Looking back at the 1919 Chicago Race Riots
Looking back at the 1919 Chicago race riots
The violence began on July 27, when a Black teenager - Eugene Williams - crossed into what was considered at the time a whites-only side of 31st Street Beach. A white man hit the 17-year-old in the head with rock, causing him to drown. For an entire week, white Chicagoans terrorized Black communities who fought back.
CHICAGO - A Western Illinois professor is working to honor people killed in the 1919 Chicago Race Riots with a downtown memorial.
Professor Peter Cole says he came up with the idea while touring Holocaust memorials in Germany.
"The contrast between what Germany does to remember history that is obviously unpleasant, compared to what the United States fails to do, say how it treats its lack of coverage of the history of near genocide of natives, and the enslavement of Africans too, is striking," Cole said.
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Under the Chicago Race Riot of 1919 Commemoration Project, the 38 victims will each be honored with glass bricks etched with their names.
They will then be installed on the streets where the riots took place.
The violence began on July 27, 1919, when a Black teenager — Eugene Williams — crossed into what was considered at the time a whites-only side of 31st Street Beach. A white man hit the 17-year-old in the head with rock, causing him to drown.
For an entire week, white Chicagoans terrorized Black communities who fought back.