The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot. Chicago Commission on Race Relations
had developed so largely from the failure to work out an adjustment of the increased Negro population due to the migration were and are still present, undiminished in influence. Consciousness of racial difference and more or less unconscious fear and distrust were increased and spread by the riot. Among the whites this was evidenced by the general belief that Negroes were gathering stores of arms and ammunition. Among the Negroes a growing race solidarity has been marked. There is a greater lack of confidence in the white man's law and machinery of protection. Continued bombings of Negro houses in mixed areas and failure to apprehend the culprits no doubt strengthen this attitude.
Reports of various Negro gatherings held soon after the riot show this to be the case. Many Negroes frankly urged their brothers that they must arm themselves and fight if attacked. At one meeting a Negro is reported to have said:
The recent race riots have done at least one thing for the colored race. In the past we Negroes have failed to appreciate what solidarity means. We have, on the contrary, been much divided. Since the riot we are getting together and devising ways and means of protecting our interests. The recent race riots have convinced us that we must take steps to protect ourselves. Never again will we be found unprepared. It is the duty of every man here to provide himself with guns and ammunition. I, myself, have at least one gun and at least enough ammunition to make it useful.
The riot furnished the gang and hoodlum element a chance to indulge in lawlessness. Fear of death and injury may help to hold that element in check. But it cannot be argued that fear of punishment is much of a factor, for very few convictions of rioters were secured.
Quick justice would have been a salutary means of curbing tendencies to riot, according to both the coroner's jury and the grand jury. The coroner's jury said: "One remedy for race rioting is a speedy conviction and punishment of those guilty, regardless of race or color, giving all concerned a fair and impartial hearing." Its eighth recommendation reads: "Above all, a strict enforcement of the law by public officials, fair and impartial, will do more than any other agency in restoring the good name of Chicago, and prevent rioting from any cause from again disturbing the peace of our city."
The August, 1919, grand jury said: "This jury feels that in order to allay further race prejudice and to prevent the re-enactment of shameful crimes committed during the recent riots, efficient, prompt, and fearless justice on the part of the judiciary be meted out to the guilty ones, whether they be white or black."
In a fair consideration of whether swift and impartial justice was meted out, it must be noted that it was extremely hard to secure evidence sufficient for successful prosecution. Police attention upon arriving at the scene of a clash was directed more to removing the injured than apprehending the guilty. Where attempts were made to search out the offenders, it was next to impossible to get results on account of the keen race consciousness which made Negroes disclaim knowledge of Negro culprits and white people deny seeing specific white men act aggressively. Many of the crowds were neighborhood gatherings and leaders were often the sons of neighbors.
In most of the riot cases brought before the state's attorney's office the same difficulty was experienced. Whole blocks of residents were subpoenaed and accurately described the assaults, but failed entirely to recognize any of the assailants. The grand jury found the same obstacle. The foreman, referring to the kind of testimony brought before that body by Negroes on complaints against whites, said: " … they [the grand jury] usually found it to be hearsay testimony. Some other individual told them about So-and-So. That a crime had been committed there was no question, but to get at the root of it was absolutely impossible."
In spite of these difficulties, those familiar with the riot situation believe that more arrests of active rioters might have been made and more convictions obtained. A study of the riot deaths shows that justice failed to be as swift and sure as the coroner's and grand juries recommended. The blame for this failure is variously placed on the police, state's attorney, judge, or jury, according to the prejudice of the one attempting to fix blame, or his connection with any of these agencies. The fact remains that the punitive results of the legal processes were too negligible to furnish a proper deterrent to future rioters.
Of the thirty-eight persons whose death constituted the riot's principal toll—
Fifteen met death at the hands of mobs. The coroners' jury recommended that the members of the unknown mobs be apprehended. None were ever found.
Six were killed under circumstances establishing no criminal responsibility: three white men were killed by Negroes in self-defense, and three Negroes were shot by policemen in the discharge of their duty.
Four Negroes lost their lives in the Angelus riot. The coroner made no recommendations, and the cases were not carried farther.
Four cases—two Negro and two white—led to recommendations from the coroner's jury for further investigation of certain persons, but sufficient evidence was lacking for indictments.
Nine cases resulted in indictments, four of which led to convictions.
Thus in only four cases was criminal responsibility for death fixed and punishment meted out to the guilty.
Indictments and convictions are divided according to the race of the persons criminally involved as follows:
| Negro | White | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cases | Persons | Cases | Persons | |
| Indictments[10] | 6 | 17 | 3 | 4 |
| Convictions | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
There is evidence that the riot of 1919 aroused many citizens of both races to a quickened sense of the suffering and disgrace which had come and might come again to the community, and developed a determination to prevent a recurrence of so disastrous an outbreak of race hatred. This was manifest, as another section of this report shows, in the courage and control which people of both races displayed on at least two occasions in 1920 when confronted suddenly with events out of which serious riots might easily have grown.
MILK WAS DISTRIBUTED FOR THE BABIES
PROVISIONS WERE SUPPLIED BY THE RED CROSS TO HUNDREDS OF NEGRO FAMILIES
This examination of the facts of the riot reveals certain outstanding features, as follows:
1. The riot violence was not continuous, hour by hour, but was intermittent.
2. The greatest number of injuries occurred in the district west of Wentworth Avenue, inclusive of Wentworth, and south of the Chicago River to Fifty-fifth Street, or, broadly speaking, in the Stock Yards district. The next greatest number occurred in the so-called "Black Belt," Twenty-second to Thirty-ninth streets, inclusive, Wentworth to the lake, exclusive of Wentworth; Thirty-ninth to Fifty-fifth streets, inclusive, Clark Street to Michigan Avenue, exclusive of Michigan.
3. Organized raids occurred only after a period of sporadic clashes and spontaneous mob outbreaks.
4. Main thoroughfares witnessed 76 per cent of the injuries on the South Side. The streets which suffered most severely were State, Halsted, Thirty-first, Thirty-fifth, and Forty-seventh. Transfer corners were always centers of trouble.
5. Most of the rioting occurred after working hours. This was particularly true after the street-car strike started.
6. Gangs, particularly among the young whites, formed definite nuclei for crowd and mob leadership. "Athletic clubs" supplied the leaders of many gangs.
7. Whites usually employed fists and clubs in their attacks upon Negroes; Negroes used firearms and knives