A Few Red Drops Read online

  Contents

  * * *

  Title Page

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chicago Neighborhoods ca. 1919

  Prologue

  CATALYST

  The Beach

  A Time to Reap

  FIRST WHISPERS

  Freedom Fight

  Self-Reliance

  White Negroes

  Waste Matters

  Parallel Universes

  A Stone’s Throw

  UP FROM THE SOUTH

  A Higher Call

  The Northern Fever

  A Real Place for Negroes

  A Job, Any Job

  Full to Bursting

  Respectability and Respect

  REAPING THE WHIRLWIND

  Tensions Rising

  Last Straws

  Race Riot

  Ratcheting Up

  Point-Counterpoint

  Moment of Truth

  Epilogue

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Picture Credits

  Acknowledgments

  Index

  About the Author

  Connect with HMH on Social Media

  Title page: Chicago Skyline, night view, ca. 1920s.

  Clarion Books

  3 Park Avenue

  New York, New York 10016

  Copyright © 2018 by Claire Hartfield

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

  Clarion Books is an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

  Cover photograph: Chicago Skyline, by Kaufmann & Fabry Co., retrieved from the Library of Congress

  Cover design by Lisa Vega

  www.hmhco.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  ISBN 978-0-544-78513-7

  eISBN 978-1-328-69904-6

  v1.1217

  To Emily, Caroline, Corinne—and the generations of young people who will shape the future.

  Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember. Then—I forget.

  —Carl Sandburg

  “I Am the People, the Mob”

  Prologue

  ON A LAZY SUMMER SUNDAY in 1919, fourteen-year-old John Harris and his friends set out for a fun-filled, beat-the-heat afternoon at the beach. On that fateful July day, the boys’ water play went dreadfully wrong, sparking a blood-soaked race riot that would shake the city of Chicago and send shock waves across the nation.

  The rage didn’t appear out of nowhere that day on the beach. It had been a long time coming, born in the city’s beginnings, written in the countless daily interactions of ordinary citizens and city leaders. Black migrants up from the South clashed with white immigrants from Europe; laborers and union leaders struggled to hold their own against mighty industrialists; police officers and gang members strove to control the streets; Democratic aldermen and a Republican mayor faced off over patronage and power. This is the story of their conflicting interests built over time, layer upon layer, ultimately exploding in bloodshed on the city’s streets. It is also America’s story.

  PART ONE

  CATALYST

  Aerial view of a Chicago beach.

  And so I say

  On a summer’s day,

  What’s so fine as being a boy? Ha, Ha!

  —Paul Laurence Dunbar,

  “A Boy’s Summer Song”

  ONE

  The Beach

  THE DATE WAS JULY 27, 1919, a day that would forever change the life of John Turner Harris and cause the whole city of Chicago to rethink where it had been and where it was headed.

  As is often the case just before catastrophe strikes, that Chicago summer Sunday morning was like any other, carrying no hint of the trouble ahead. Except that it was hot, the unbearable humid kind of hot that sits heavy on the chest and covers the skin with a glistening film of sweat before the day has a chance to get started. The air in fourteen-year-old John’s bedroom in his family’s home in the city’s “Black Belt” was thick with the smell of animal blood that drifted east from the city’s stockyards a few miles away. By the height of the day, temperatures would soar to ninety-six degrees—fourteen degrees above normal. And this heat had been building for days.

  Those Chicagoans lucky enough to be able to afford the latest technology had electric fans to keep them cool. Those who could not afford such fancy appliances threw windows open to catch the breeze. And still, on this Sunday, the heat turned apartments and houses throughout the city into gigantic ovens. The only escape was to go outside.

  There were eighty-two playgrounds and a handful of large leafy parks sprinkled through the neighborhoods, rich and poor: good spots for a picnic in the shade or a game of baseball exciting enough to make people forget the weather entirely. Better yet, folks could spend an afternoon dodging and diving in the icy waters of Lake Michigan, at one of the eight beaches that lined the city’s eastern shore. Chicago’s daily Tribune sported two full pages of beach bathers with wide smiles and dripping swimsuits, proclaiming, “KEEP COOL! There’s room for 250,000 like these at Chicago’s Beaches Today.”

  Around two o’clock in the afternoon, John met up with his friends, the four Williams boys: Charles and Lawrence were brothers; Paul and Eugene just happened to have the same last name. The beach was some four miles away from John’s home. The boys set out on foot and took the first opportunity to hop on a produce truck headed north, hopping off again when the truck reached Twenty-Sixth Street, then turning east toward the beach and continuing on foot. They made a beeline for the lake—through the streets, across the railroad tracks, not walking but running, trying to avoid any trouble along the way. There had already been bad blood between blacks and whites that summer, the boys knew firsthand. Not long before, a gang of immigrant toughs had rained rocks down on them as they crossed this very area. So now they hurried along, watchful but also giddy and playful, Lake Michigan in front of them, beckoning them to its bright blue waters that extended out like an ocean, so far that they couldn’t see the other side.

