a study of the
records of the office of the state's attorney; studies of the records of
the Police Department, hospitals, and other institutions with reference
to injuries, and of the records of the Fire Department with reference to
incendiary fires; and interviews with many public officials and citizens
having special knowledge of various phases of the riot. Much information
was also gained by the Commission in a series of four conferences to
which it invited the foreman of the riot grand jury, the chief and other
commanding officers of the Police Department, the state's attorney and
some of his assistants, and officers in command of the state militia
during the riot.
_Background of the riot._--The Chicago riot was not the only serious
outbreak of interracial violence in the year following the war. The same
summer witnessed the riot in Washington, about a week earlier; the riot
in Omaha, about a month later; and then the week of armed conflict in a
rural district of Arkansas due to exploitation of Negro cotton producers.
Nor was the Chicago riot the first violent manifestation of race
antagonism in Illinois. In 1908 Springfield had been the scene of an
outbreak that brought shame to the community which boasted of having
been Lincoln's home. In 1917 East St. Louis was torn by a bitter and
destructive riot which raged for nearly a week, and was the subject
of a Congressional investigation that disclosed appalling underlying
conditions.
This Commission, while making a thorough study of the Chicago riot, has
reviewed briefly, for comparative purposes, the essential facts of the
Springfield and East St. Louis riots, and of minor clashes in Chicago
occurring both before and after the riot of 1919.
Chicago was one of the northern cities most largely affected by the
migration of Negroes from the South during the war. The Negro population
increased from 44,103 in 1910 to 109,594 in 1920, an increase of 148 per
cent. Most of this increase came in the years 1916-19. It was principally
caused by the widening of industrial opportunities due to the entrance
of northern workers into the army and to the demand for war workers
at much higher wages than Negroes had been able to earn in the South.
An added factor was the feeling, which spread like a contagion through
the South, that the great opportunity had come to escape from what they
felt to be a land of discrimination and subserviency to places where
they could expect fair treatment and equal rights. Chicago became to
the southern Negro the "top of the world."
The effect of this influx of Negroes into Chicago industries is reviewed
in another section of this report.[4] It is necessary to point out here
only that friction in industry was less than might have been expected.
There had been a few strikes which had given the Negro the name of "strike
breaker." But the demand for labor was such that there were plenty of
jobs to absorb all the white and Negro workers available. This condition
continued even after the end of the war and demobilization.
In housing, however, there was a different story. Practically no new
building had been done in the city during the war, and it was a physical
impossibility for a doubled Negro population to live in the space
occupied in 1915. Negroes spread out of what had been known as the "Black
Belt" into neighborhoods near-by which had been exclusively white. This
movement, as described in another section of this report, developed
friction, so much so that in the "invaded" neighborhoods bombs were thrown
at the houses of Negroes who had moved in, and of real estate men, white
and Negro, who sold or rented property to the newcomers. From July 1,
1917, to July 27, 1919, the day the riot began, twenty-four such bombs
had been thrown. The police had been entirely unsuccessful in finding
those guilty, and were accused of making little effort to do so.
A third phase of the situation was the increased political strength gained
by Mayor Thompson's faction in the Republican party. Negro politicians
affiliated with this faction had been able to sway to its support a large
proportion of the voters in the ward most largely inhabited by Negroes.
Negro aldermen elected from this ward were prominent in the activities
of this faction. The part played by the Negro vote in the hard-fought
partisan struggle is indicated by the fact that in the Republican primary
election on February 25, 1919, Mayor Thompson received in this ward
12,143 votes, while his two opponents, Olson and Merriam, received only
1,492 and 319 respectively. Mayor Thompson was re-elected on April 1,
1919, by a plurality of 21,622 in a total vote in the city of 698,920;
his vote in this ward was 15,569, to his nearest opponent's 3,323, and
was therefore large enough to control the election. The bitterness of
this factional struggle aroused resentment against the race that had so
conspicuously allied itself with the Thompson side.
As part of the background of the Chicago riot, the activities of gangs of
hoodlums should be cited. There had been friction for years, especially
along the western boundary of the area in which the Negroes mainly live,
and attacks upon Negroes by gangs of young toughs had been particularly
frequent in the spring just preceding the riot. They reached a climax
on the night of June 21, 1919, five weeks before the riot, when two
Negroes were murdered. Each was alone at the time and was the victim
of unprovoked and particularly brutal attack. Molestation of Negroes
by hoodlums had been prevalent in the vicinity of parks and playgrounds
and at bathing-beaches.
On two occasions shortly before the riot the forewarnings of serious
racial trouble had been so pronounced that the chief of police sent
several hundred extra policemen into the territory where trouble seemed
imminent. But serious violence did not break out until Sunday afternoon,
July 27, when the clash on the lake shore at Twenty-ninth Street resulted
in the drowning of a Negro boy.
_The beginning of the riot._--Events followed so fast in the train of
the drowning that this tragedy may be considered as marking the beginning
of the riot.
It was four o'clock Sunday afternoon, July 27, when Eugene Williams,
seventeen-year-old Negro boy, was swimming offshore at the foot of
Twenty-ninth Street. This beach was not one of those publicly maintained
and supervised for bathing, but it was much used. Although it flanks
an area thickly inhabited by Negroes, it was used by both races, access
being had by crossing the railway tracks which skirt the lake shore. The
part near Twenty-seventh Street had by tacit understanding come to be
considered as reserved for Negroes, while the whites used the part near
Twenty-ninth Street. Walking is not easy along the shore, and each race
had kept pretty much to its own part, observing, moreover, an imaginary
boundary extending into the water.
Williams, who had entered the water at the part used by Negroes, swam
and drifted south into the part used by the whites. Immediately before
his appearance there, white men, women, and children had been bathing in
the vicinity and were on the beach in considerable numbers. Four Negroes
walked through the group and into the water. White men summarily ordered
them off. The Negroes left, and the white people resumed their sport.
But it was not long before the Negroes were back, coming from the north
with others of their race. Then began a series of attacks and retreats,
counter-attacks, and stone-throwing. Women and children who could not
escape hid behind débris and rocks. The stone-throwing continued, first
one side gaining the advantage, then the other.
Williams, who had remained in the water during the fracas, found a
railroad tie and clung to it, stones meanwhile frequently striking the
water near him. A white boy of about the same age swam toward him. As
the white boy neared, Williams let go of the tie, took a few strokes,
and went down. The coroner's jury rendered a verdict that he had drowned
because fear of stone-throwing kept him from shore. His body showed no
stone bruises, but rumor had it that he had actually been hit by one of
the stones and drowned as a result.
On shore guilt was immediately placed upon a certain white man by several
Negro witnesses who demanded that he be arrested by a white policeman
who was on the spot. No arrest was made.
The tragedy was sensed by the battling crowd and, awed by it, they
gathered on the beach. For an hour both whites and Negroes dived for
the boy without results. Awe gave way to excited whispers. "They" said
he was stoned to death. The report circulated through the crowd that
the police officer had refused to arrest the murderer. The Negroes in
the crowd began to mass dangerously. At this crucial point the accused
policeman arrested a Negro on a white man's complaint. Negroes mobbed
the white officer, and the riot was under way.
One version of the quarrel which resulted in the drowning of Williams
was given by the state's attorney, who declared that it arose among
white and Negro gamblers over a craps game on the shore, "virtually
under the protection of the police officer on the beat." Eyewitnesses
to the stone-throwing clash appearing before the coroner's jury saw
no gambling, but said it might have been going on, but if so, was not
visible from the water's edge. The crowd undoubtedly included, as the
grand jury declared, "hoodlums, gamblers, and thugs," but it also included
law-abiding citizens, white and Negro.
This charge, that the first riot clash started among gamblers who were
under the protection of the police officer, and also the charge that the
policeman refused to arrest the stone-thrower were vigorously denied by
the police. The policeman's star was taken from him, but after a hearing
before the Civil Service Commission it was returned, thus officially
vindicating him.
The two facts, the drowning and the refusal to arrest, or widely
circulated reports of such refusal, must be considered together as
marking the inception of the riot. Testimony of a captain of police
shows that first reports from the lake after the drowning indicated that
the situation was calming down. White men had shown a not altogether
hostile feeling for the Negroes by assisting in diving for the body of
the boy. Furthermore a clash started on this isolated spot could not
be augmented by outsiders rushing in. There was every possibility that
the clash, without the further stimulus of reports of the policeman's
conduct, would have quieted down.
