Seely 1 Lesson Plan: The Red Summer: An Examination of Urban ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Seely 12 examine more closely the state of relations between white and black Chicagoans. They formed a special commission--the Chicago Commission on Race Relations--to investigate the sociological origins of the riot and suggest ways to improve race relations in the city. This commission concluded that a variety of factors--competition for jobs, inadequate housing options for blacks, inconsistent enforcement of the law, and other forms of direct and indirect racial discrimination--had soured relations between white and black Chicagoans and created an environment conducive to race riots. While improvements in these areas would be slow and difficult to attain, the commission's recommendations at least envisioned a future in which racial equality, not racial segregation, would be the standard for all municipal policies. 1919 Race Riot Documents Seeking the Cause Source: Chicago Defender, editorial, 9 August 1919, pg. 16. SO MANY THEORIES HAVE BEEN ADVANCED as to the probable cause of the outbreaks between the races in the different northern cities that it is difficult for the man or woman whose opinion is based on the stories presented in the daily press to select any one that will hold longer than a day, or until the next edition of the paper appears. Those who try to make these outbursts of the lawless acute, those who believe, for instance, that the regrettable affair at the bathing beach here in Chicago was sufficient to set in motion this machine of destruction, are far from the right track. DOES ANY LOGICAL thinking man or woman believe that the recent world war could have been staged on an incident as trivial-- speaking, in the larger sense-- as the killing of one, two or a dozen relatives of a royal family? Is it not conceded that for years Germany, France, England, Russia and Japan had axes to grind, that they cherished little love for each other, that territorial aggrandizement, trade monopoly and other vital questions were gnawing at their very heart strings? Was it not clearly proven that Germany contemplated and prepared for war for forty years. Had a friendly feeling existed would not the killing of these members of the royal family been amicably adjusted without further bloodshed? SINCE THE BLACK MAN became an economic factor in the life of the North two things happened. The South awakened to the fact that they were losing their main prop, and financial destruction stared them in the face if means were not immediately devised to check the vast hordes of labor that were leaving that section. The southerner may be a little behind the times,
Seely 13 but he has learned the art of squealing as loud as anybody when his pocketbook is meddled with. First his free slave labor was wrested from him; now the North is gobbling up his cheap labor. While he cried with one breath for deliverance from the Black man, with the next came all sorts of pleadings and dire threats to the one who enticed the Black man from the land of cane and cotton. Enigma? Yes, but what's to be done about it? THE NORTHERNER, too, had an awakening when, through necessity he placed the Black man in his shops, factories and industrial plants, he found not the shiftless, lazy tout that had been pictured, but a bright, energetic, apt, useful and reliable workman, so a permanent place was found for him and he was asked to have his brothers come and partake of his good fortune. THERE IS ALWAYS FRICTION when two bodies try to occupy the same place at the same time. The close of the war threw thousands out of employment. The American white man, believing himself justly entitled to first pick, questioned the right of a Black man to be holding a job he could fill. The Black man, dating his final papers entitling him to a place in the sun from the day he landed from overseas, where he had been offering his life for the honor of his country, pointed to his record as an American citizen and refused longer to be the tool of any man. This display of manhood brought his enemies to their feet and by fair means or foul it was seemingly agreed to poison the minds of our friends. The methods employed have been both cunning and dastardly. The bourbon press throughout the country have aided and abetted this insidious propaganda and have constantly played their trump card, "A big, burly black brute attacks a white woman." IT IS AS IMPOSSIBLE to segregate a group of people who comprise such a large percentage of the whole population as it is to fly to the moon. And every instance where segregation has been practiced we find a retarded growth and the mob supreme, while the price of a human life is at the zero mark. Torch Rioters Give Firemen Continuous Job Alarms by Score During the Night; Stones Fly. Source: Chicago Daily Tribune, 31 July 1919, pg. 2. More than forty fires touched off by rioters in the black belt last night kept engine and truck companies clanging up and down the streets almost continuously from 8:30 until 10 o'clock. It was not until the troops moved into the district that the firemen were able to catch their breath. The calls came so fast the fire alarm operators could hardly keep track of them and engine company No. 50, at Forty-seventh street and Wentworth avenue, was kept so busy that two companies-- engine company No. 19 and truck company 15-- were sent to its aid. Fifty-two alarms had been turned in by 10:30, more than forty of which were said to be in
Page 1 and 2: Seely 1 Lesson Plan: The Red Summer
Page 3 and 4: Seely 3
Page 11: Seely 11 The Chicago Race Riot of 1
Page 15 and 16: Seely 15 Whites fired the house at
Page 17 and 18: Seely 17 An armed solider and Chica
Page 19 and 20: Seely 19 CHICAGO AND ITS EIGHT REAS
Page 21 and 22: Seely 21 The value of the Negro vot
Page 23 and 24: Seely 23 in “their part of the to

Seely 1 Lesson Plan: The Red Summer: An Examination of Urban ...

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?