  There was a space of beach about a half mile in length between Twenty-Sixth Street and Twenty-Ninth Street that was a favorite for people who lived on Chicago’s South Side. There was no law about who could go to these beaches, not like in Alabama, Mississippi, and other places in the South where public bathrooms, water fountains, and beaches posted big signs spelling out “For Whites Only” or “Colored.” In Chicago, under the law, most places were open to both blacks and whites: children attended school together, and adults rode streetcars together. Under the law, blacks and whites could choose to eat in the same restaurants and get tickets to shows in the same theaters. Even so, many places were segregated, with the races separated by an invisible line. The beaches were like that. The boys knew, everybody knew: blacks frequented the beach at Twenty-Sixth Street; whites swam at the beach on Twenty-Ninth Street. The Twenty-Sixth Street beach was fully equipped with suits, towels, and lockers available at no charge; the beach manager proudly stated that he was looking to make it “the bathing point of the south side.”

  There were also some gray areas, spaces where the rules were not so clear. John and the Williams boys had found one of these and appropriated it for themselves, a sort of clubhouse that was all their own. It was a little island tucked between the two beaches, behind the Keeley beer brewery that gave off hot waste and the Consumers Ice Company that gave off cold waste, and they called it the “hot and cold.” The boys had built a wooden
raft they kept tied up there, fourteen feet long, nine feet wide, big and solid enough to carry them out into the lake.

  The game for the day was to sail the raft out to a marker nailed several hundred yards from shore, somewhere between the two beaches. The boys could not swim well, but they pushed off into the refreshing water, holding on to the sides of the raft, kicking their legs to move them forward. Many years later, John recalled feeling, “As long as the raft was there, we were safe.” They took turns diving under the cool water, popping back up every few seconds, grabbing on to the raft again, whooping it up as they bobbed along. Immersed in the delight of the game, they drifted closer and closer to the Twenty-Ninth Street beach.

  During the heat wave, Chicagoans were advised to cool off at the beach.

  On the shore at Twenty-Ninth Street, tensions were rising. White families had gathered as usual, looking forward to a lazy Sunday away from work and household chores, a chance to relax, children entertaining themselves with sand castles and water play. Some whites had been upset earlier when four blacks ignored the invisible line, plopping themselves down on the sand as though it was nothing out of the ordinary. White observers noted that things like this were happening more and more often. It seemed that something had come over black people after fighting the Great War in Europe during the previous few years; when the war was over, they seemed to think they could go anywhere, do anything, same as whites. And now here they were on the beach. They needed to be shown their place.

  A few men chased the black bathers away, some throwing rocks. The blacks retreated briefly but were not intimidated. They returned with a larger group and retaliated with rock-throwing of their own. Women scooped up their children and took cover.

  A crowded beach frequented by whites, a few miles south of the Twenty-Ninth Street beach.

  A little north of the rock fight, John and the Williams boys, oblivious of the fray, continued their game of diving and floating. Plunk. Out of nowhere, a rock touched down in the water close to the raft, startling the boys. A young white man stood on the beach about seventy-five feet away, gathering rocks, heaving them into the water in their direction. The boys looked at one another; maybe the man was trying to play a game of dodge. They were up for it, watching the rocks streak toward them, then diving underwater. John recalled, “One fellow would say, ‘Look out, here comes one,’ and we would duck.” It was good fun. Until a rock arced down just as Eugene came up from a dive, stone meeting forehead, and Eugene slid back into the water.

  John dove below the surface, trying to find Eugene. He could see blood in the water; then he felt himself being pulled down. Eugene had got hold of his ankle. John struggled to pull them both back up to safety, but Eugene was strong in his panic, keeping them both below the surface. John recalled, “I shook away from him to come back up, and you could see the blood coming up.” He was aware of the other boys shouting and swimming toward the shore as best they could. He could hear the young white man groan a few words—it sounded like “Oh, my God.” He saw the white man turn and run back toward the Twenty-Ninth Street beach.

  Hitting land, the boys raced back to the Twenty-Sixth Street beach, grabbed the black lifeguard, and told him what had happened. The lifeguard immediately launched a boat to search for Eugene. Spotting a black policeman, the boys pulled him down to Twenty-Ninth Street and told their story in front of everyone, including the white cop working the Twenty-Ninth Street beach, Officer Daniel Callahan. John pointed at the young man who had thrown the rock at Eugene, then waited for the police to arrest him. But Officer Callahan refused to do anything and restrained the black cop from making a move. While the two policemen argued, a group sprang to action, blacks and whites together, diving into the water to find Eugene.

  Within the hour, Eugene’s body was found, lifeless, and pulled to shore.