_Chronological story of the riot._--After the drowning of Williams, it
was two hours before any further fatalities occurred. Reports of the
drowning and of the alleged conduct of the policeman spread out into
the neighborhood. The Negro crowd from the beach gathered at the foot
of Twenty-ninth Street. As it became more and more excited, a group of
officers was called by the policeman who had been at the beach. James
Crawford, a Negro, fired into the group of officers and was himself shot
and killed by a Negro policeman who had been sent to help restore order.
During the remainder of the afternoon of July 27, many distorted rumors
circulated swiftly throughout the South Side. The Negro crowd from
Twenty-ninth Street got into action, and white men who came in contact
with it were beaten. In all, four white men were beaten, five were
stabbed, and one was shot. As the rumors spread, new crowds gathered,
mobs sprang into activity spontaneously, and gangs began to take part
in the lawlessness.
Farther to the west, as darkness came on, white gangsters became active.
Negroes in white districts suffered severely at their hands. From 9:00
P.M. until 3:00 A.M. twenty-seven Negroes were beaten, seven were stabbed,
and four were shot.
Few clashes occurred on Monday morning. People of both races went to
work as usual and even continued to work side by side, as customary,
without signs of violence. But as the afternoon wore on, white men and
boys living between the Stock Yards and the "Black Belt" sought malicious
amusement in directing mob violence against Negro workers returning home.
Street-car routes, especially transfer points, were thronged with white
people of all ages. Trolleys were pulled from wires and the cars brought
under the control of mob leaders. Negro passengers were dragged to the
street, beaten, and kicked. The police were apparently powerless to cope
with these numerous assaults. Four Negro men and one white assailant
were killed, and thirty Negro men were severely beaten in the street-car
clashes.
The "Black Belt" contributed its share of violence to the record of
Monday afternoon and night. Rumors of white depredations and killings
were current among the Negroes and led to acts of retaliation. An aged
Italian peddler, one Lazzeroni, was set upon by young Negro boys and
stabbed to death. Eugene Temple, white laundryman, was stabbed to death
and robbed by three Negroes.
A Negro mob made a demonstration outside Provident Hospital, an
institution conducted by Negroes, because two injured whites who had
been shooting right and left from a hurrying automobile on State Street
were taken there. Other mobs stabbed six white men, shot five others,
severely beat nine more, and killed two in addition to those named above.
Rumor had it that a white occupant of the Angelus apartment house had shot
a Negro boy from a fourth-story window. Negroes besieged the building.
The white tenants sought police protection, and about 100 policemen,
including some mounted men, responded. The mob of about 1,500 Negroes
demanded the "culprit," but the police failed to find him after a search
of the building. A flying brick hit a policeman. There was a quick massing
of the police, and a volley was fired into the Negro mob. Four Negroes
were killed and many were injured. It is believed that had the Negroes
not lost faith in the white police force it is hardly likely that the
Angelus riot would have occurred.
At this point, Monday night, both whites and Negroes showed signs of
panic. Each race grouped by itself. Small mobs began systematically in
various neighborhoods to terrorize and kill. Gangs in the 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.
Automobile raids were added to the rioting Monday night. Cars from which
rifle and revolver shots were fired were driven at great speed through
sections inhabited by Negroes. Negroes defended themselves by "sniping"
and volley-firing from ambush and barricade. So great was the fear of
these raiding parties that the Negroes distrusted all motor vehicles
and frequently opened fire on them without waiting to learn the intent
of the occupants. This type of warfare was kept up spasmodically all
Tuesday and was resumed with vigor Tuesday night.
At midnight, Monday, street-car clashes ended by reason of a general
strike on the surface and elevated lines. The street-railway tie-up
was complete for the remainder of the week. But on Tuesday morning
this was a new source of terror for those who tried to walk to their
places of employment. Men were killed en route to their work through
hostile territory. Idle men congregated on the streets, and gang-rioting
increased. A white gang of soldiers and sailors in uniform, augmented
by civilians, raided the "Loop," or downtown section of Chicago, early
Tuesday, killing two Negroes and beating and robbing several others.
In the course of these activities they wantonly destroyed property of
white business men.
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. Furniture
was stolen or destroyed. When raiders were driven off they would return
again and again until their designs were accomplished.
The contagion of the race war broke over the boundaries of the South
Side and spread to the Italians on the West Side. This community became
excited over a rumor, and an Italian crowd killed a Negro, Joseph Lovings.
Wednesday saw a material lessening of crime and violence. The "Black
Belt" and the district immediately west of it were still storm centers.
But the peak of the rioting had apparently passed, although the danger
of fresh outbreaks of magnitude was still imminent. Although companies
of the militia had been mobilized in nearby armories as early as Monday
night, July 28, it was not until Wednesday evening at 10:30 that the
mayor yielded to pressure and asked for their help.
Rain on Wednesday night and Thursday drove idle people of both races
into their homes. The temperature fell, and with it the white heat of
the riot. From this time on the violence was sporadic, scattered, and
meager. The riot seemed well under control, if not actually ended.
Friday witnessed only a single reported injury. At 3:35 A.M. Saturday
incendiary fires burned forty-nine houses in the immigrant neighborhood
west of the Stock Yards. Nine hundred and forty-eight people, mostly
Lithuanians, were made homeless, and the property loss was about $250,000.
Responsibility for these fires was never fixed. The riot virtually ceased
on Saturday. For the next few days injured were reported occasionally,
and by August 8 the riot zone had settled down to normal and the militia
was withdrawn.
_Growth of the riot._--The riot period was thirteen days in length, from
Sunday, July 27, through Thursday, August 8, the day on which the troops
were withdrawn. Of this time, only the first seven days witnessed active
rioting. The remaining days marked the return toward normal. In the
seven active days, rioting was not continuous but intermittent, being
furious for hours, then fairly quiescent for hours. The first three
days saw the most acute disturbance, and in this span there were three
main periods: 4:00 P.M. Sunday till 3:00 A.M. Monday; 9:00 A.M. Monday
till 9:00 A.M. Tuesday; noon Tuesday till midnight. This left two long
intervals of comparative quiet, six hours on Monday and three hours on
Tuesday. On the fourth day, Wednesday, there were scattered periods of
rioting, each of a few hours' duration. Thus Monday afternoon to Tuesday
morning was the longest stretch of active rioting in the first four days.
For the most part the riot was confined to the South Side of the city.
There were two notable exceptions, the district north and west of the
south branch of the Chicago River and the "Loop" or downtown business
district. A few isolated clashes occurred on the North Side and on the
extreme West Side, but aside from these the area covered was that shown
on the accompanying outline map.
For the purposes of discussion it is convenient to divide the riot area
into seven districts. The boundaries in some instances are due to the
designation of Wentworth Avenue by the police as a boundary west of
which no Negroes should be allowed, and east of which no whites should
be allowed.
I. "Black Belt." From Twenty-second to Thirty-ninth, inclusive;
Wentworth Avenue to the lake, exclusive of Wentworth;
Thirty-ninth to Fifty-fifth, inclusive; Clark to Michigan,
exclusive of Michigan.
II. Area contested by both Negroes and whites. Thirty-ninth
to Fifty-fifth, inclusive; Michigan to the lake.
III. Southwest Side, including the Stock Yards district;
south of the Chicago River to Fifty-fifth; west of Wentworth,
including Wentworth.
IV. Area south of Fifty-fifth and east of Wentworth.
V. Area south of Fifty-fifth and west of Wentworth.
VI. Area north and west of the Chicago River.
VII. "Loop" or business district and vicinity.
In the district designated as the "Black Belt" about 90 per cent of
the Negroes live. District II, the "contested area," is that in which
most of the bombings have occurred. Negroes are said to be "invading"
this district. Extension here instead of into District III, toward the
Stock Yards neighborhood, may be explained partly by the hostility which
the Irish and Polish groups to the west had often shown to Negroes.
The white hoodlum element of the Stock Yards district, designated as
III, was characterized by the state's attorney of Cook County, when he
remarked that more bank robbers, pay-roll bandits, automobile bandits,
highwaymen, and strong-arm crooks come from this particular district
than from any other that has come to his notice during seven years of
service as chief prosecuting official.[5]
In District IV and V, south of Fifty-fifth Street, Negroes live in small
communities surrounded by white people or are scattered through white
neighborhoods. District VI has a large Italian population. District VII
is Chicago's wholesale and retail center.
