1919 was a landmark year in many countries, for both good and bad. Consider Amritsar Massacre of 1919 - did it end the British Raj? The Versailles Peace Treaty (1919) was doomed to fail and A separate Irish parliament in Dublin and the Irish War of Independence. Now to the USA.
In 1919, Chicago was a great industrial city. WWI had just ended, troops were coming home, industry was booming and crime was down. Chicago's mayor, William Hale Thompson, had just been re-elected and was heading an ambitious urban improvement programme. In the hot summer weather, children loved the beach.
For decades the southern rural communities had been home to 90%+ of America’s black population. That number changed greatly in the early C20th; the Great Migration was an exodus that saw millions of African-Americans heading to the urban north, fleeing segregation, discrimination, lynchings and disenfranchisement by a resurgent Ku Klux Klan. The road networks and railway facilitated the great migration of African Americans to safety.
Chicago must have seemed an appealing destination for black migrants. Job opportunities were provided by the city’s huge stockyards and meatpacking plants. This rapid mass internal movement had a significant impact on large industrial cities like Chicago. Between 1909-19, the city’s black population rose from 44,000 to 100,000+, congregating in the City’s cramped South Side. So competition for jobs in the city’s South Side stockyards was especially intense, pitting African Americans against whites, both native-born and immigrants.
![]()
Amid the post-war insecurity back in the USA, racial and ethnic prejudices were becoming rampant. Thousands of servicemen had returned home from fighting in Europe to find that their jobs in factories, warehouses and mills had been filled by recently arrived Southern blacks and immigrants.
380,000 black ex-soldiers had risked their lives fighting in Europe for freedom & democracy, often with honour. Many of the black soldiers had enlisted believing that a sizeable African-American contribution to the war would advance the cause of civil rights back home. But no. Now they found themselves denied basic rights like decent housing and equality before the law, leading them to greater militancy.
So the Chicago Race Riots were a predictable disaster. In late July 1919 an African-American adolescent, Eugene Williams, waded into Chicago’s Lake Michigan with friends. He swum towards a floating railway sleeper taking him towards a nearby beach. Unfortunately he “violated” a beach that had been declared Whites Only. The white beach-goers signalled their displeasure by barraging Williams with stones. Williams was struck on the forehead, panicked, lost his grip on the sleeper and drowned. When police officers arrived on the scene, they refused to arrest the white man that black eyewitnesses said was responsible.
Reports of the incident spread quickly. An angry crowd of African-Americans arrived, their anger escalating with the police’s biased inaction or incompetence. Over a few hours, a black mob began venting its fury and the white gangsters became ferocious. 27 blacks were beaten, 7 were stabbed and 4 were shot. William’s death sparked a week of rioting, mainly in the South Side stockyard neighbourhood.
After police were unable or unwilling to quell the riots, the mayor reluctantly called in 6,000 Illinois Army National Guards only on the fourth day. The troopers quickly headed into the streets with rifles and bayonets and within 24 hours they had largely restored order. But the shootings and beatings had left 15 whites and 23 blacks dead, and 500+ more injured. Another 1,000 black families were left homeless after rioters burned their homes. Many blacks were rounded up in stockades and tortured. Later 122 blacks, but no whites, were charged with crimes related to the riots.
![]()
![]()
![]()
In 1919, Chicago was a great industrial city. WWI had just ended, troops were coming home, industry was booming and crime was down. Chicago's mayor, William Hale Thompson, had just been re-elected and was heading an ambitious urban improvement programme. In the hot summer weather, children loved the beach.
For decades the southern rural communities had been home to 90%+ of America’s black population. That number changed greatly in the early C20th; the Great Migration was an exodus that saw millions of African-Americans heading to the urban north, fleeing segregation, discrimination, lynchings and disenfranchisement by a resurgent Ku Klux Klan. The road networks and railway facilitated the great migration of African Americans to safety.
Chicago must have seemed an appealing destination for black migrants. Job opportunities were provided by the city’s huge stockyards and meatpacking plants. This rapid mass internal movement had a significant impact on large industrial cities like Chicago. Between 1909-19, the city’s black population rose from 44,000 to 100,000+, congregating in the City’s cramped South Side. So competition for jobs in the city’s South Side stockyards was especially intense, pitting African Americans against whites, both native-born and immigrants.
White rioters with bricks dragging an African-American man
from his home during the 1919 riots.