  TWO

  A Time to Reap

  JOHN AND HIS FRIENDS DASHED back to the Twenty-Sixth Street beach and poured out their anger to the black bathers there. Around fifty men sprinted down to Twenty-Ninth Street to see for themselves what was going on.

  Watching the bathers storm down the beach, John began to think about himself and the trouble he might be in. His mother would be furious if she found out he had been swimming on a Sunday. John later remembered how upset he was: “I wasn’t going home because I knew I had better cool myself down.” Maybe if he left the scene, she would never know he had been there. He gathered the remaining Williams boys and boarded the first bus that appeared. They traveled nearly four miles south to the Fifty-Fifth Street beach, where they left the bus and sat unnoticed, trying to calm down.

  “The Color Line Has Reached the North”: An editorial cartoon in the Chicago Tribune on July 28, 1919, referenced Chicago’s racial tension.

  The boys were preoccupied with avoiding punishment at home. But whether they knew it or not, if someone identified them, they could be swept up in deeper trouble than that. Racial confrontation was big news, the kind of news that made headlines in the Chicago Defender and would be read by the thousands of black subscribers in Chicago and around the nation. Police might start poking around, looking for someone black to take the fall. As it turned out, the news was much bigger than the boys could ever have imagined. Back at the Twenty-Ninth Street beach, the anger was gathering momentum that would wreak havoc far beyond Eugene’s death, spattering blood across the city. As the Defender observed, the rage didn’t blow in out of nowhere that day on the beach: “For years [America] has been sowing the wind and now she is reaping the whirlwind.”

  PART TWO

  FIRST WHISPERS

  Chicago skyline.

  The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none hut he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.

  —Ralph Waldo Emerson,

  “Self-Reliance”

  THREE

  Freedom Fight

  EUGENE WILLIAMS’S MOTHER BURIED her son a few days later, some seventeen years after she had brought him into the world one spring day in Georgia. When the family moved up north, Eugene had found that some of the other children at his school had roots in New York or Philadelphia or had been born right there in Chicago. But most of the kids, or their parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents, had started out life in the South.

  In Chicago’s first days, in the middle decades of the 1800s, when slavery was the law of the South, a handful of blacks, almost too small in number to be noticed, came to northern country looking for freedom. Born slave or born free, most could tell a tale of escape.

  One southerner, named John Jones, came to get away from becoming part of an inheritance. He had been born free—one of the lucky ones—to a black mother and a white father in North Carolina. Jones was solidly built and, when he reached adulthood, sported a pair of curly sideburns that covered most of his cheeks. His mother, wanting the best for him, sent him off to learn a trade in Tennessee under the watchful eye of a white tailor there. While in Tennessee, Jones met the Richardsons, a free black family who warmly took him into their social world. But Mr. Richardson grew restless with the rules constricting black life in Memphis and moved the family, including daughter Mary, whom Jones had come to love, up to free country in Alton, Illinois.

  John Jones. Portrait by Aaron E. Darling, ca. 1865.

  Left behind and lonely, Jones suffered more bad news. The tailor he worked for became deathly ill, and word had it that his heirs were planning to claim Jones as bequeathed to them under the tailor’s will and sell him into slavery. Jones was not one to lie down paralyzed by the specter of danger. Before the law could declare him to be just another piece of property subject to disposal as the tailor’s heirs saw fit, Jones applied to the courts for protection and obtained a certificate of freedom. He stayed in the South and worked for a few years to save some money, then packed up, headed to Illinois, and proposed to Mary Richardson, the love of his life. In 1845, married and caring for a newborn daughter, John and Mary decided to move
farther north and make Chicago their home.

  Even in free Illinois, the road was not without danger. John and Mary were stopped along the way, seemingly for no reason other than the color of their skin. A sheriff demanded their freedom papers, looked them over, detained the couple still, clearly unsatisfied, searching for a reason to send them back south. Then the white stagecoach driver put in a good word on their behalf and the sheriff begrudgingly let them continue on their way. But the Joneses knew there were more sheriffs lurking in towns throughout Illinois and across the northern states. A white man in Chicago, L. C. Freer, who would later become the Joneses’ friend and ally, affirmed the truth the Joneses were experiencing: Some blacks might be free, “but they were looked upon as beings who had no right to exist outside of slavery, by a very large part of the community.”

  When the Joneses reached Chicago, they befriended a group of abolitionists, black and white, working together as “conductors,” assisting slaves to freedom on the hidden tracks of the Underground Railroad. John and Mary and the other abolitionists opened their homes and offices as “depots,” always prepared for a middle-of-the-night knock on the door, then shadowed brown figures emerging from under straw piled high on a horse-drawn wagon and slipping silently into the warm refuge offered to them. Mary remembered an abolitionist assuring stowaways, “‘Mrs. Jones will take good care of you to-day,’ and of course I said ‘Yes.’”