[Illustration: THE CHICAGO RIOT
JULY, 27 TO AUGUST, 8, 1919]
On only one day of the riot were all these districts involved in the race
warfare. This was Tuesday. On Sunday Districts I, III, and IV suffered
clashes; on Monday all but District VI were involved; on Tuesday the
entire area was affected; on Wednesday District VII was not included,
and District VI witnessed only one clash; on Thursday District IV was
again normal, and Districts II, V, and VII were comparatively quiet;
during the remainder of the week only the first three districts named
were active.
The worst clashes were in Districts I and III, and of those reported
injured, 34 per cent received their wounds in the "Black Belt," District
I, and 41 per cent on the Southwest Side, in the district including the
Stock Yards, District III.
Factors contributing to the subsidence of the riot were the natural
reaction from the tension, efforts of police and citizens to curb the
rioters, the entrance of the militia on Wednesday, and last, but perhaps
not least, a heavy rain.
The longest period of violence without noticeable lull was 9:00 A.M.
Monday to 9:00 A.M. Tuesday. On Tuesday the feeling was most intense, as
shown by the nature of the clashes. Arson was prevalent on Tuesday for
the first time, and the property loss was considerable. But judging by
the only definite index, the number of dead and injured, Monday exceeded
Tuesday in violence, showing 229 injured and eighteen dead as against
139 injured and eleven dead on the latter day. While it is apparent
that no single hour or even day can be called the peak of the riot, the
height of violence clearly falls within the two-day period Monday, July
28, and Tuesday, July 29.
The change in the nature of the clashes day by day showed an increase in
intensity of feeling and greater boldness in action. This development
reached its peak on Tuesday. Later came a decline, sporadic outbursts
succeeding sustained activity.
_Factors influencing growth of the riot._--After the attacks had stopped,
about 3:00 A.M. Monday, they did not again assume serious proportions
until Monday afternoon, when workers began to return to their homes, and
idle men gathered in the streets in greater numbers than during working
hours. The Stock Yards laborers are dismissed for the day in shifts.
Negroes coming from the Yards at the 3:00 P.M., 4:00 P.M., and later
shifts were met by white gangs armed with bats and clubs. On Tuesday
morning men going to work, both Negro and white, were attacked.
The main areas of violence were thoroughfares and natural highways between
the job and the home. On the South Side 76 per cent of all the injuries
occurred on such streets. The most turbulent corners were those on State
Street between Thirty-first and Thirty-ninth, on Cottage Grove Avenue at
Sixty-third Street, on Halsted Street at Thirty-fifth and Forty-seventh
streets and on Archer Avenue at Thirty-fifth Street. Injuries at these
spots were distributed as follows:[6]
Injuries Deaths
State Street--
at Thirty-first 7
between Thirty-first and Thirty-fifth 2
at Thirty-fifth 9 1
between Thirty-fifth and Thirty-ninth 19 2
at Thirty-ninth 3
Cottage Grove Avenue--
at Sixty-third Street 8
Halsted Street--
at Thirty-fifth 8
at Forty-seventh 5
Archer Avenue--
at Thirty-fifth Street 7
Streets which suffered most from rioting were--
State 61 6
Thirty-fifth 50 5
Forty-seventh 32 2
Halsted 32
Thirty-first 29 1
The street-car situation had an effect upon the riot both before the
strike and after it. Because of a shortage of labor at the time, the
surface-street-car company had put on a number of inexperienced men.
This may account for the inefficiency of some crews in handling attacked
cars.
An example is the case of Henry Goodman who was killed in an attack on a
Thirty-ninth Street car. The car was stopped at Union Avenue by a truck
suspiciously stalled across the tracks. White men boarded the car and
beat and chased six or eight Negro passengers. When asked under oath
to whom the truck directly in front of him belonged and what color it
was, the motorman replied, "I couldn't say." When asked what time his
car left the end of the line and whether or not he had seen any Negroes
hit on the car, he answered, "I didn't pay any attention." The motorman
said he made a report of the case, but it could not be found by anyone
in the street-car company's office. The conductor of this car had been
given orders to warn Negroes that there was rioting in the district
through which the car ran. He did not do this. He ignored the truck. No
names of witnesses were secured. The motorman was an extra man and had
run on that route only during the day of the attack.
In the case of John Mills, a Negro who was killed as he fled from a
Forty-seventh Street car, the motorman left the car while Negroes were
being beaten inside it. Neither motorman nor conductor took names of
witnesses or attempted to fix a description of the assailants in mind.
When B. F. Hardy, a Negro, was killed on a street car at Forty-sixth
Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, the motorman and conductor offered no
resistance and did not get names or descriptions.
The testimony of the conductor and motorman on a car attacked at
Thirty-eighth Street and Ashland Avenue was clear and showed an attempt
to get all information possible. They secured names of witnesses. One
member of the crew had been in the service of the Chicago Surface Lines
for ten years, and the other for twelve years.
The tie-up of the street railways affected the riot situation by forcing
laborers to walk, making them more liable to assault in the hostile
districts, by keeping many workers from jobs, turning out on the streets
hundreds of idle men, and by increasing the use of automobiles.
Tuesday morning two white men were killed while walking to work through
the Negro area, and two Negroes were killed while going through the
white area.
Curiosity led the idle to the riot zone. One such was asked on the witness
stand why he went. "What was I there for? Because I walked there--my
own bad luck. I was curious to see how they did it, that is all."
Under cover of legitimate use gangs used motor vehicles for raiding.
Witnesses of rioting near Ogden Park said trucks unloaded passengers on
Racine Avenue, facilitating the formation of a mob. On Halsted Street
crowds of young men rode in trucks shouting they were out to "get the
niggers." An automobile load of young men headed off Heywood Thomas,
Negro, and shot him, at Taylor and Halsted streets, as he was walking
home from work.
Beside daily routine and the street-car situation, the weather undoubtedly
had an influence in the progress of the riot. July 27 was hot, 96 degrees,
or fourteen points above normal. It was the culmination of a series of
days with high temperatures around 95 degrees, which meant that nerves
were strained. The warm weather of Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday also
kept crowds on the streets and sitting on doorsteps until late at night.
Innocent people trying to keep cool were injured when automobiles raced
through the streets, the occupants firing to right and left. Wednesday
night and Thursday it rained. Cool weather followed for the rest of the
week.
_Gangs and "athletic clubs."_--Gangs and their activities were an
important factor throughout the riot. But for them it is doubtful if the
riot would have gone beyond the first clash. Both organized gangs and
those which sprang into existence because of the opportunity afforded
seized upon the excuse of the first conflict to engage in lawless acts.
It was no new thing for youthful white and Negro groups to come to
violence. For years, as the sections of this report dealing with
antecedent clashes and with recreation show, there had been clashes
over baseball grounds, swimming-pools in the parks, the right to walk
on certain streets, etc.
Gangs whose activities figured so prominently in the riot were all white
gangs, or "athletic clubs." Negro hoodlums do not appear to form organized
gangs so readily. Judges of the municipal court said that there are no
gang organizations among Negroes to compare with those found among young
whites.
The Stock Yards district, just west of the main Negro area, is the home
of many of these white gangs and clubs; it is designated as District III
in the discussion of the riot growth. The state's attorney, as already
indicated (see p. 8), referred to the many young offenders who come from
this particular district. A police detective sergeant who investigated
the riot cases in this district said of this section, "It is a pretty
tough neighborhood to try to get any information out there; you can't
do it." A policeman on the beat in the district said, "There is the
Canaryville bunch in there and the Hamburg bunch. It is a pretty tough
hole in there."
There was much evidence and talk of the political "pull" and even
leadership of these gangs with reference to their activities in the
riot. A member of "Ragen's Colts" just after the riot passed the word
that the "coppers" from downtown were looking for club members, but that
"there need be no fear of the coppers from the station at the Yards for
they were all fixed and told to lay off on club members." During the
riot he claimed they were well protected by always having a "cop" ride
in one of the automobiles so everything would be "O.K." in case members
of the gang were picked up. Another member of the club said he had been
"tipped off by the police at the Yards to clean out and keep away from
the usual hangouts because investigators were working out of Hoyne's
and out of Brundage's offices, and were checking up on the activities
of the 'Ragen's' during the riot."
The foreman of the August grand jury which investigated the riot cases
said in testifying before the Commission:
The lead we got to investigate the Forty-seventh Street
district was from an anonymous letter stating that Ragen had
such influence in the Forty-seventh Street police station that
these individuals were allowed to go without due process of law.
I didn't believe that was a fact in this particular instance.
