{"id":19714,"date":"2020-01-28T14:59:05","date_gmt":"2020-01-28T22:59:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/?post_type=blog&p=19714"},"modified":"2023-10-02T11:37:46","modified_gmt":"2023-10-02T18:37:46","slug":"from-race-riots-to-rainbow-coalitions-and-heatwaves-chicago-activism-on-racial-and-economic-justice","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/from-race-riots-to-rainbow-coalitions-and-heatwaves-chicago-activism-on-racial-and-economic-justice\/","title":{"rendered":"From Race Riots to Rainbow Coalitions and Heatwaves: Chicago Activism on Racial and Economic Justice"},"content":{"rendered":"

It would be foolhardy to try to succinctly sum up the political history of one of America’s most historically politically complicated cities–Chicago–in one sweeping post. Rather, consider this a basic primer of touchstones that connect some key dots, with recommendations for ways to learn more, as you think about the histories presented in two essentially Chicago documentaries, and by extension, two quintessentially American stories: <\/span>The First Rainbow Coalition<\/span><\/i><\/a>, and <\/span>Cooked: Survival by Zip Code<\/span><\/i><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From the protests and upheaval of the 1960s to the tragedy of the ’90s heat disaster, Chicago has often been a hotbed of unrest and reassessment, oftentimes paralleling the story of America, but in its own big way. It is, after all, what Carl Sandburg once called the “City of the Big Shoulders” and “Freight Handler to the Nation.” And as the “Hog Butcher to the World” (also Sandburg), Chicago was the subject of Upton Sinclair’s seminal, harrowing 1906 work <\/span>The Jungle<\/i><\/b>, about the harsh conditions and exploited lives of immigrants working in the meatpacking industry. Sinclair was an activist-writer in his way, though while he stimulated change through his words:<\/span><\/p>\n

When <\/span>The Jungle<\/span><\/i> was published, its readers were outraged\u2014but not in the way Sinclair had hoped. Their primary concern was food quality rather than the dangerous labor practices and cruel treatment of animals that Sinclair sought to expose. \u201cI aimed at the public\u2019s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach,\u201d he said. Using the public\u2019s reaction to the novel,\u00a0<\/span>Theodore Roosevelt<\/span> pushed Congress to pass both the Pure Food and Drug Act<\/strong>, which ensured that meatpacking plants processed their products in a sanitary manner, and the <\/span>Meat Inspection Ac<\/strong>t<\/span>, which required that the <\/span>U.S. Department of Agriculture<\/span> inspect all livestock before slaughter.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Workers in the union stockyards, Chicago, date unknown.<\/p><\/div>\n

While sometimes larger than life, these Chicago histories reflect on all of us, they are American stories.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The history of Chicago mayors alone would make the most colorful collection of anecdotes: They have generally (but not always) been members of the Democratic Party, but on all points across the political spectrum, some beloved, some considered corrupt, some both — many powerful and often at odds with the rising activists representing\u00a0the underrepresented, the people at the margins. Mayors figure prominently in both First Rainbow Coalition<\/em> and Cooked,<\/em> but here I’ll touch more on just some of the other seminal people and events in 20th century Chicago activism, with links and clips to help you learn more.<\/span><\/p>\n

Early 20th Century Activism<\/b><\/p>\n

As detailed in the book City Indian: Native American Activism in Chicago, 1893-1934<\/em>, Native Americans were active on the political front in the city, raising their point of view on numerous issues. <\/span>When Republican Mayor “Big Bill” Thompson<\/strong>, a famously larger than life figure who ran the city from the 1910s to the early ’30s, declared that Chicago public schools teach “America First,” American Indian leaders publicly challenged him to include the true story of “First Americans.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Race Riot<\/b><\/p>\n

Thompson was presiding over Chicago during a terrible race riot in 1919, considered the worst spasm of racial violence in the city\u2019s history. White mobs attacking African Americans were epidemic in American cities small and large at that same time, in what was dubbed “Red Summer” in America, stemming in part from rising tensions after WWI, an economic slump and competition for jobs, fear of socialism’s influence on civil rights, and racial bigotry. <\/span><\/p>\n

