The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot. Chicago Commission on Race Relations
from the same mob: "When they started to grab them [the Negroes] in the lot, I rushed over directly to the conflict, by the colored men, thinking I would see more on that side."
Mobs got under way for the commission of atrocities by having the direct suggestion put to them by one of the leaders. With minds already prepared by rumors circulating wherever crowds gathered, it was easy to arouse action. A street car approaching and the cry, "Get the niggers!" was enough. Prompt action clinched the idea, and the emotion of the attack narrowed the field of consciousness. War cries aided in keeping emotion at fever heat. "Get the nigger!" "Kill the black—— of a——!" "Kill him!" These were always an incident of mob action.
Counter-suggestion was not tolerated when the mob was rampant. A suggestion of clemency was shouted down with the derisive epithet, "Nigger lover!" Silenced objectors made no further effort to thwart mob action. There are no records of such persons notifying the police or persisting in their remonstrances. Those whose objections took the form of action against the mob met with violence. A white man, an instructor in music at the University of Chicago, saw several white men attack a Negro who was waiting for a street car at Sixty-third Street and Cottage Grove Avenue. Without trying verbal remonstrance he struck out at them. His glasses were knocked off, and he was thrown into the middle of the street and left unconscious.
Not only did action once under way make interference hazardous, but it brought into the mob circle a greater number of participants and increased its energy. Five men jerked a trolley from the wires; ten men boarded the car; twenty-five men chased and beat the routed Negroes. The mob action grew faster than the increase in numbers. Ideas suggested by individual members were quickly carried out in the action of all. The mob as a whole and the individuals in it increased in fury, and a normal street crowd was often turned from peaceful assemblage to brutal murder.
A sharp diversion of attention sometimes caused the dispersal of mobs. An unexpected revolver shot was the most effective means of such diversion. Here are some instances:
When Thomas Joshua, a Negro boy, was shot by Police Lieutenant Day, a throng of Negroes came on the run from State Street. The officers, terrified, escaped in a taxi, leaving their own automobile behind. The mob attempted to make this car suffer vicariously for the escaped police officers. Other policemen on the scene had difficulty in holding them back. Two shots were heard on Federal Street. Immediately the crowd ceased its clamoring, left the automobile, and apparently lost all thought of Lieutenant Day and ran to Federal Street.
In the first mob of the riot, that at Twenty-ninth Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, Negroes and policemen were struggling in a mass in the middle of the street. A shot was fired by James Crawford, and the mob dispersed from that corner.
A mob chased a Negro off a street car on Thirty-ninth Street near Wallace. A policeman with presence of mind followed the group into the alley, fired a few shots in the air, and the crowd ran.
In no case where an unexpected shot was fired did it fail to scatter the mob, but shooting which was part of the mob's own action did not seem to have the same effect.
The course of one riotous mob can be traced in the activities of a certain group of five white boys who linked up with the riot excitement. They met at the corner of Sixty-third Street and Ingleside Avenue at 8:30 Monday evening. While they were trying to decide which movie to attend, a taxi driver informed them of a riot at Forty-seventh Street. They took the "L" to Forty-seventh Street and joined the mob. From then until 2:00 a.m. they were active in mobs which assaulted Negroes at several points. Two were beaten at Forty-seventh Street and the elevated railway. The mob then proceeded to Fifty-first Street, but the police drove it back and it moved on to Indiana Avenue and Forty-third Street, where a deputy sheriff held it off. Returning here later it attacked a street car, beat a Negro, and then moved south on Indiana Avenue, jerking trolleys from wires and assaulting passengers. At Forty-fifth Street a shot fired by a police sergeant scattered it toward Forty-third Street.
There the mob met Lieutenant Washington, a Negro ex-soldier, who, with five Negro companions, was obliged to walk across town because car service had been discontinued on account of the rioting. Lieutenant Washington, testifying before the coroner's jury, gave this account of the affair:
After we crossed Grand Boulevard I heard a yell, "One, two, three, four, five, six," and then they gave a loud cheer and said, "Everybody, let's get the niggers! Let's get the niggers," and we noticed some of them crossed the street and walked on up even with us. The rest of them were about ten or fifteen feet north … there were about between four and six men … crossed the street and got in front of us … just before we got to Forrestville Avenue, about twenty yards, they swarmed in on us.
After this attack, in which Lieutenant Browning was shot, and Clarence Metz, a white boy, was killed by a stab wound inflicted by Lieutenant Washington in self-defense, the mob moved on to Grand Boulevard, preceded by the rumor that it intended to attack the homes of Negroes. A shot from a house grazed a white lad, and the crowd went on, leaving the police to come and arrest the Negroes who had fired.
Mob action in planned attacks was more daring, but not more dangerous. Robbery was occasionally an accompaniment of spontaneous attack, but arson never. Whether or not some of the organized raids could readily have been stopped by the police, and the mobs dispersed, remains unproved. No attempt was made either in the "Loop" district, in the Forty-seventh and Wells streets districts or in the Sixty-ninth and Elizabeth streets district to check the depredations.
Rumor.—Rumor was often the first step in crowd formation and often opened the way for the sharp transformation of a crowd into a mob. The circulation of rumors was partly due to natural repetition, often with increasing embellishment, by one person to another of what he had heard or read. The desire to tell a "big story" and create a sensation was no doubt an important factor. With so much bitter feeling there was also considerable conscious effort to provoke vengeful animosity by telling the worst that the teller had heard or could imagine about the doings of the opposite race. The latter type of rumor circulation especially fed the riot from the beginning to the final clash. It continues to be a constant menace to the friendly relations of the races.
Newspapers were often supplied a source of rumor material through mistake in fundamental facts, due either to misinformation or exaggeration.
In considering the newspaper handling of riot news, it should be borne in mind that the task was most difficult during a period of such excitement and such crowding of events. Further it must be considered that white reporters might very justifiably avoid the risk of seeking news where crowds of Negroes had been roused to a high pitch of resentment against whites. There were doubtless instances in which news was secured from sources ordinarily trustworthy, but inaccurate during the riot. On the other hand, it must be recognized that in a time of such excitement the effect of sensational news on the popular mind is generally accentuated, and the responsibility for careful handling of news is correspondingly greater. Where bias is as pronounced as in a race riot it is of the utmost importance that essential facts be stated correctly.
| TABLE I | |||||||
| Date | Number of Injured as Reported by the "Tribune" and "Herald-Examiner" during the First Four Days of Riot | Facts as Later Obtained from Police, State's Attorney, Hospital Reports, and Olivet Baptist Church, Covering Each Day | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| White | Negro | Total | White | Negro | Unknown | Total | |
| July 27 | 29 | 19 | 48 | 10 | 31 | 5 | 46 |
| July 28 | 64 | 60 | 124 | 71 | 152 | 6 | 229 |
| July 29 | 62 | 72 | 134 | 55 | 80 | 4 | 139 |
| July 30 | 40 | 21 | 61 | 20 | 20 | 2 | 42 |
| Total | 195 | 172 | 367 | 156 | 283 | 17 | 456 |
| Percentage of total | 53 | 47 | 100 | 34 | 62 | 4 | 100 |
Reports of numbers of dead and injured tended to produce a feeling that the score must be evened up on the basis of "an eye for an eye," a Negro for a white, or vice versa. A most unfortunate impression may be made upon an excited public, Negro and white, by such erroneous reporting as the following, in which newspapers, although they understated