We did learn that Ragen was a great power in that district and
at the time of our investigation we learned that some of the
"Ragen's Colts" had broken into the police station and pried
open a door of a closet where they had a good deal of evidence
in the nature of weapons of prisoners concealed, and they got
all of this evidence out of there without the police knowing
anything about it.
The station referred to is at Forty-seventh and Halsted streets. Gangs
operated for hours up and down Forty-seventh Street, Wells, Princeton,
Shields, and Wentworth avenues and Federal Street without hindrance from
the police.
[Illustration: CROWDS ARMED WITH BRICKS SEARCHING FOR A NEGRO]
[Illustration: WHITES STONING NEGRO TO DEATH
Actual photograph of the killing of a Negro by the mob shown above
after chasing him into his home.]
[Illustration: THE ARRIVAL OF THE POLICE
He was knocked from the stairway by a brick. Two men are here shown
hurling bricks at the dying Negro.]
A judge of the municipal court said in testimony before the Commission:
"They seemed to think they had a sort of protection which entitled them
to go out and assault anybody. When the race riots occurred it gave them
something to satiate the desire to inflict their evil propensities on
others."
Besides shouting as they rode down the streets in trucks that they
were out to "get the niggers," they defied the law in other ways. When
the militia men came on the scene on the fourth day of the riot, they
testified to trouble with these gangsters. One of the colonels testified
before the Commission: "They didn't like to be controlled. They would
load up heavy trucks with rowdies and try to force through the lines.
They'd come tooting their horns and having back pressure explosions like
gatling guns."
Some of the "athletic club" gangsters had criminal records. L---- W----
was accused of being one of the leaders of the gang around Forty-seventh
and Wells streets. He himself said boastfully, "I have been arrested
about fifteen times for 'disorderly' and never was arrested with a knife
or a gun." Several witnesses said they had seen him during the riot
one night leading the mob and brandishing a razor and the next night
waving a gun. He was not arrested. D---- H----, seventeen years old,
was identified as being active in the rioting near Forty-seventh Street
and Forrestville Avenue. His defense was that he was not closer to the
Negro assaulted than across the street, but because he was arrested the
year before for a "stick-up" people looked "funny" at him when anything
happened. R---- C---- was accused of having been implicated in the arson
cases on Shields Avenue. When his mother was interviewed, she said she
knew nothing of the rioting, but said her son was at the time in the
county jail, "but not for that." W---- G---- was identified many times
as having taken part in the arson on Wentworth Avenue. He was indicted
for both arson and conspiracy to riot. Two years before the riot he had
been arrested for larceny.
All who discussed gangs before the Commission said that most of the
members were boys of seventeen to twenty-two years of age. Witnesses
before the coroner's juries testified to the youth of the participants
in mobs. Many of the active assailants of street cars were boys. In the
case of the Negro Hardy who was killed on a street car, it was said that
the murderers were not over twenty years, and many were nearer sixteen.
In the raids in the Ogden Park district the participants were between
the ages of fifteen and twenty. The raid just west of Wentworth Avenue,
where a number of houses were much damaged, was perpetrated by boys of
these ages. The attacking mob on Forty-third Street near Forrestville
Avenue, was led by boys of eighteen to twenty-one. The only two hoodlums
caught participating in the outrages in the "Loop," the downtown business
district, were seventeen and about twenty-one. Most of those arrested on
suspicion in the arson cases were taken before the boys' court. Negroes
involved in many cases as assailants were also youthful. The young Negro
boys who killed Lazzeroni were fourteen to eighteen; those who killed
Pareko and Perel were about sixteen.
A member of "Ragen's Colts" is said to have boasted that their territory
extended from Cottage Grove Avenue to Ashland Avenue and from Forty-third
Street to Sixty-third Street. At Sixty-third Street and Cottage Grove
Avenue they were said to have attacked a colored man in a restaurant and
thrown him out of the window. It was reported that trucks of a downtown
store, each carrying about thirty men, yelling that they were "Ragen's
Colts" and that "Ragen's bunch" were going to clean out the community,
came to Sixtieth Street and Racine Avenue. Some of the boys who took part
in the assault upon Negroes at Sixtieth and Ada streets were reputed to
be members of "Ragen's Colts." The club, according to some of its own
members, operated with automobiles from which they managed to "bump off
a number of Niggers." A truck driver said he had driven some "Ragen's
Colts" to Forty-seventh and Halsted streets, where they "dropped" four
or five people, then he drove them back to the "Ragen's Colts" clubhouse
at Fifty-second and Halsted streets. "And," he says, "they had plenty
of guns and ammunition." State's Attorney Hoyne, however, said that no
evidence could be found that "Ragen's Colts" had a store of arms. Members
of the Illinois Reserve Militia reported that they had been threatened
by "Ragen's Colts" that they would be picked off one by one when they
got off duty.
One of the most serious cases of rioting in which members of "Ragen's
Colts" were reported to be implicated was the raid upon Shields Avenue,
where there were nine houses occupied by Negroes. At 8:30 Tuesday evening
200 or 300 gangsters started at one corner and worked through the block,
throwing furniture out of windows and setting fires. A white man who
owned a house on this street which he rented to Negroes says that after
the raid several young men warned him, "If you open your mouth against
'Ragen's' we will not only burn your house down but we will 'do' you."
The Lorraine Club, according to five witnesses, was also implicated in
arson and raids upon homes of Negroes. Their operations, according to
reports, were on Forty-seventh Street and on Wells Street and Wentworth
Avenue between Forty-seventh and Forty-eighth streets. Negroes were
chased, guns were fired, windows broken, front doors smashed in, furniture
destroyed, and finally homes were burned. All Negro families were driven
out. The attack was planned, and news of its imminence spread abroad in
the morning. Rioting started in the afternoon of July 29, and culminated
late that night. There was no interference from the police at any time.
It was said that one of the leaders of the gang who had an express and
coal yard carried away furniture in his wagon. Another was recognized
as a youth who had shot a Negro woman during the afternoon. They are
reported to have attacked an undertaker and friends who came to remove
the body of a dead Negro. Three of the rioters were arrested upon the
identification of several people, but two were released in the municipal
court, and the third had a "no bill" returned before the grand jury.
One was released because no witnesses were present to prosecute him.
The witnesses said they were not notified.
A member of the Lorraine Club denied that his club had anything to do
with this riot, but said it was Our Flag Club that did the "dirty work."
Our Flag Club is located farther east on Forty-seventh Street near Union
Avenue. When John Mills was dragged from a street car at this point and
killed, a policeman recognized several of the club's members in the crowd,
but vouchsafed the opinion that they were not part of the aggressive
mob, "for they did not run as did the others when the patrol came down
the street." Another policeman said he had never had any trouble with
the club.
Eight members of the Sparklers' Club were seen at the fire at 5919
Wentworth Avenue, a building in which two Negro families lived. The
arson is reported to have been planned in a neighboring cigar store.
One of the boys put waste soaked in gasoline under the porch and ran.
Two of them threw oil in the building and two others lit it. It took
three attempts to make a fire at this place. Each time it was started
the Fire Department put it out. Two of the boys are declared to have
stolen phonograph records and silverware from the house. A lad not a
member of the club was with them at the fire. Afterward one of the boys
warned him, "Watch your dice and be careful or you won't see your home
any more." Six boys were held for arson, in connection with this affair;
one was discharged in the boys' court, and the cases of two others were
nolle prossed. In connection with their arrest the _Chicago Tribune_ of
August 15, 1919, said:
Evidence that organized bands of white youths have been making a
business of burning Negro dwellings was said to have been handed
to Attorney General Brundage and Assistant State's Attorney
Irwin Walker.... Chief of Police Garrity, also informed of the
Fire Marshal's charges, declared several so-called athletic
clubs in the Stock Yards district may lose their charters as
a result.
A report about the Aylward Club was to the effect that as the Negroes
came from the Stock Yards on Monday, a gang of its members armed with
clubs was waiting for them and that each singled out a Negro and beat
him, the police looking on.
The names of a number of gang ringleaders were reported by investigators.
For illustration, L. Dennis, a Negro of 6059 Throop Street, was attacked
on the night of Monday, July 28, by a mob led by three roughs whose
names were learned and whose loafing place was at Sixty-third Street and
Racine Avenue. A mob of thirty white men who shot Francis Green, Negro,
eighteen years old, at Garfield Boulevard and State Street had a club
headquarters in the vicinity of Fifty-fourth Street and their "hangout"
was at the corner of Garfield Boulevard and State Street.
