1919 Chicago Race Riots
The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 began on July 27 after a young black man, Eugene Williams, was struck with a stone and drowned after drifting onto a white section of a beach on Lake Michigan . Outraged by the lack of police action, angry African Americans rioted and erupted into violence, which lasted until August 2. At the end of the violence, 38 people were dead and hundreds were either injured or homeless. There was great animosity between African Americans and whites, stemming back largely to 1904, when employers hired African Americans as strikebreakers during the meat cutter's and butcher's attempt to unionize. The increase African Americans living in neighborhoods that had previously been ‘white-only,' only added more fuel to the hate between the two groups.
In Studs Lonigan , adolescent Studs, who is Irish, takes part in the race riots with his childhood friends and his attitude towards the riots gives startling insight into sentiments of the time. Their goal in the riot was that “for every white man killed in the riots, ten black apes ought to be massacred” (Farrell, 217). Though a death initially prompted the outbreak of violence, it is clear that the strong feelings between whites and blacks existed largely in part to the competition over jobs and the ‘right' whites felt they had to the better, more desirable jobs in the city.
“[We] only caught a ten-year-old Negro boy. [We] took his clothes off, and burned them. [We] burned his tail with lighted matches, made him step on lighted matches, urinated on him, and sent him running off naked with a couple of slaps in the face” (Farrell, 218).