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“Our Changed Attitude”: Armed Defense and the New Negro in the 1919 Chicago Race Riot1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2012

Jonathan S. Coit
Jonathan S. Coit*
Affiliation:
Eastern Illinois University
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

The 1919 Chicago race riot sparked a contentious debate among African Americans over the future of antiracist politics. Previous scholars have argued that the actions of “New Negroes” who took up arms in the riot represent a rejection of the politics of respectability dominant among black elites in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. This article argues that African American actions in the riot are more complex than previously understood. African Americans participated in the riot in a myriad of ways, and events were fluid and unpredictable. Violent acts spanned a continuum from spontaneous responses to more organized interventions. Moreover, African Americans not only committed aggressive violence, but also fought among themselves about the boundaries of legitimate violence. Based on their divergent interpretations of the events of the riot, black leaders found ample support for different and even contradictory political programs. Black radicals argued that armed defense exposed the irrelevance of established black leaders. Chicago's black elite, however, used riot narratives to create a new vision of respectable politics, in which the willingness to use force both defined and demonstrated manhood and equal citizenship.

Type
Essays
Information
The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , April 2012 , pp. 225 - 256
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2012

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Footnotes

1

Thanks are due, and gladly given, to Paul Young, Gregory Mixon, Charles Lumpkins, David Krugler, Delia Melis, and the anonymous readers for the Journal for their perceptive readings and helpful critiques of this article and to John Rasel, Amanda Paszek, and Ian Nelk for their work as graduate assistants. I am deeply grateful to Sace Elder, Kathryn Oberdeck, James Barrett, Vernon Burton, Mark Hubbard, Martin Hardeman, Debra Reid, Matthew Nicely, Joshua Birk, and Minkah Makalani for the feedback, encouragement, and motivation necessary to see this into print.

References

2 File 97, Inquest 97514, Cook County Corner's Reports, Illinois Regional Archives Depository, Ronald Williams Library, Northeastern Illinois University (hereafter “Coroner's Reports”); Chicago Commission on Race Relations (CCRR), The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot (Chicago, 1922), 659–60Google Scholar.

3 Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks, Righteous Discontent: The Women's Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880–1920 (Cambridge, MA, 1993)Google Scholar; Gaines, Kevin K., Uplifting the Race: Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture in the Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill, NC, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bederman, Gail, Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Race and Gender in the United States, 1880–1917 (Chicago, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ross, Marlon B., Manning the Race: Reforming Black Men in the Jim Crow Era (New York, 2004)Google Scholar.

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5 Tuttle, William M. Jr., Race Riot: Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919 (New York, 1970), 210–11Google Scholar.

6 Many studies note the significance of self-defense in 1919 antiblack riots. For example, Lewis, David Levering, When Harlem Was in Vogue (New York, 1981), 3–24Google Scholar; Grossman, James, Land of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration (Chicago, 1992),178–80, 259–60Google Scholar; Hutchinson, George, The Harlem Renaissance in Black and White (Cambridge, MA, 1995), 10Google Scholar; Foley, Barbara, Spectres of 1919: Class and Nation in the Making of the New Negro (Urbana, IL, 2003) 7–17Google Scholar; Baldwin, Davarian, Chicago's New Negroes: Modernity, the Great Migration, and Black Urban Life (Chapel Hill, NC, 2007), 13–16Google Scholar.

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15 Chicago Herald-Examiner, July 28, 1919.

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17 Tuttle, Race Riot, 222, 226, 231, 233–39.

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19 Chicago Herald-Examiner, July 29, 1919; Chicago Daily News, July 29, 1919.

20 Chicago Daily News, July 30, 1919.

21 Chicago Daily News, July 29, 1919.

22 Ibid.

23 The series began with Sandburg, Carl, “The Negro Migration,” Chicago Daily News, July 14, 1919Google Scholar. The pieces were later collected in Sandburg, Carl, The Chicago Race Riots, July 1919 (New York, 1919)Google Scholar.

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26 Chicago Herald-Examiner, July 29, 1919.