Other clubs mentioned in riot testimony before the coroner's jury, but
not in connection with riot clashes, are the Pine Club, the Hamburgers,
the Emeralds, the White Club, Favis Grey's, and the Mayflower. The
police closed the clubs for a period of several months after the riot.
There were then in existence a number of Negro gambling clubs, and the
state's attorney declared that it was the colored gamblers who "started
this shooting and tearing around town," and that "as soon as they heard
the news that the boy Williams was drowned, they filled three or four
machines and started out to shoot."
A saloon-keeper near Wabash Avenue and Fifty-fifth Street, one of the
leaders of these colored gamblers, was identified by a white woman as
being in an automobile with five other Negroes exhorting colored men to
riot after the drowning of Williams. The next day he was arrested in an
automobile with other colored men who were said to be shooting into the
homes of white people. They were arrested but were discharged by Judge
Barasa at the Stock Yards court.
Police raids were made on some of the "Black Belt" clubs on August 23.
At the Ranier Club, 3010 South State Street, two revolvers, one razor,
one "black-jack," seven cartridges, one cattle knife, and one ordinary
knife were found. At the Pioneer Club, 3512 South State Street, eight
guns, four packages of cartridges and twenty-four knives were taken.
A raid at 2700 South State Street netted four guns, one hunting-knife,
and fifty-eight cartridges and bullets.
The foreman of the grand jury which investigated the riots discussing
the "athletic" and "social" clubs before the Commission, said:
Most of them were closed immediately after the riots. There
were "Ragen's Colts," as they were known, concerning whom
the grand jury were particularly anxious to get something
concrete, although no evidence was presented that convicted
any of the members of that club. There were the Hamburgers,
another athletic club, the Lotus Club, the Mayflower, and
various clubs. These were white clubs.
Asked if they really were athletic clubs, he replied:
I think they are athletic only with their fists and brass
knuckles and guns. We had Mr. Ragen before the grand jury,
and he told us of the noble work that they were doing in the
district, that Father Brian, who had charge of these boys,
taught them to box and how to build themselves up physically,
and they were doing a most noble work, and you would think
that Ragen was a public benefactor. During the deliberations of
this grand jury a number of anonymous letters were written with
reference to "Ragen's Colts," and most of the explanations of
the fact that they failed to put their names on these letters
were that they were afraid they would lose their lives.
The grand jury included in its report this reference to the gang and
club phase of the riot:
The authorities employed to enforce the law should thoroughly
investigate clubs and other organizations posing as athletic
and social clubs which really are organizations of hoodlums and
criminals formed for the purpose of furthering the interest
of local politics. In the opinion of this jury many of the
crimes committed in the "Black Belt" by whites and the fires
that were started back of the Yards, which, however, were
credited to the Negroes, were more than likely the work of the
gangs operating on the Southwest Side under the guise of these
clubs, and the jury believes that these fires were started
for the purpose of inciting race feeling by blaming same on
the blacks. These gangs have apparently taken an active part
in the race riots, and no arrests of their members have been
made as far as this jury is aware.
[Illustration: SCENES FROM FIRE IN IMMIGRANT NEIGHBORHOOD "BACK OF THE
YARDS"]
[Illustration: NEGROES UNDER PROTECTION OF POLICE LEAVING WRECKED HOUSE
IN RIOT ZONE]
The coroner's jury which conducted inquests into the thirty-eight riot
deaths said:
The suggestion has also been made that race hatred and tendency
to race rioting had its birth and was fostered in the numerous
social and athletic clubs made up of young men and scattered
throughout the city. We doubt this, but if in part true, it
calls for the inspection and control of such clubs. These
clubs are here, they are popular, they take the place of
the disappearing saloon and poolroom. Properly governed and
controlled, they should be encouraged and fostered and, when
necessary, disciplined.
Hoodlums are the nucleus of a mob--the young, idle, vicious,
and in many instances degenerate and criminal, impatient
of restraint of law, gather together, and when fortified
by sufficient numbers, start out on a mission of disorder,
law-breaking, destruction, and murder. Mobs, white or colored,
grow about a nucleus of this character.
_Types of clashes._--Racial outbreaks are often characterized by hangings,
burnings, and mutilations, and frequently the cause given for them
is a reported Negro attack upon a white woman. None of these features
appeared in the Chicago riot. An attempted hanging was reported by a
white detective but was unsubstantiated. A report that Joseph Lovings,
one of the Negroes killed in the riot, was burned, was heralded abroad
and even carried to the United States Senate, but it was false. The
coroner's physicians found no burns on his body.
Reports of assaults upon women were at no time mentioned or even hinted
at as a cause of the Chicago riot, but after the disorder started reports
of such crimes were published in the white and Negro press, but they
had no foundation in fact.
Of the ten women wounded in the Chicago riot, seven were white, two
were Negroes, and the race of one is unknown. All but one of these ten
injuries appears to have been accidental. The exception was the case of
Roxy Pratt, a Negro woman who, with her brother, was chased down Wells
Street from Forty-seventh by gangsters and was seriously wounded by a
bullet. No cases of direct attacks upon white women by Negro men were
reported.
The Commission has the record of numerous instances, principally during
the first twenty-four hours, where individuals of opposing races met,
knives or guns were drawn, and injury was inflicted without the element
of mob stimulus.
On Monday mobs operated in sudden, excited assaults, and attacks on
street cars provided outstanding cases, five persons being killed and many
injured. Nicholas Kleinmark, a white assailant, was stabbed to death by
a Negro named Scott, acting in self-defense. Negroes killed were Henry
Goodman at Thirtieth and Union streets; John Mills, on Forty-seventh
Street near Union; Louis Taylor at Root Street and Wentworth Avenue;
and B. F. Hardy at Forty-sixth Street and Cottage Grove Avenue. All died
from beatings.
Crowds armed themselves with stones, bricks, and baseball bats and scanned
passing street cars for Negroes. Finding them, trolleys were pulled off
wires and entrance to the cars forced. Negroes were dragged from under
car seats and beaten. Once off the car the chase began. If possible,
the vanguard of the mob caught the fleeing Negroes and beat them with
clubs. If the Negro outran the pursuers, stones and bricks brought him
down. Sometimes the chase led through back yards and over fences, but
it was always short.
Another type of race warfare was the automobile raids carried on by young
men crowded in cars, speeding across the dead line at Wentworth Avenue
and the "Black Belt," and firing at random. Crowded colored districts,
with people sitting on front steps and in open windows, were subjected
to this menace. Strangely enough, only one person was killed in these
raids, Henry Baker, Negro.
Automobile raids were reported wherever colored people had established
themselves, in the "Black Belt," both on the main business streets and
in the residence sections, and in the small community near Ada and Loomis
streets in the vicinity of Ogden Park.
These raids began Monday night, continued spasmodically all day Tuesday,
and were again prevalent that night. In spite of the long period, reports
of motorcycle policemen show no white raiders arrested. One suspected
raiding automobile was caught on State Street Tuesday night, after
collision with a patrol wagon. One of the occupants, a white man, had
on his person the badge and identification card of a policeman assigned
to the Twenty-fourth Precinct. No case was worked up against him, and
the other men in the machine were not heard of again in connection with
the raid.
Most of the police motorcycle squad was assigned to the Stanton Avenue
station, which was used as police headquarters in the "Black Belt."
Several automobile loads of Negroes were arrested, and firearms were
found either upon their persons or in the automobile.
In only two cases were Negroes aggressively rioting found outside of
the "Black Belt." One of these was the case of the saloon-keeper already
mentioned, and the other was that of a deputy sheriff, who, with a party
of other men, said they were on the way to the Stock Yards to rescue
some beleaguered members of their race. It is reported that they wounded
five white people en route. Sheriff Peters said he understood that the
deputy sheriff was attacked by white mobs and fired to clear the crowd.
He was not convicted.
"Sniping" was a form of retaliation by Negroes which grew out of the
automobile raids. These raiding automobiles were fired upon from yards,
porches, and windows throughout the "Black Belt." One of the most serious
cases reported was at Thirty-first and State streets, where Negroes
barricaded the streets with rubbish boxes. Motorcycle Policeman Cheney
rammed through and was hit by a bullet. His companion officer following
was knocked from his machine and the machine punctured with bullets.