Chicago History Museum
One source of rising racial tension was that many African-American workers were not necessarily members of unions. Another was the power of Irish gangs in Chicago. As the first major group of C19th European immigrants to settle in the city, the Irish had established formidable political strength in “their” city.
Amid the post-war insecurity back in the USA, racial and ethnic prejudices were becoming rampant. Thousands of servicemen had returned home from fighting in Europe to find that their jobs in factories, warehouses and mills had been filled by recently arrived Southern blacks and immigrants.
380,000 black ex-soldiers had risked their lives fighting in Europe for freedom & democracy, often with honour. Many of the black soldiers had enlisted believing that a sizeable African-American contribution to the war would advance the cause of civil rights back home. But no. Now they found themselves denied basic rights like decent housing and equality before the law, leading them to greater militancy.
So the Chicago Race Riots were a predictable disaster. In late July 1919 an African-American adolescent, Eugene Williams, waded into Chicago’s Lake Michigan with friends. He swum towards a floating railway sleeper taking him towards a nearby beach. Unfortunately he “violated” a beach that had been declared Whites Only. The white beach-goers signalled their displeasure by barraging Williams with stones. Williams was struck on the forehead, panicked, lost his grip on the sleeper and drowned. When police officers arrived on the scene, they refused to arrest the white man that black eyewitnesses said was responsible.
Reports of the incident spread quickly. An angry crowd of African-Americans arrived, their anger escalating with the police’s biased inaction or incompetence. Over a few hours, a black mob began venting its fury and the white gangsters became ferocious. 27 blacks were beaten, 7 were stabbed and 4 were shot. William’s death sparked a week of rioting, mainly in the South Side stockyard neighbourhood.
After police were unable or unwilling to quell the riots, the mayor reluctantly called in 6,000 Illinois Army National Guards only on the fourth day. The troopers quickly headed into the streets with rifles and bayonets and within 24 hours they had largely restored order. But the shootings and beatings had left 15 whites and 23 blacks dead, and 500+ more injured. Another 1,000 black families were left homeless after rioters burned their homes. Many blacks were rounded up in stockades and tortured. Later 122 blacks, but no whites, were charged with crimes related to the riots.
National Guards keep the peace during the 1919 race riots in Chicago.
Chicago Tribune historical photo
A crowd of men and armed National Guard stand in front of the Ogden Café.
Photograph: Chicago History Museum/
The pain spread in other places. In Washington DC that summer a black man was accused of sexually assaulting a white woman. As a result white ex-servicemen roamed a poor black neighbourhood lynching randomly. Soon the city’s blacks fought back, killing whites randomly. The bloodshed continued for four days until 2,000 military servicemen, sent in by President Woodrow Wilson, ended the violence. 39 people died and 100+ had been injured.
Lasting Impact In the aftermath of the rioting, some suggested implementing zoning laws to formally segregate housing in Chicago, or restrictions preventing blacks from working alongside whites in the stock-yards and other industries. Thankfully such measures were rejected by all African-American and moral white voters.
City officials instead organised the Chicago Commission on Race Relations to look into the causes of the riots - institutionalised racism, post WW1 tensions and mass black migration northward. And to find successful solutions. The commission, which included six white men and six black, found several key issues, including competition for jobs, inadequate housing options for blacks, inconsistent law enforcement and pervasive racial discrimination, but changes were slow to come.
In this fraught atmosphere, the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan organisation revived its violent activities in the South, including 64 lynchings in 1918 and 83 more in 1919. In that horrible Red Summer of 1919, race riots broke out in many other places.
City officials instead organised the Chicago Commission on Race Relations to look into the causes of the riots - institutionalised racism, post WW1 tensions and mass black migration northward. And to find successful solutions. The commission, which included six white men and six black, found several key issues, including competition for jobs, inadequate housing options for blacks, inconsistent law enforcement and pervasive racial discrimination, but changes were slow to come.
In this fraught atmosphere, the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan organisation revived its violent activities in the South, including 64 lynchings in 1918 and 83 more in 1919. In that horrible Red Summer of 1919, race riots broke out in many other places.
When Chicago's South Side/Black Belt was destroyed by arson,
1,000 black citizens were left homeless.
President Woodrow Wilson (1913–1921) publicly blamed whites for being the instigators of race-related riots in both Chicago and Washington DC, and introduced efforts to foster racial harmony, including voluntary organisations and congressional legislation. However his track record in race relations throughout his 8 years had been patchy.