27 Chicago Daily News, July 30, 1919.

28 Chicago Defender, Aug. 9, 1919; Chicago Tribune, July 31, 1919.

29 Chicago Herald-Examiner, July 28 and 30, 1919; Chicago Daily News, July 28, 1919.

30 Chicago Herald-Examiner, July 29, 1919.

31 Chicago Evening Post, Aug. 1, 1919.

32 Chicago Daily News, July 30, 1919.

33 Ibid.

34 Chicago Herald-Examiner, July 31, 1919; Tuttle, Race Riot, 48.

35 Chicago Daily News, July 30, 1919.

36 Chicago Herald-Examiner, July 29–30, 1919; Chicago Evening Post, July 30, 1919.

37 Chicago Evening Post (Sports Extra), July 30, 1919.

38 Chicago Herald-Examiner, July 30, 1919.

39 Chicago Evening Post (Sports Extra), July 29, 1919.

40 Chicago Daily News, July 29–30, 1919.

41 Chicago Herald-Examiner, July 30, 1919.

42 Chicago Daily News, July 29, 1919.

43 Tuttle, Race Riot, 34–35. Tuttle cites the research of sociologist Allen Grimshaw, who notes that American urban police have historically failed to consider preventive steps in advance of a riot and have generally devised responses only after one has started.

44 Chicago Daily News, July 28, 1919.

45 Chicago Evening Post (Sports Extra), July 30, 1919.

46 Chicago Daily Tribune, July 30, 1919.

47 CCRR, Negro in Chicago, 33–43, 328–33; Waskow, Race Riot to Sit-In, 85.

48 CCRR, Negro in Chicago, 655–67. Nine of the thirty-eight riot deaths were killings by police or militia. Six killings involved defensive violence.

49 Records of the Municipal Court of Chicago, 1904–1963 (misdemeanors), Indictment Records 1913–1923, and Docket Books, Clerks' Record Books, and half sheets, 1871–1983 (felonies), Archives Department, Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County. (Hereafter referred to, respectively, as “Municipal Court Records,” “Indictment Records,” and “Docket Books.”) Misdemeanor case records in the Municipal Court archive are incomplete. Thus my sample cannot replicate the entire sample of 229 criminal defendants mentioned in CCRR, Negro in Chicago, 35. The 1919 Illinois statute on carrying a concealed weapon provided for felony penalties if the violation was committed by a convicted felon. The indictment records indicate twelve felony prosecutions on these grounds, resulting in one conviction. See Laws of the State of Illinois Enacted by the Fifty-Seventh General Assembly (Springfield, IL, 1919), 431–33Google Scholar.

50 CCRR, Negro in Chicago, 38–39.

51 Chicago Herald-Examiner, July 28, 1919; CCRR, Negro in Chicago, 5.

52 Chicago Daily News (Box Score Edition), July 28, 1919; Chicago Herald-Examiner, July 29, 1919; File 294, Inquest 97413, and File 298, Inquest 97417, Coroner's Reports; People vs. Walter Colvin, et al., docket number 17615, Indictment Records and Docket Books.

53 Chicago Herald-Examiner, July 29, 1919; Lt. Donald C. Van Buren to Director of Military Intelligence, July 28, 1919, July 29, 1919, Glasser File, War Department, General Staff, reel 21, Record Group 165, National Archives. Grossman, James R., Black Workers in the Era of the Great Migration (Frederick, MD, 1985)Google Scholar.

54 On Provident Hospital, see Spear, Black Chicago, 97–100.

55 Chicago Evening Post July 30, 1919; CCRR, Negro in Chicago, 6.

56 Chicago Evening Post, July 30, 1919.

57 Chicago Herald-Examiner, July 29, 1919; File 298, Inquest 97417, Coroner's Reports; CCRR, Negro in Chicago, 658, 663–64.

58 Pacyga, “Race Riot,” 195.

59 File 295, Inquest 97414, Coroner's Reports; CCRR, Negro in Chicago, 658.

60 File 293, Inquest 97412, Coroner's Reports.

61 Chicago Daily News, July 29, 1919; Chicago Evening Post, July 29, 1919; Chicago Evening Post (Sports Extra), July 29, 1919.