After the wounding of Policeman Cheney and Sergeant Murray, of the Sixth
Precinct, policemen made a thorough search of all Negro homes near the
scene of the "sniping." Thirty-four Negroes were arrested. Of these,
ten were discharged, ten were found not guilty, one was given one day in
jail, one was given five days in jail, one was fined and put on probation,
two were fined $10 and costs, one was fined $25; six were given thirty
days each in the House of Correction, and one, who admitted firing twice
but said he was firing at one of the automobiles, was sentenced to six
months in the House of Correction. His case was taken to the appellate
court.
Concerted retaliatory race action showed itself in the Italian district
around Taylor and Loomis streets when rumor said that a little Italian
girl had been killed or wounded by a shot fired by a Negro. Joseph
Lovings, an innocent Negro, came upon the excited crowd of Italians. There
was a short chase through back yards. Finally Lovings was dragged from
his hiding-place in a basement and brutally murdered by the crowd. The
coroner reported fourteen bullet wounds on his body, eight still having
bullets in them; also various stab wounds, contusions of the head, and
fractures of the skull. Rumor made the tale more hideous, saying that
Lovings was burned after gasoline had been poured over the dead body.
This was not true.
This same massing of race against race was shown in a similar clash
between Italians and Negroes on the North Side. The results here, however,
were not serious. It was reported in this last case that immediately after
the fracas the Negroes and Italians were again on good terms. This was
not true in the neighborhood of the Lovings outrage. Miss Jane Addams, of
Hull-House, which is near the scene of Lovings' death, testified before
the Commission that before the riot the Italians held no particular
animosity toward Negroes, for those in the neighborhood were mostly from
South Italy and accustomed to the dark-skinned races, but that they were
developing antipathy. In the September following the riot, she said the
neighborhood was still full of wild stories so stereotyped in character
that they appeared to indicate propaganda spread for a purpose.
The gang which operated in the "Loop" was composed partly of soldiers and
sailors in uniform; they were boys of from seventeen to twenty-two, out
for a "rough" time and using race prejudice as a shield for robbery. At
times this crowd numbered 100. Its depredations began shortly after 2:00
A.M. Tuesday. The La Salle Street railroad station was entered twice,
and Negro men were beaten and robbed. About 3:00 A.M. activities were
transferred to Wabash Avenue. In the hunt for Negroes one restaurant was
wrecked and the vandalism was continued in another restaurant where two
Negroes were found. One was severely injured and the other was shot down.
The gangsters rolled the body into the gutter and turned the pockets
inside out; they stood on the corner of Wabash Avenue and Adams Street
and divided the spoils, openly boasting later of having secured $52, a
diamond ring, a watch, and a brooch.
Attacks in the "Loop" continued as late as ten o'clock Tuesday morning,
Negroes being chased through the streets and beaten. Warned by the
Pinkerton Detective Agency, business men with stores on Wabash Avenue
came to protect their property. The rioting was reported to the police
by the restaurant men. Policemen rescued two Negroes that morning, but
so many policemen had been concentrated in and near the "Black Belt"
that there were only a few patrolmen in the whole "Loop" district, and
these did not actively endeavor to cope with the mob. In the meantime
two Negroes were killed and others injured, while property was seriously
damaged.
Tuesday's raids marked the peak of daring during the riot, and their
subsidence was as gradual as their rise. For the next two days the
gangs roamed the streets, intermittently attacking Negro homes. After
Tuesday midnight their operations were not so open or so concerted. The
riot gradually decreased in feeling and scope till the last event of a
serious nature occurred, the incendiary fires back of the Stock Yards.
While there is general agreement that these fires were incendiary, no
clue could be found to the perpetrators. Negroes were suspected, as all
the houses burned belonged to whites. In spite of this fact, and the
testimony of thirteen people who said they saw Negroes in the vicinity
before or during the fires, a rumor persisted that the fires were set by
white people with blackened faces. One of the men living in the burned
district who testified to seeing a motor truck filled with Negroes said,
when asked about the color of the men, "Sure, I know they were colored.
Of course I don't know whether they were painted." An early milk-wagon
driver said that he saw Negroes come out of a barn on Forty-third Street
and Hermitage Avenue. Immediately afterward the barn burst into flames.
He ran to a policeman and reported it. The policeman said he was "too
busy" and "it is all right anyway." One of the colonels commanding a
regiment of militia said he thought white people with blackened faces had
set fire to the houses; he got this opinion from talking to the police
in charge of that district.
Miss Mary McDowell, of the University of Chicago Settlement, which is
located back of the Yards, said in testimony before the Commission:
I don't think the Negroes did burn the houses. I think the
white hoodlums burned them. The Negroes weren't back there,
they stayed at home after that Monday. When we got hold of
the firemen confidentially, they said no Negroes set fire to
them at all, but the newspapers said so and the people were
full of fear. All kinds of mythical stories were afloat for
some time.
The general superintendent of Armour & Company was asked, when testifying
before the Commission, if he knew of any substantial reason why Negroes
were accused of setting fires back of the Yards. He answered:
That statement was originated in the minds of a few individuals,
radicals. It does not exist in the minds of the conservative
and thinking people of the community, even those living in
back of the Yards. They know better. I believe it goes without
saying that there isn't a colored man, regardless of how
little brains he'd have, who would attempt to go over into the
Polish district and set fire to anybody's house over there.
He wouldn't get that far.
The controlling superintendent of Swift & Company said he could not
say it from his own experience, but he understood there was as much
friction between the Poles and Lithuanians who worked together in the
Yards as between the Negroes and the whites. The homes burned belonged
to Lithuanians. The grand jury stated in its report: "The jury believes
that these fires were started for the purpose of inciting race feeling
by blaming same on the blacks."
The methods of attack used by Negroes and whites during the riot differed;
the Negroes usually clung to individual attack and the whites to mob
action. Negroes used chiefly firearms and knives, and the whites used
their fists, bricks, stones, baseball bats, pieces of iron, hammers.
Among the white men, 69 per cent were shot or stabbed and 31 per cent
were beaten; among the Negroes almost the reverse was true, 35 per cent
being shot and stabbed and 65 per cent beaten. A colonel in charge of
a regiment of militia on riot duty says they found few whites but many
Negroes armed.
_Arms and ammunition._--The foregoing figures and statements gave some
color to the belief persistent during and after the riot that Negroes
had stores of arms and ammunition. A lieutenant of police testified
before the coroner's jury that he had known in advance that the riot was
coming because "there were guns in every house out there; I knew they
were there for a purpose." He said he had heard that Negroes had been
advised to arm themselves and defend their homes, that the Constitution
of the United States provided for that. The state's attorney said before
the Commission that prior to the riot he had received reports from
detectives of private agencies stating the same thing. He was informed
that Negroes readily got firearms from Gary, Indiana, and that porters
on the Pullman trains brought them in from outside places. He further
stated: "I am very definitely assured of the fact that they were arming
and that there were more arms and weapons grouped in that general district
loosely termed the 'Black Belt' than any place else, and my information
is that conditions are that way now."
During the riot there were frequent rumors that Negroes had broken into
the Eighth Regiment Armory for guns and ammunition, but all these rumors
were proved false.
Since the riot many tales have been told of stores of arms brought in by
Pullman porters and by white prostitutes. Mexicans were reported to be
assisting Negroes in the manufacture of bombs and hand grenades. Lists
of addresses where ammunition was being stored have been gathered by
detectives, but not verified.
The same sort of rumors are found circulating among the Negroes in regard
to the arming of whites. It is said that such and such white men have
great boxes of guns and ammunition in the cellars of their homes, and
that white men are forming shooting clubs for the purpose of attacking
Negroes in the event of another riot. There are also widely believed
stories that a department store sold guns to white people before the
riot but refused to sell to Negroes. It was said that pawn shops sold
to white people without permits from the police.
_Crowds and mobs._--It may be observed that a crowd is merely a gathering
of people while a mob is a crowd with its attention so strongly fixed
upon some lawless purpose that other purposes are inhibited and it
acts along the line of the one purpose. During the riot many crowds of
curiosity seekers were transformed into vicious mobs when exciting rumors
circulated and the suggestion of vengeance was made by leaders. Such
suggestion was frequently accompanied by some daring act, stimulated by
the excitement.
The mob in its entirety usually did not participate actively. It was
one in spirit, but divided in performance into a small active nucleus
and a large proportion of spectators. The nucleus was composed of young
men from sixteen to twenty-one or twenty-two years of age. Sometimes
only four would be active while fifty or 150 looked on, but at times
the proportion would be as great as twenty-five in 200 or fifty in 300.
