The working class struggle in the Red Summer of 1919
The
history of the working class in the United States is one of much
diversity, triumph and defeat. When looking at the labor force in a
historical context, individual races are often grouped together and
analyzed separately from one another, providing a narrow view of the
actual interactions between races. The hostile environments created
amongst races when working together sometimes led to large-scale
conflicts. One notable time period of unrest was the summer of 1919,
deemed the “red summer”, in which there was a race war between
white and black laborers after World War I. This article will
discuss the causes of this struggle, including the Great Migration,
the main events that occurred in Chicago and the skewed media
coverage of this event.
The
beginning of World War I in 1914 brought about many changes in the
United States, especially in the labor force. Thousands of Americans
were shipping off to aid in the war effort, creating a massive labor
shortage. To compensate for this loss, whites and African Americans
were coming from the south to fill the positions left void. This
migration was due to the availability of jobs and greater opportunity
up north for blacks, as well a way to escape the extremely racist and
dangerous south. Increased lynchings and excessive violence created
an exceptionally hostile environment for African Americans in the
southern states.
This time period of relocation,
from 1910 to 1970, is deemed the Great Migration. In what is
considered to be “one
of the most significant
demographic events in U.S. history”, over 2.5 million southern
blacks had migrated to the northern United States in search of a
better life.1
The blacks however, were not the only ones who benefited from this
move up north. The cheap, unskilled labor that African Americans
provided was a great relief to the northern industrial workplaces
that were in need. Although these industries were known to avoid
black labor in the past, they had no other choice but to hire them
out of pure desperation.2
Taking on new jobs and helping out in a time a need boosted the
confidence amongst African Americans. This migration, with its
seemingly ample opportunities, had provided the hope that black and
whites were becoming equal in the workplace. Having been harshly
treated by both the government and the people in the south, this
slight shift in power seemed to provide a way in which they could
prove themselves and their worth in this country.2
However, instead of
being rewarded and praised, black laborers only found strife.
The end of World War I in
November 1918 meant the return of many Americans to the United States
and a time of transition. Many whites had come home to see their
jobs had been taken by blacks that now seemed to be searching “for
a larger share of both the nation’s democracy and its wealth.”3
Determined to hold on to their power as the dominant race, the whites
saw this as a threat and took drastic measures to ensure that African
Americans would continue to stay below them. This unrest lead to the
extraordinarily violent summer and early fall of 1919. Named the
‘red summer’ because of the excessive bloodshed, this extremely
violent national race war is a notable time period in the history of
the United States working class.
According to William Tuttle,
“Lynch mobs murdered seventy-eight black people in 1919, an
increase of fifteen over 1918 and thirty over 1917. Ten of the
victims were war veterans, several of them still in uniform.” This
increase in violence all around the United Sates became commonplace
during the summer of 1919. The first of these acts of violence
occurred in Charleston, South Carolina, which led to a few men dead
and injured, all of whom were black. The country continued to stir
with these racist attacks as desperation for the white man to gain
back control grew. The worst of the attacks was seen in Chicago, a
city known for its gangs as well as it’s largely Irish population.
The Irish immigrants in the
United States have long been known to compete with African Americans
in the labor force. Both provided cheap labor across America,
however the Irish had mainly taken over the industrial cities. After
the Great Migration however, more and more blacks were taking over
the jobs the Irish once held and were even being implemented as
strike breakers when the white laborers refused to work. While using
blacks as strikebreakers was not a new idea, William Tuttle explains
the historical hostility between the races in the following
quotation:
Although
friction and sometimes bloodshed had marked the job competition
between Chicago’s whites and blacks for decades, a new seed of
racial discord in the city’s labor market was planted at the
stockyards in 1894. In that year, masses of packing and
slaughterhouse workers conducted a sympathetic strike with Eugene V.
Debs’ American Railway Union, and, in the midst of it, black
strikebreakers were hired for the first time in the history of the
meat packing industry. Although the packers initially disclaimed any
intention of adopting this practice, less than a week later black
strikebreakers were working, eating and sleeping in the stockyards.
Their presence fired racial animosities.3
This “new seed of racial
discord” had been given the opportunity to grow and thrive in the
post World War I era. With so many different battles between whites
and blacks, in the labor force alone, it was inevitable that these
massive riots would occur, and they did. Between July 27 and August
3 of 1919, Chicago, Illinois saw one of the largest racial conflicts
to occur during the red summer.
The beginning of the riots in
Chicago occurred on July 27 at Chicago Beach, a segregated area.
Eugene Williams and his friends had planned for a day of fun, but had
instead experienced the opposite. A white man who was determined to
run them off of the beach was throwing stones at the boys in the
water. The result was the death of Eugene Williams and no arrest of
the man who had committed the crime. Officer Callahan was the man
who let the criminal walk free and arrested a black man instead.
While the black community had expected there to be no intervention by
the law, they were still displeased with the events that had taken
place. Mainly due to fear, there was very little protest from the
blacks. Meanwhile, the whites were becoming increasingly aggravated
with the intrusion of the black community and were planning attacks
against them.
In the days that followed, there
was a marked increase in violence in Chicago between blacks and
whites. White gang members would wait outside of the workplaces of
blacks with weapons and attack as soon as they were leaving their
jobs. They would also terrorize and target the homes and communities
where mainly blacks lived. The Black Belt of Chicago was one such
area that was targeted. Located in the South Side, this group of
neighborhoods housed essentially all African Americans laborers in
the area. This community became the single most violent section
during the red summer, especially the intersection of Wabash and 35th
street. Mobs of whites had surrounded the area and set out to attack
any black person that had crossed their path. The riot had gotten so
bad over the course of one night that 3500 militiamen were sent in to
stop the violence. By this time 17 people were dead, 172 blacks had
been injured and 71 injured whites were recorded. 3
It would be unfair to only state
that whites had initialized all the violence. There were indeed
African Americans who had fought back and terrorized whites as well,
but the majority of historical evidence shows the white community
caused the most trouble. However, this was not so evident in the
media at the time. The information being presented to the public was
completely skewed and made the white community look like the ones who
were being targeted. A striking example of this is seen in an
article entitled ‘Truth
About Riot! Latest Observations on the Chicago Riot’ in the
Cleveland Advocate.4
In the article the description of events in the Black Belt of
Chicago had been distorted and the role of the attackers had become
the African American laborers, the victims were the whites.
Presenting the public with wrong information fueled the anger of the
whites even more and prolonged this racial violence.
Figure 1. Excerpt from the Cleveland Advocate (1919) describing the Chicago race riots
Racial violence has always been a
prominent factor in the history of the United States and continues
even into today. Conflicts between blacks and whites in the
workplace had always been present, but came to a head in the period
following World War I. The race riot and red summer of 1919 brought
to light the conflicts and struggles of the laborers during this
time. Skewed media coverage, unsympathetic law forces and the
constant attacks from the white community were all aimed at running
African Americans out of the labor force, especially in the north.
With extreme resilience, the black community prevailed and continued
to work, providing us with one of the greatest triumphs in working
class history.
1
Tolnay,
Stewart E. . "The African American "Great Migration"
and Beyond." Annual
Review of Sociology
29, no. 1 (2003): 209-232.
Arnesen,
Eric. "'Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of
Black America' by Cameron McWhirter." Chicago
Tribune,
November 18, 2011.
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