Red Chicago is a documentary film which premiered on US television (PBS) in 2020.
It is an episode of a short series called The Future of America’s Past.
The topic of this film is a violent confrontation between a white mob and African Americans which took place in Chicago (Illinois) from 27 July to 3 August 1919 and which caused death and destruction in the city.
This violent confrontation between blacks and whites was one of more than 25 similar episodes which happened in towns and cities across the United States during that year. They are often referred to as the Red Summer of 1919 because of the blood that was spilled during racial conflicts.
The term “The Red Summer of 1919” was coined by civil rights activist James Weldon Jackson (1871-1938) who was the executive secretary of the NAACP for ten years (1920-1930).
Here is some basic information about this film:
** Writers and directors: Hannah Brown Ayers and Lance Warren
** Host and interviewer: Ed Ayers
** Available on the PBS website
** Language: English
** Subtitles: English
** Run time: 27 minutes
Several persons are interviewed by Ed Ayers in the film. Here are the names of the participants:
** Erica Griffin – Director of Education at the DuSable Museum of African American History
** Liesl Olson – Director of Chicago Studies at the Newberry Library, Chicago
** Eve L. Ewing – a sociologist – a poet
** Peter Cole – a historian
** Franklin Cosey-Gray – a violence prevention researcher
** Jefferson Pinder – a performance artist
The violent confrontations which happened in more than 25 towns and cities across the United States during the Red Summer of 1919 were not organized; they were not coordinated.
Each episode had a specific trigger which started the
violent confrontation. But once they had started, they were similar in many
ways. There was a pattern.
(1) Some white people are outraged, because a black person has allegedly committed an offense against white people. It does not matter much if the charge is true or not.
(2) A white mob is formed. The white mob begins to attack a black neighborhood and blames black people for what is happening.
(3) In many cases, some of the blacks are veterans from World War One who know how to fight. They do not back down. They do not surrender. They fight back. The violence escalates and blacks are blamed for this.
(4) Police officers (or the national guard) are called in to restore peace and order. Law enforcement often sides with the white mob and often causes more death and destruction.
(5) When peace is finally restored, African Americas are often blamed for what happened. White people are usually not charged with any crimes. If they are, they are usually found not guilty.
What was the trigger in Chicago?
How did the confrontation start?
In 1919, Segregation was illegal in Chicago. But racial discrimination was a common phenomenon.
Even though racial segregation was illegal, there was a black neighborhood (called Bronzeville) and a white neighborhood. It was not wise for an African American to enter the white neighborhood.
Chicago is next to Lake Michigan. The beach along Lake Michigan was segregated. There was a black beach and a white beach. The line between the black beach and the white beach extended into the water. Blacks were supposed to stay in their own zone and not enter the white zone.
Sunday 27 July 1919 was a hot day. Many people went to the beach. A black teenager named Eugene Williams and his friends had built a floating device (a raft) which they had pushed into the water from the black beach.
While Eugene and his friends were relaxing on the raft, something happened. They were not aware of what had happened before it was too late. The raft had gently drifted into the white zone!
When white people on the beach saw the raft with black persons on board entering their water, they were furious. Some began to shout and swear, while others picked up stones and threw them at the black teenagers.
Eugene and his friends panicked. They had no oars to
steer the raft in any direction. They were trapped. What could they do? Eugene
went into the water to avoid the stones that white people were throwing at
them. While he was in the water, he drowned. He was only 17 years old.
A conflict was building up. White people were furious, because black teenagers had invaded the white zone, while African Americans were upset, because a black teenager had lost his life, trying to avoid being hit by stones thrown by white people.
When the police arrived, they told the two sides to separate and to calm down. The police told the black people to go home, which they did.
As African Americans slowly returned to Bronzeville, they were followed by gangs of white people who wanted to take revenge.
They attacked any black person they came across and destroyed as much property as they could.
This went on for days, while the local police did little or nothing to stop the white gangs from terrorizing the black neighborhood.