Fifty is the largest number reported for a mob nucleus. This was in the
case of John Mills and five other Negroes who were beaten, dragged off
a Forty-seventh Street car and chased, Mills being killed. Here there
were three degrees of crowd formation. First came the nucleus of fifty
active men who did the beating, chasing, and killing. Closely aiding
and abetting them were 300 or 400 others. After the Negroes had been
forced off the car and were being hunted through the neighborhood a
crowd of about 2,000 gathered and followed the vanguard of attackers and
spectators. These were present out of morbid curiosity, but sufficiently
imbued with the spirit of the mob not to interfere with the outrages.
The fact that children were frequently a part of mobs is one of the
thought-provoking facts of the Chicago riot. Psychologists say that
impressions made upon the child mind are forces which mold adult character
to a great extent. A number of children, some not more than four or
five years old, swarmed in front of the Forty-seventh Street car in the
John Mills case and effectively blocked it while men climbed aboard and
sought out the Negroes. Children, often witnesses of mob brutality, ran
to where Negro victims had fallen and pointed them out to the policemen
who came up after the mobs had dispersed.
There were others, still children in mind, Negro boys of fifteen, accused
of murders. The enormity of their acts faded in the joy of describing
their weapons. "Fat had a club; it looked like a police club," said one,
"it had leather on it." "And the gun had a little picture of an owl on
the side of it," said another describing a patched-up weapon that brought
down a white laboring-man who left a widow and eight children.
[Illustration: SCENES FROM FIRE IN IMMIGRANT NEIGHBORHOOD "BACK OF THE
YARDS"]
[Illustration: SCENE FROM FIRE IN IMMIGRANT NEIGHBORHOOD "BACK OF THE
YARDS"]
Among the spectators of mob violence were men, women, and children of
all ages; they included tradesmen, craftsmen, salesmen, laborers. Though
the spectators did not commit the crimes, they must share the moral
responsibility. Without the spectators mob violence would probably have
stopped short of murder in many cases. An example of the behavior of
the active nucleus when out of sight of the spectators bears this out.
George Carr, Negro, was chased from a street car. He outstripped all but
the vanguard of the mob by climbing fences and hiding in a back yard.
This concealed him from the rest of the crowd, who by that time were
chasing other Negroes. The young men who followed Carr left him without
striking a blow, upon his mere request for clemency. In regard to the
large non-active elements in the crowds, the coroner said during the
inquest, "It is just the swelling of crowds of that kind that urges them
on, because they naturally feel that they are backed up by the balance
of the crowd, which may not be true, but they feel that way." Juror
Ware said, "If sightseers were lending their aid and assistance--" Juror
Dillon interrupted and finished, "they ought to be punished."
Often the "sightseers" and even those included in the nucleus did not
know why they had taken part in crimes the viciousness of which was not
apparent to them until afterward. A mere attempt to cover up participation
would have called forth excuses in testimony, but their answers show
irritation at the questioning, an inability to appreciate the situation,
or complete bewilderment. These excerpts from the testimony before the
coroner's jury are examples:
Henry Woodman, in the mob at Sixtieth and Ada streets: "I don't know.
I didn't have any grudge against them [the Negroes]. But they [the mob]
seemed to have it in for the colored people. That is all."
Edward Klose, in the mob in front of 1021 South State Street: "I followed
the crowd, and I was in there because I was in there; they all bunched
around and what could I do?"
One of the boys in the mob at Forty-third Street and Forrestville Avenue:
"I just wanted to see how things were getting along. We wanted to see
what the riot looked like."
Another of this same crowd: "I was following the rest. I wanted to see
what they were going to do."
Another from the same mob: "When they started to grab them [the Negroes]
in the lot, I rushed over directly to the conflict, by the colored men,
thinking I would see more on that side."
Mobs got under way for the commission of atrocities by having the direct
suggestion put to them by one of the leaders. With minds already prepared
by rumors circulating wherever crowds gathered, it was easy to arouse
action. A street car approaching and the cry, "Get the niggers!" was
enough. Prompt action clinched the idea, and the emotion of the attack
narrowed the field of consciousness. War cries aided in keeping emotion
at fever heat. "Get the nigger!" "Kill the black ---- of a ----!" "Kill
him!" These were always an incident of mob action.
Counter-suggestion was not tolerated when the mob was rampant. A
suggestion of clemency was shouted down with the derisive epithet,
"Nigger lover!" Silenced objectors made no further effort to thwart mob
action. There are no records of such persons notifying the police or
persisting in their remonstrances. Those whose objections took the form
of action against the mob met with violence. A white man, an instructor
in music at the University of Chicago, saw several white men attack a
Negro who was waiting for a street car at Sixty-third Street and Cottage
Grove Avenue. Without trying verbal remonstrance he struck out at them.
His glasses were knocked off, and he was thrown into the middle of the
street and left unconscious.
Not only did action once under way make interference hazardous, but
it brought into the mob circle a greater number of participants and
increased its energy. Five men jerked a trolley from the wires; ten men
boarded the car; twenty-five men chased and beat the routed Negroes. The
mob action grew faster than the increase in numbers. Ideas suggested by
individual members were quickly carried out in the action of all. The
mob as a whole and the individuals in it increased in fury, and a normal
street crowd was often turned from peaceful assemblage to brutal murder.
A sharp diversion of attention sometimes caused the dispersal of mobs. An
unexpected revolver shot was the most effective means of such diversion.
Here are some instances:
When Thomas Joshua, a Negro boy, was shot by Police Lieutenant Day,
a throng of Negroes came on the run from State Street. The officers,
terrified, escaped in a taxi, leaving their own automobile behind. The
mob attempted to make this car suffer vicariously for the escaped police
officers. Other policemen on the scene had difficulty in holding them
back. Two shots were heard on Federal Street. Immediately the crowd ceased
its clamoring, left the automobile, and apparently lost all thought of
Lieutenant Day and ran to Federal Street.
In the first mob of the riot, that at Twenty-ninth Street and Cottage
Grove Avenue, Negroes and policemen were struggling in a mass in the
middle of the street. A shot was fired by James Crawford, and the mob
dispersed from that corner.
A mob chased a Negro off a street car on Thirty-ninth Street near Wallace.
A policeman with presence of mind followed the group into the alley,
fired a few shots in the air, and the crowd ran.
In no case where an unexpected shot was fired did it fail to scatter the
mob, but shooting which was part of the mob's own action did not seem
to have the same effect.
The course of one riotous mob can be traced in the activities of a certain
group of five white boys who linked up with the riot excitement. They
met at the corner of Sixty-third Street and Ingleside Avenue at 8:30
Monday evening. While they were trying to decide which movie to attend,
a taxi driver informed them of a riot at Forty-seventh Street. They took
the "L" to Forty-seventh Street and joined the mob. From then until 2:00
A.M. they were active in mobs which assaulted Negroes at several points.
Two were beaten at Forty-seventh Street and the elevated railway. The
mob then proceeded to Fifty-first Street, but the police drove it back
and it moved on to Indiana Avenue and Forty-third Street, where a deputy
sheriff held it off. Returning here later it attacked a street car, beat
a Negro, and then moved south on Indiana Avenue, jerking trolleys from
wires and assaulting passengers. At Forty-fifth Street a shot fired by
a police sergeant scattered it toward Forty-third Street.
There the mob met Lieutenant Washington, a Negro ex-soldier, who, with
five Negro companions, was obliged to walk across town because car service
had been discontinued on account of the rioting. Lieutenant Washington,
testifying before the coroner's jury, gave this account of the affair:
After we crossed Grand Boulevard I heard a yell, "One, two,
three, four, five, six," and then they gave a loud cheer and
said, "Everybody, let's get the niggers! Let's get the niggers,"
and we noticed some of them crossed the street and walked on
up even with us. The rest of them were about ten or fifteen
feet north ... there were about between four and six men ...
crossed the street and got in front of us ... just before we
got to Forrestville Avenue, about twenty yards, they swarmed
in on us.
After this attack, in which Lieutenant Browning was shot, and Clarence
Metz, a white boy, was killed by a stab wound inflicted by Lieutenant
Washington in self-defense, the mob moved on to Grand Boulevard, preceded
by the rumor that it intended to attack the homes of Negroes. A shot from
a house grazed a white lad, and the crowd went on, leaving the police
to come and arrest the Negroes who had fired.
Mob action in planned attacks was more daring, but not more dangerous.
Robbery was occasionally an accompaniment of spontaneous attack, but arson
never. Whether or not some of the organized raids could readily have
been stopped by the police, and the mobs dispersed, remains unproved.
