A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919

This readable, compelling history explores the longstanding and deeply rooted causes of the 1919 Chicago Race Riot, which left thirty-eight people dead and 537 wounded (two-thirds of the casualties were black; one-third, white). De facto segregation was woven into much of Chicago's social fabric in the early twentieth century, including access to the public beaches. An invisible line had been drawn between the Twenty-Sixth Street and Twenty-Ninth Street beaches, resulting in an eruption of animosity and violence whenever that line was crossed. On a sweltering Sunday in July, five black youths were swimming from a raft that drifted too near the white beach when a white man began to throw rocks at the boys, striking seventeen-year-old Eugene Williams and causing him to drown. This tragedy was the catalyst for a week-long uprising that began with a brawl on the Twenty-Ninth Street Beach that Sunday afternoon and escalated into citywide unrest ("seven days of death and destruction as the city purged the rage that had been building for so long"). The first two-thirds of this book carefully unpacks the underlying factors that led to the unrest; the remainder details the events of each violence-filled day until the riots finally ended the following Saturday. Hartfield's careful account is peppered with phrases from the time ("woe betide"; "a mighty bit better than"), subtly infusing the text with historical flavor. Meticulously chosen archival photos, documents, newspaper clippings, and quotes from multiple primary sources add authenticity. Appended with copious source notes and a thorough bibliography; index unseen. eboni njoku