From an <\/span>AP\/WTTW<\/span> piece on the anniversary of the Chicago riot:<\/span><\/p>\n

Researchers believe that in a span of 10 months, more than 250 African Americans were killed in at least 25 riots across the U.S. by white mobs that never faced punishment. Historian John Hope Franklin called it \u201cthe greatest period of interracial strife the nation has ever witnessed.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The bloodshed was the product of a collision of social forces: Black men were returning from World War I expecting the same rights they had fought and bled for in Europe, and African Americans were moving north to escape the brutal Jim Crow laws of the South. Whites saw blacks as competition for jobs, homes and political power.<\/span><\/p>\n

This awful event had repercussions in Chicago that lasted decades. <\/span>Read more in this absolutely vivid, eye-opening oral history in <\/span>Chicago Magazine<\/span><\/i> by Robert Loerzel<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For nearly a week in the summer of 1919, Chicago descended into \u201ca certain madness,\u201d in the words of the city\u2019s leading black newspaper, the <\/span>Chicago Defender<\/span><\/i>. White mobs assaulted virtually any black person they could find on the streets, and blacks engaged in deadly acts of retaliation and self-defense. By the time the violence subsided, 38 men\u2009\u2014\u200923 of them black and 15 white\u2009\u2014\u2009had been killed and more than 500 people were injured. \u201cChicago is disgraced and dishonored,\u201d the <\/span>Chicago Daily Tribune<\/span><\/i> declared. \u201cIts head is bloodied and bowed, bloodied by crime and bowed in shame. Its reputation is besmirched. It will take a long time to remove the stain.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Jolting Chicago during the early years of the Great Migration, the riot cast a shadow over race relations in the city for decades. A hundred years later, it remains the worst outbreak of racially motivated violence in Chicago\u2019s history\u2009\u2014\u2009and one of the deadliest nationally.<\/span><\/p>\n

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An African American man assaulted with stones during the Chicago Race Riot<\/p><\/div>\n

The aftermath of the attacks and riots, and subsequent outcry led the Illinois governor to create a bi-racial “Chicago Commission on Race Relations<\/strong>” to find solutions to racial tension. This was seen at the time as a step forward that led to many well-intentioned fixes, but that ultimately did not really mend deep-rooted tension.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI am proud of this city, but not always proud,\u201d commission member George Cleveland Hall, a 55-year-old black surgeon at Provident Hospital, said at one meeting. \u201cI am not proud when I remember that the homes of 27 Negroes have been bombed and no steps have been taken to apprehend the criminals. I am not proud when I remember that not a single civic organization has taken a definite stand in protest against these outrages. The Negro is silent, but he is thinking. He cannot be expected to remain patient forever under these continued attacks.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The commission released its findings in 1922. The 672-page report, titled The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot, detailed how blacks faced discrimination in nearly every aspect of their lives. It urged reforms at all levels of Chicago society, from City Hall, police stations, and courthouses to real estate offices, churches, and newsrooms\u2009\u2014\u2009reforms intended to ensure that people were treated the same, regardless of skin color. The report condemned segregation as illegal and \u201cimpracticable,\u201d warning that it would only \u201caccentuate\u201d racial tensions.<\/span><\/p>\n

It all sounded well and good, but as <\/span>Ida B. Wells <\/b>later wrote in the autobiography she was working on at the time of her death in 1931, \u201cmany recommendations were made, but few, if any, have been carried out. Chicago has thus been left with a heritage of race prejudice which seems to increase rather than decrease.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ida B. Wells name is now famous enough to have schools named after her (and also the name of a Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) public housing project), and yet still seems an overlooked figure in early civil rights history, who risked her life many times to tell and print the truth. In 1919, she was a pioneering young Chicago journalist\u00a0<\/span>who was one of the few reporters to interview victims, and played an important role in getting that story out, as well as bravely telling the true and brutal stories of lynching in the South.<\/span><\/p>\n