July 27 |

The Chicago Race Riots - Thirty Eight People Killed - Five Hundred Injured

Chicago Race Riot Walgreens — A crowd of en:African American men standing on the sidewalks in front of a Walgreen Drugs at the corner of 35th and South State Street in the Douglas community area of Chicago , during a race riot. Police officers are standing at the forefront of the crowd.

On July 27, 1919, Eugene Williams, a young African American man was hit by a rock while floating into the area of a segregated beach in Chicago by a white man in the beach area. Williams fell off his raft and drowned. When the police arrived, they arrested an African American man for a minor complaint and refused to arrest the white man who threw the rocks resulting in the death of Williams. This caused a major racial conflict that concluded on August 3, 1919 with 38 people killed and over 500 injured.

A white gang looking for African Americans during the Chicago race riots of 1919

Their were 23 African Americans killed along with 15 whites.The majority of the people injured were African American and most of the property damaged belonged to African Americans (1,000 African American families were left homeless). Maclay Hoyne, the State's Attorney accused the Chicago Police of arresting African Americans involved in the riot while refusing to arrest rioters who were white.