The Negro in Chicago

The violence in Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919 began in late July, when whites killed a black teen off a South Side beach. By early August, over three dozen had been killed and over five hundred injured, during some of the most frightening few weeks in Chicago and U. S. history. That summer, race riots occurred in more than three dozen cities across the country, with hundreds of deaths, arson, looting, and murder.In the Chicago riot's aftermath, the governor of Illinois appointed a non-partisan, interracial investigative committee, the Chicago Commission on Race Relations, to identify the causes of the violence and find solutions. The Commission's report was originally published in 1922. It included a substantial overview of the riots, the conditions leading up to the violence, and the consequences in various neighborhoods. The report was groundbreaking for its time, both for the cooperation of black and white civic leaders in its creation and for its candid conclusion: that there were no easy or immediate solutions to ease tensions between black and white residents, and that only "through mutual understanding and sympathy between the races" would harmony be achieved.This is the full facsimile text of the report of the Commission--still the best and most detailed overview of one of the worst periods in Chicago history, a full century ago yet mirroring many of the exact same conditions and structures we face today.