Chicago Race Riot of 1919 Essay -- African American

Unit 4 Paper On July 27, 1919, a young black man named Eugene Williams swam past an invisible draw off of segregation at a popular public beach on Lake Michigan, Chicago. He was stoned by several white bystanders, knocked unconscious and drowned, and his final stage set off one of the bloodiest riots in Chicagos level (Shogun 96). The Chicago race riot was not the result of the incident alone. several(prenominal) factors, including the economic, social and political differences among blacks and whites, the post-war atmosphere and the psychology of race transaction in 1919, combined to make Chicago a prime butt for this event. Although the riot was a catalyst for several short-term solutions to the racial tensions, it did fine to improve race relations in the long run. It was many days before the nation truly addressed the underlying conflicts that sparked the riot of 1919. This notification is reflected in many of author James Baldwins essays in which he emp hasizes that positive change can only occur when both races have a go at it the Negro as an equal among men politically, economically and socially. There is some(a) history that explains why the incident on that Chicago beach escalated to the time period where 23 blacks and 15 whites were killed, 500 more were injured and 1,000 blacks were left roofless (96). When the local police were summoned to the scene, they refused to arrest the white man identified as the one who instigated the attack. It was generally acknowledged that the state should look the other focus as long as private violence stayed at a low level (Waskow 265). This police indifference, viewed by most blacks as racial bias, played a major role in enraging the black population. In the wake of the Chica... ...on. 1956. James Baldwin Collected Essays. Ed. Toni Morrison. freshly York Library of America, 1998 606-613.Lee, Alfred McClung. washout roister/by Alfred McClung Lee and Norman Daymond Humph rey. New York The Dryden Press, 1943.Lee, Alfred McClung. Race riots arent necessity/by Alfred McClung Lee in cooperation with the American Council on Race Relations. New York Public Affairs Committee, 1945.Mitchell, J. Paul. Race Riots in Black and White. Englewood Cliffs Prentice-Hall, 1970.Sandburg, Carl. The Chicago Race Riots. New York Harcourt, Brace and World, 1969.Shogan, Robert. The Detroit race riot a study in violence, by Robert Shogan and Tom Craig. Philadelphia Chilton Books, 1964.Waskow, Arthur I. The 1919 race riots microform a study in the connections between conflict and violence/Arthur I Waskow. Madison University of Wisconsin, 1963.