Kindle Notes & Highlights
One of Chicago’s founding fathers, William B. Ogden, argued strenuously for expatriation—sending the freed slaves far, far away to countries in Central and South America.
In 1871, John Jones became the first black Chicagoan elected to political office.
In 1913, though women had not yet achieved the right to vote in federal elections, Illinois extended local suffrage to women.
In 1900, the Tribune added its voice in a series of articles extolling the benefits of a segregated school system.
By the time the leaves turned color in the fall of 1919, America had experienced twenty-five riots, in large cities and small towns, from New York City to southern Arizona, an orgy of blood that would come to be called “Red Summer.” The problems were not peculiar to Chicago. This was America’s story. As one black minister commented, “It is not simply the shame of Chicago, but of the nation.”
Still, America’s present echoes its past. As of this writing, today’s disparity between rich and poor is as wide as the divide between Swift and his laborers one hundred years ago. Nearly one-quarter of America’s city dwellers live in poverty. One percent of all Americans take home nearly twenty percent of all earnings.
But the riots have a common cause, as named by the civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “A riot is the language of the unheard.” Dr. King was equally clear that future riots are not inevitable: “Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.”
The challenge remains deep and wide. Human attention spans are short. Carl Sandburg, who witnessed and wrote about Chicago’s 1919 riot, penned a poem about the cycle of convulsion and complacency: “Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember. Then—I forget.” As we, the people, move forward, the ghosts of the Chicago riot of 1919 and of the other riots across the nation in that Red Summer whisper in the streets, calling us all to remember.