No attempt was made either in the "Loop" district, in the Forty-seventh
and Wells streets districts or in the Sixty-ninth and Elizabeth streets
district to check the depredations.
_Rumor._--Rumor was often the first step in crowd formation and often
opened the way for the sharp transformation of a crowd into a mob. The
circulation of rumors was partly due to natural repetition, often with
increasing embellishment, by one person to another of what he had heard
or read. The desire to tell a "big story" and create a sensation was no
doubt an important factor. With so much bitter feeling there was also
considerable conscious effort to provoke vengeful animosity by telling
the worst that the teller had heard or could imagine about the doings
of the opposite race. The latter type of rumor circulation especially
fed the riot from the beginning to the final clash. It continues to be
a constant menace to the friendly relations of the races.
Newspapers were often supplied a source of rumor material through mistake
in fundamental facts, due either to misinformation or exaggeration.
In considering the newspaper handling of riot news, it should be borne in
mind that the task was most difficult during a period of such excitement
and such crowding of events. Further it must be considered that white
reporters might very justifiably avoid the risk of seeking news where
crowds of Negroes had been roused to a high pitch of resentment against
whites. There were doubtless instances in which news was secured from
sources ordinarily trustworthy, but inaccurate during the riot. On the
other hand, it must be recognized that in a time of such excitement the
effect of sensational news on the popular mind is generally accentuated,
and the responsibility for careful handling of news is correspondingly
greater. Where bias is as pronounced as in a race riot it is of the
utmost importance that essential facts be stated correctly.
TABLE I
========================================================================
| NUMBER OF INJURED |FACTS AS LATER OBTAINED FROM
| AS REPORTED BY THE | POLICE, STATE'S ATTORNEY,
| "TRIBUNE" AND |HOSPITAL REPORTS, AND OLIVET
DATE | "HERALD-EXAMINER" | BAPTIST CHURCH, COVERING
| DURING THE FIRST | EACH DAY
| FOUR DAYS OF RIOT |
+------+------+------+------+------+-------+------
| White| Negro| Total| White| Negro|Unknown| Total
----------------------+-------------------------------------------------
July 27 | 29 | 19 | 48 | 10 | 31 | 5 | 46
July 28 | 64 | 60 | 124 | 71 | 152 | 6 | 229
July 29 | 62 | 72 | 134 | 55 | 80 | 4 | 139
July 30 | 40 | 21 | 61 | 20 | 20 | 2 | 42
+------+------+------+------+------+-------+------
Total | 195 | 172 | 367 | 156 | 283 | 17 | 456
+------+------+------+------+------+-------+------
Percentage of total | 53 | 47 | 100 | 34 | 62 | 4 | 100
----------------------+------+------+------+------+------+-------+------
Reports of numbers of dead and injured tended to produce a feeling that
the score must be evened up on the basis of "an eye for an eye," a Negro
for a white, or vice versa. A most unfortunate impression may be made
upon an excited public, Negro and white, by such erroneous reporting
as the following, in which newspapers, although they understated rather
than exaggerated the number of injuries, reported that 6 per cent more
whites were injured than Negroes, when the fact was that 28 per cent
more Negroes were injured than whites.
The _Tribune_ of July 29 in a news item said that before 3:00 A.M.,
July 29, twenty persons had been killed, of whom thirteen were white
and seven colored. The truth was that of twenty killed, seven were white
and thirteen colored.[7]
The _Daily News_ of July 29 gave the starting-point of the riot as the
Angelus clash, referring to it as "the center of the trouble." The same
item mentioned the spread to the Stock Yards district. The fact was
that the assault upon street cars in the Stock Yards district Monday
afternoon and rumors of further brutalities there helped to start the
Angelus riot Monday evening.[8]
The _Tribune_ of July 30 stated that "the Black Belt continues to be
the center of conflict." Up to July 30 the "Black Belt" had witnessed
120 injuries, while the district west of Wentworth Avenue had had 139.
For the entire riot period the "Black Belt" furnished 34 per cent of the
total number of injuries, and the district west of Wentworth Avenue 41
per cent.
Exaggeration in news reports, when popular excitement is at a high pitch,
is peculiarly dangerous. For the very reason that the essential fact
seems authenticated by the simultaneous appearance of the gist of the
report in several papers, the individual reader is the more inclined to
believe such exaggerations as may appear in his favorite journal.
Cases of exaggeration could be adduced from every Chicago newspaper,
but a typical one is the report in the _Chicago Daily News_ of July 29
concerning the killing of Harold Brignadello, white. This item said:
Four women and nine men are held at the South Clark Street
Station after their arrest at 1021 South State Street, where
they had a formidable arsenal.
Harry Signadell [_sic_], 35, white, died on the way to St.
Luke's Hospital shortly before noon after his bullet-riddled
body had been picked up by the police in front of 1021 South
State Street, where a colored woman and 20 other Negroes had
barricaded themselves and were shooting at all whites who
passed the place.
Other persons arrested included Kate Elder, 26 years old, who
gave her home as the State Street address. In all, four women
and nine men were made prisoners at the raid on the place
which was found to be an arsenal for the Negro rioters. Two
revolvers, two rifles, an axe, several knives, and several
hundred rounds of ammunition, including 38 and 48 [_sic_]
calibre cartridges, were discovered piled up near the window
from which the Negroes had been shooting.
Patrolman John Hayes, of the South Clark Street Station, heard
the shots fired by the Negroes who were firing from the house
and saw the spurts of fire from their rifles and revolvers
whenever whites ventured to pass the place. An unknown white
man, a victim of the Negroes' bullets, was found lying on the
sidewalk. He was rushed to St. Luke's Hospital where he died.
The facts of this case, as reported by the coroner's jury are as follows:
... Harold Brignadello ... came to his death on the 29th day
of July, A.D. 1919, at St. Luke's Hospital from shock and
hemorrhage due to a bullet wound in the chest cavity.
[NOTE.--"a bullet wound," not "bullet-riddled."]
We find the deceased while standing at the southwest corner
of State and Taylor ... was shot and wounded by a bullet fired
from the revolver held in the hand of one Emma Jackson who was
standing at an open window on the second floor of the premises
at 1021 South State Street.
Testimony shows that just prior to the shooting, said premises
had been stoned by a mob of white men.
We, the jury, recommend that the said Emma Jackson, said Kate
Elder, said John Webb, said Ed. Robinson, and said Clarence
Jones be held to the grand jury upon a charge of murder until
discharged by due process of law.
[NOTE.--Two women and three men, not "four women and nine
men," nor yet "a colored woman and 20 other Negroes." They
were indicted by the grand jury but found not guilty.]
We believe from the evidence that the police have sufficient
information as to the identity of some of said white men to
warrant arrest, and we recommend such action be taken.
[NOTE.--No arrests of men in the white mob were made.]
The testimony further showed that there were 150 white men in the mob
grouped in front of 1021, and four of the men were stoning the house at
the time Emma Jackson fired into their midst.
Only one gun was found and no stores of ammunition, instead of "a
formidable arsenal," or a "barricade" or "an arsenal for Negro rioters,"
or "two revolvers, two rifles, an axe, several knives, and several hundred
rounds of ammunition, including 38 and 48 [_sic_] calibre cartridges ...
piled up near the window from which the Negroes had been shooting." The
one gun was hidden in a niche in the skylight.
Following are examples of rumors current during the riot and disseminated
by the press and by word of mouth, grouped on the basis of the emotions
which they aroused--vengeful animosity, fear, anger, and horror:
_Daily News_, July 30. Subheadline: "Alderman Jos. McDonough Tells How
He Was Shot at on South Side Visit. Says Enough Ammunition in Section
to Last for Years of Guerrilla Warfare":
[NOTE.--The reference in the headline to the large amount of ammunition
is repeated in the text, but not elaborated or explained.]
An alderman in an account of his adventures says the Mayor
contemplates opening up 35th and 47th streets in order that
colored people might get to their work. He thinks this would
be most unwise for, he states, "They are armed and the white
people are not. We must defend ourselves if the city authorities
won't protect us." Continuing his story, he describes bombs
going off, "I saw white men and women running through the
streets dragging children by the hands and carrying babies in
their arms. Frightened white men told me the police captains
had just rushed through the district crying, 'For God's sake,
arm. They are coming, we cannot hold them.'"
[Illustration: WRECKED HOUSE OF A NEGRO FAMILY IN RIOT ZONE]
[Illustration: NEGROES AND WHITES LEAVING THE STOCK YARDS]