The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot. Chicago Commission on Race Relations

      INTRODUCTION

       Table of Contents

      On Sunday, July 27, 1919, there was a clash of white people and Negroes at a bathing-beach in Chicago, which resulted in the drowning of a Negro boy. This led to a race riot in which thirty-eight lives were lost—twenty-three Negroes and fifteen whites—and 537 persons were injured. After three days of mob violence, affecting several sections of the city, the state militia was called out to assist the police in restoring order. It was not until August 6 that danger of further clashes was regarded as past.

      To discuss this serious situation and means of preventing its recurrence, a group of eighty-one citizens, representing forty-eight social, civic, commercial, and professional organizations of Chicago, met on August 1, 1919, at the Union League Club. Mr. Charles W. Folds, president of the Club, presided. Brief addresses were made by Mr. H. H. Merrick, president of the Chicago Association of Commerce, Dr. Graham Taylor, Miss Harriet Vittum, Major John S. Bonner, Mr. Charles J. Boyd, and Rev. William C. Covert.

      Resolutions were passed and given to the press, and the following letter to the Governor of Illinois was authorized:

      To His Excellency, Frank O. Lowden Governor of Illinois

      Dear Sir: A meeting was held today at the Union League Club to take up the matter of the present race riots.

      This meeting was attended by 81 representatives of 48 prominent civic, professional and commercial organizations, such as Chicago Medical Association, Chicago Bar Association, Federation of Churches, Association of Commerce, Packing House Industries, Urban League, Woman's City Club, Chicago Woman's Club, Foreign Language Division, representing foreign-born population, etc.

      A resolution was adopted unanimously, appointing the undersigned as a committee to wait upon you and ask that you appoint at your earliest convenience an emergency state committee to study the psychological, social and economic causes underlying the conditions resulting in the present race riot and to make such recommendations as will tend to prevent a recurrence of such conditions in the future.

      The committee would welcome an opportunity to meet you at any time convenient to yourself and to talk over with you details and give you such information as has been gathered through these various organizations.

      Respectfully,

      Charles W. Folds

       Graham Taylor

       William C. Graves

       Harriet E. Vittum

       T. Arnold Hill

       Felix J. Streyckmans

      In response to this and other urgent requests by various citizens and organizations, and pursuant to his personal knowledge of the situation derived from investigations made by him in Chicago during the period of the riot, Governor Lowden announced on August 20, 1919, the appointment of a Commission on Race Relations, consisting of twelve members, six from each race, as follows—Mr. Bancroft being designated by him as chairman:

      Representing the white people: Edgar A. Bancroft, William Scott Bond, Edward Osgood Brown, Harry Eugene Kelly, Victor F. Lawson, Julius Rosenwald.

      Representing the Negro people: Robert S. Abbott, George Cleveland Hall, George H. Jackson, Edward H. Morris, Adelbert H. Roberts, Lacey Kirk Williams.[1]

      In announcing the appointment of this Commission, Governor Lowden made public the following statement:

      I have been requested by many citizens and by many civic organizations in Chicago to appoint a Commission to study and report upon the broad question of the relations between the two races. These riots were the work of the worst element of both races. They did not represent the great overwhelming majority of either race. The two are here and will remain here. The great majority of each realizes the necessity of their living upon terms of cordial good will and respect, each for the other. That condition must be brought about.

      To say that we cannot solve this problem is to confess the failure of self-government. I offer no solution of the problem. I do know, however, that the question cannot be answered by mob violence. I do know that every time men, white or colored, take the law into their own hands, instead of helping they only postpone the settlement of the question. When we admit the existence of a problem and courageously face it, we have gone half-way toward its solution.

      I have with the utmost care, in response to the requests above set forth, appointed a Commission to undertake this great work. I have sought only the most representative men of the two races. I have not even asked them whether they had views as to how the question could be met. I have asked them only to approach the difficult subject with an open mind, and in a spirit of fairness and justice to all. This is a tribunal that has been constituted to get the facts and interpret them and to find a way out. I believe that great good can come out of the work of this Commission.

      I ask that our people, white and colored, give their fullest co-operation to the Commission. I ask, too, as I have a right to ask, that both races exercise that patience and self-restraint which are indispensable to self-government while we are working out this problem.

      During an absence of the chairman, due to ill health, Governor Lowden requested Dr. Francis W. Shepardson, director of the State Department of Registration and Education, to serve as acting chairman. On Mr. Bancroft's return and at the Commission's request, the Governor appointed Dr. Shepardson a member and vice-chairman of the Commission.

       The Commission's first meeting was held on October 9, 1919. Nine other meetings were held during the remainder of that year to canvass the possible fields of inquiry, and to provide for the organization of studies and investigations.

      The Commission was seriously handicapped at the outset by a complete lack of funds. The legislative session of 1919 had ended before the riot, and the next regular session was not to convene until January, 1921. The Commission felt that it could not with propriety seek to raise funds on its own appeal. To meet this situation a group of citizens offered to serve as a co-operating committee to finance the Commission's inquiry and the preparation and publication of its report. This Committee, consisting of Messrs. James B. Forgan, chairman, Abel Davis, treasurer, Arthur Meeker, John J. Mitchell, and John G. Shedd, gave effective aid, being most actively assisted by Messrs. R. B. Beach and John F. Bowman, of the staff of the Chicago Association of Commerce. Without the co-operation of these gentlemen and the resulting financial assistance of many generous contributors the Commission could not have carried on its work. It here expresses its most grateful appreciation.

      The Commission organized its staff, inviting Mr. Graham Romeyn Taylor, as executive secretary, and Mr. Charles S. Johnson, as associate executive secretary, to assume charge of the inquiries and investigations under its direction. They began their work on December 7, 1919.

      While the Commission recognized the importance of studying the facts of the riot, it felt that even greater emphasis should be placed on the study and interpretation of the conditions of Negro life in Chicago and of the relations between the two races. Therefore, after a brief survey of the data already collected and of the broad field for its inquiries, it organized into six committees, as follows: Committee on Racial Clashes, Committee