After one week, the violent confrontation finally came to an end. The national guard was called in to restore peace and order. In addition, the weather changed and it began to rain. The pouring rain put a stop the gangs of white people who were busy trying to take revenge.
During the riot, 38 people lost their lives: 23 black and 15 white. In addition, many people had lost their homes. This week-long conflict was one of the worst riots in the history of Illinois.
In 2019, the 100-year anniversary of the riot was commemorated in Chicago. Local people organized meetings and community events in order to remember what had happened in the city in 1919.
In this film, Ed Ayers meets some of the people who are active in the local community and who want to make sure that the past is not forgotten. They say we must remember what happened in 1919 in order to make sure that it does not happen again:
** Erica Griffin shows him the beach where the whole thing started on 27 July 1919.
** Liesl Olson shows him some of the evidence which documents the riot: contemporary articles in the press and photographs taken during and after the riot.
** Eve L. Ewing, who studied the riot and wrote a series of poems about it, talks about her poems.
** Peter Cole and Franklin Cosey-Gray talk about a project they are working on: they want to set up historical markers in different locations in order to show where one person was attacked and where another person was killed in 1919.
** Jefferson Pinder, a performance artist, talks about an event where dozens of people were resting on floating devices in the water off the beach where the riot began in 1919.
Why should we remember the Red Summer of 1919?
Why not let it go and move on?
Here is Ed Ayers' response:
“Remembering the riots, remembering the awfulness that we can do to each other. It helps us focus on the need to do better, to build a future where we’re all welcome, where we’re all safe.”
The violent confrontation which happened in Chicago (Illinois) in 1919 is a sad story. It is one of more than 25 similar episodes which happened in towns and cities across the United States during that year.
The story deserves to be told, and in this film, it is done very well. If you are interested in the history of the United States – in particular the question of human rights – this film is definitely something for you.
It is highly recommended.
REFERENCES
# 1. Books
From Race Riot to Sit-In, 1919 and the 1960s: A Study in the Connections between Conflict and Violence by Arthur I. Waskow (1967)
Race Riot: Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919 by William M. Tuttle (1970) (1996)
Encyclopedia of American Race Riots edited by Walter Rucker and James Upton (2 volumes, 930 pages) (2007)
Response and Responsibility: The Aftermath of the 1919 Chicago Race Riots by Robert W. Stone (2008)
On the Laps of Gods: The Red Summer of 1919 and the Struggle for Justice that Remade a Nation by Robert Whitaker (2009)
Anatomy of Four Race Riots: Racial Conflict in Knoxville, Elaine (Arkansas), Tulsa, and Chicago, 1919-1921 by Lee E. Williams and Lee E. Williams II (2010)
Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America by Cameron McWhirter (2011)
The Chicago Race Riots, July 1919 by Carl Sandburg (2019) (a collection of articles written in 1919)
1919 by Eve L. Ewing (2019) (a collection of poems inspired by reports of the 1919 race riot)
# 2. Items available on the internet
Karlson Yu,
“Chicago Race Riot, 1919,”
Black Past, 30 June 2008
Karen Grigsby Bates,
“Red Summer in Chicago:
100 Years after the Race Riots,”
National Public Radio, 27 July 2019
CCR19
The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 Commemoration Project
# 3. Film and video
Fighting on Both fronts: The Story of the 370th
PBS, 27 minutes
9 September 2017
Knoxville’s Red Summer: The Riot of 1919
PBS, 27 minutes
16 March 2019
The Red Summer of 1919:
Crash Course Black American History # 25
Available on YouTube
Run time: 13 minutes
13 November 2021
*****
Members of the National Guard
with an African American man
Chicago 1919
*****
Riot Sweeps Chicago
Front page of the Chicago Defender
Saturday 2 August 1919
*****
A triumphant white mob
A house has been destroyed
The 1919 Race Riot in Chicago
*****
Red Summer:
The Summer of 1919 and the
Awakening of Black America
By Cameron McWhirter
(2011)
*****
Ed Ayers
(born 1953)
American historian
Host and presenter of the series:
The Future of America's Past
*****
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