The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot. Chicago Commission on Race Relations
firing shots and throwing missiles from their windows. One man was shot through the head but before his name could be secured he was spirited away."
In the case of Joseph Lovings, a Negro killed by an Italian mob, press reports that were entirely false tended strongly to provoke the anger of Negro mobs. For example:
Herald-Examiner, July 30: "He had been shot, stabbed and gasoline had been thrown on his body which had been set afire. The police extinguished the fire and took the body to the County Morgue."
Tribune, July 30: "This report says that he was stabbed and shot sixteen times, then his body saturated with gasoline and set afire."
The coroner's jury in commenting on this rumor said: "It gives us satisfaction to say that this rumor, from our investigation, is false and unsubstantiated."
Among the horror rumors one finds such examples as the story of the white man who stood at the entrance to Exchange Avenue and knocked down half a dozen Negroes as they came by. This was current in the Stock Yards and was told by one of the workers at the inquest on the body of William Dozier, Negro, killed in the Yards. Another rumor had it that a Negro woman nicknamed "Heavy" had partly slashed off the head of a white man. This was picked up by a detective circulating among white people living in the "Black Belt."
But chief among horror rumors was the Bubbly Creek rumor, which took this form in the press:
Daily News, July 29. Subheadline: "Four Bodies in Bubbly Creek." The article does not give details but says, "Bodies of four colored men were taken today from Bubbly Creek in the Stock Yards district, it is reported."
This was one of the most persistent rumors of the riot, and intelligent men were found repeating it in half-credulous tones. A meat curer, talking in the superintendent's office of Swift & Company, said: "Well, I hear they did drag two or three out of Bubbly Creek. … Dead bodies, that is the report that came to the Yards, but personally I never got any positive evidence that there was any people who was found there."
A juror on the coroner's panel said: "A man told a friend of mine—I can furnish the name of that man—a man told him that he saw fifty-six bodies taken out of Bubbly Creek. They made a statement they used a net and seine to drag them out."
Mr. Williams, Negro attorney, said he was told that the bodies of 100 Negroes had been found in Bubbly Creek.
In its final report, the coroner's jury made this conclusive statement regarding the Bubbly Creek rumor:
Bubbly Creek has been the favorite cemetery for the undiscovered dead, and our inquiry has been partly directed to that stream. In our inquiry we have been assisted by the Stock Yards officials and workers, by adjacent property owners and residents, by private detective bureaus, the Police Department, Department of Health, State's Attorney's office, by observing and intelligent colored citizens, and by other agencies, and we are firmly of the opinion that these reports, so widely circulated, are erroneous, misleading, and without foundation in fact, the race riot victims numbering thirty-eight, and no more, nor are there any colored citizens reported to us as missing.
Rumor, fermenting in mobs, prepares the mob mind for the direct suggestion impelling otherwise law-abiding citizens to atrocities. Another more insidious and potentially more dangerous result is the slow accumulation of feeling which builds between the white and Negro the strongest barrier of race prejudice.
Police.—There has been much criticism of the manner in which the riot was handled by the authorities, but it may be pointed out that the riot was not quelled until at least four groups of peace guardians had taken part in handling it. The two most important groups were the police and the militia; the others were composed of deputy sheriffs and Negro ex-soldiers.
Testimony before the coroner's jury and in hearings before this Commission throws considerable light on the actions of the Police Department as a whole during the riot, its methods in meeting the unusual situation, and on the conduct of individual policemen. First-hand information and opinion was obtained from Chief of Police Garrity and State's Attorney Hoyne.
The police had two severe handicaps at the outset of the rioting. The first, as declared by Chief Garrity, was lack of sufficient numbers adequately to cope with the situation. The coroner's jury found that "the police force should be enlarged. It is too small to cope with the needs of Chicago." The grand jury added: "The police force is also inadequate in numbers, and at least one thousand (1,000) officers should be added to the existing force." This number approximates the need urged by Chief Garrity, who, when asked before the Commission as to the sufficiency of his force, answered: "No. I haven't sufficient force. I haven't got a sufficient force now to properly police the city of Chicago by one-third." Militia officers and other police officials held the same general opinion.
The second handicap, distrust of white policemen by all Negroes, while implied and not admitted by Chief Garrity, was frankly explained by State's Attorney Hoyne. He said before the Commission: "There is no doubt that a great many police officers were grossly unfair in making arrests. They shut their eyes to offenses committed by white men while they were very vigorous in getting all the colored men they could get."
Leaders among the Negroes clearly indicate that discrimination in arrest was a principal cause of widespread and long-standing distrust. Whether justified or not, this feeling was actual and bitter. This distrust had grown seriously during the six months preceding the riot because no arrests were made in bombing cases. State's Attorney Hoyne said before the commission: "I don't know of a single case where the police have apprehended any man who has blown up a house."
Charles S. Duke, a well-educated and fair-minded Negro, gave his reaction to the bombings when he said that he did not "believe a Negro would have been allowed to go unpunished five minutes." Mrs. Clarke, Negro, said her house was bombed three times, once while a plain-clothes policeman was inside waiting for bombers, but no arrests were made. One suspect was put under surveillance but was not held.
The trial of the three Negro policemen before the Merit Committee of the Police Department because they refused to use the "Jim Crow" sleeping-quarters in a police station doubtless added to race feeling, particularly in view of the publicity it received in the "Black Belt."
Negro distrust of the police increased among the Negroes during the period of the riot. With each clash a new cause for suspicion seemed to spring up. The most striking instance occurred on the first afternoon when Policeman Callahan refused to arrest the white man whom the Negro crowd accused of causing the drowning of Williams, the Negro boy. This refusal has been called the beginning of the riot because it led to mob violence of grave consequences. However that may have been, the fact remains that this refusal was heralded broadcast by the Negroes as the kind of action they might expect from the police.
Typical of the minor tales which laid the foundation for the Negroes' bitterness toward this white policeman are the following:
1. Kin Lumpkin, Negro, was beaten by a mob on the "L" platform at Forty-seventh Street, as he was going home from work. The policeman arrested Lumpkin and had him booked for rioting. No other arrests were made. Lumpkin was held from July 28 to August 1.
2. Two policemen, one of them Officer McCarty of the Twenty-sixth Precinct, witnessed the beating of Wellington Dunmore, Negro, of 4120 South Campbell Avenue, but, according to the victim, refused to assist him.
3. John Slovall and brother, Negroes, were beaten and robbed by whites in sight of a white policeman. No arrests were made. The officer did not even call for aid.
4. While looking for his mother at Thirty-first and State streets on Tuesday, July 29, Wm. F. Thornton, Negro, 3207 South Park Avenue, asked a policeman to take him home. The officer took him to the police station and locked him up. Another Negro applied for protection, but the police searched him, clubbed him, and when he ran, the sergeant told another policeman to shoot him. The policeman obeyed and the man fell under the "L" station. He was picked up by the same patrol wagon that took Thornton to the Cottage Grove Police Station. The officer, Bundy, arrested Thornton.
NEGROES BEING