62 Ibid.; also CCRR, Negro in Chicago, 666.

63 File 98, Inquest 97515, Coroner's Reports; CCRR, Negro in Chicago, 660.

64 Chicago Daily News, July 29, 1919; People vs. Emma Jackson, et al., docket number 17578, Indictment Records and Docket Books; CCRR, Negro in Chicago, 655.

65 People v. Neary Byron, et al., docket number 17565, Indictment Records and Docket Books; Chicago Defender, Aug. 9, 1919.

66 Chicago Evening Post, July 30, 1919; Chicago Daily News, July 30, 1919.

67 CCRR, Negro in Chicago, 39.

68 Chicago Evening Post, Aug. 2, 1919; People v. Elmer Sanford, et al., docket numbers 17561, 17562, 17594, Indictment Records and Docket Books; Evening Post July 29, 1919; People v. Clara Dumas, et al., docket numbers 17550, 17551, 17552, Indictment Records and Docket Books. The police identified as targets in the Sanford case were Hugh McCarthy and John Nagel, with Paul Duffy as an additional witness. McCarthy and Duffy were also listed as targets in the Dumas case, along with Edward Trey, with Nagel this time as an additional witness. The Evening Post, Aug. 2, 1919, lists Nagel, McCarthy, and a “Troy” as “Detectives.” “Officer Nagel” or “Sgt. Nagel” appears in multiple indictments for felony concealed weapons charges. See docket numbers 17571, 17580, 17581, and 17582, Indictment Records. “Lieut. Duffy” appears as well in docket number 17580, Indictment Records.

69 Chicago Daily News, July 30, 1919; Chicago Evening Post, July 30, 1919; CCRR, Negro in Chicago, 18–19; Tuttle, Race Riot, 40.

70 File 57, inquest 97474, Coroner's Reports; CCRR, Negro in Chicago, 5, 660.

71 File 104, inquest 97521, Coroner's Reports; CCRR, Negro in Chicago, 657.

72 Chicago Daily News, July 29–30, 1919; Chicago Daily News (Box Score Edition), July 29, 1919.

73 Chicago Herald-Examiner, July 30, 1919.

74 File 95, inquest 97512, Coroner's Reports; CCRR, Negro in Chicago, 662.

75 Chicago Evening Post, July 31, 1919.

76 File 57, inquest 97474, Coroner's Reports; CCRR, Negro in Chicago, 5, 660; Tuttle, Race Riot, 8.

77 Chicago Evening Post (Sports Extra), July 29, 1919; Chicago Daily News, July 30, 1919; People v. Castillian Harris, et al., docket number 17640, 17641, 17642, Indictment Records and Docket Books.

78 Chicago Daily News, July 30, 1919; Chicago Daily News (Box Score Edition) July 30, 1919; Gosnell, Harold F., Negro Politicians: the Rise of Negro Politics in Chicago (Chicago, 1935), 176Google Scholar.

79 On Hubert Harrison's demands for armed defense, Perry, Jeffrey B., Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883–1918 (New York, 2009), 283–92Google Scholar.

80 Randolph, A. Philip and Owen, Chandler, “The Cause and Remedy of Race Riots,” The Messenger, Sept. 1919, 14–21Google Scholar.

81 “Du Bois Fails as a Theorist,” The Messenger, Dec. 1919, 7Google Scholar.

82 Randolph and Owen, “Cause and Remedy,” 18–19.

83 Davis, J. Arthur, “Chicago Rebellion Free Black Men Fight Free White Men,” The Messenger, Sept. 1919, 32Google Scholar.

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85 Ibid., 21.

86 “A Report on the Chicago Riot by an Eye-Witness,” The Messenger, Sept. 1919, 11Google Scholar.

87 “If We Must Die,” The Messenger, Sept. 1919, 4Google Scholar.

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89 Miller, George Frazier, “The Social Value of the Uncultured,” The Messenger, Oct. 1919, 19, 24, 31Google Scholar.

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91 Chicago Defender, Aug. 9, 1919.

92 Quoted in Chicago Daily News, July 30, 1919.

93 Chicago Defender, Aug. 2, 1919.

94 Chicago Defender, Aug. 9, 1919.

95 Chicago Defender, Aug. 2, 1919.

96 Ibid.

97 Chicago Defender, Aug. 2 and 9, 1919.