Streets Dotted With Killed and Injured as Race Rioting Renews -- July 30, 2019

Arizona Republican, 29-July-1919

The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 lasted from July 27 to August 3. Far too many people died.

STREETS DOTTED

WITH KILLED AND

INJURED AS RACE

RIOTING RENEWS

Seven Known Dead and

Scores Wounded, as the

Whites and Blacks Clash

-- Police Unable to. Quell

Outbreaks

[Republican A. P. Leased Wire]
CHICAGO, July 28 -- Seven persons were killed and more than two score wounded, many of them, seriously in a renewal of race riots in the Chicago "black belt" tonight.

For more than five hours the five-mile area on the South Side was a battle ground of scattered fights between whites and blacks and between policemen and negroes, who fired from housetops, from dark alleys and other points of vantage.

The call for troops to quell the outbreaks resulted in four regiments of national guardsmen being mobilized, but at a late hour tonight they had not been dispatched to the disturbed district and Chief of Police Garrity expressed the belief that the worst of the disorder had passed.

Five of Dead Are Negroes

Five of the dead are negroes and two are whites.

There was no concentrated battle by the blacks, the outbreaks dotting a large area.

Every police station on the South Side was flooded with reports of deaths and injuries.

Chief of Police Garrity at a late hour said that it was impossible to make an exact estimate of the casualties because of the contradictory reports.

The riots, which started yesterday on the South Side beaches, were renewed when negro laborers began leaving the big industrial plants and by dusk more than a score of separate outbreaks had occurred.

Whites began dragging negroes from street cars, the negroes retaliating with stones and knives. Street cars in the heart of the "black belt" were tied up and the windows smashed.

Blacks Form "Flying Squadron"

A flying squadron of blacks mounted a touring car and riding at full speed through the section known as "No Man's Land," sent a volley of shots at a group of whites. One white woman was injured, but not fatally. The negroes were overtaken after a long chase and placed under arrest.

Shortly afterward a mob of several hundred blacks formed at Thirty-fifth street and began stoning a policeman. In a twinkling gun fire was opened and four the negroes fell, all mortally wounded.

A white man In the same neighborhood was dragged from a truck and stabbed to death.

A negro chauffeur was killed by whites a few minutes later in the same block.

Scores of arrests were made, but where the rioters were found to to be unarmed they were released.

Negroes began looting stores of whites in one district shortly after the firing of revolvers by a squad of policemen in an effort to break up a fight over a small purchase of groceries. The police soon emptied their guns. The looting continued until a special squad of police armed with rifles arrived. They fired low, felling a dozen blacks.

Assaults White Woman

A white woman was pulled from a street car by a negro. He was soon lying unconscious against the curb. The angry whites had left him for dead.

Groups of blacks formed in football fashion and charged against whites with razors and clubs. On one corner the scene was like a minature battle ground.

Unconscious negroes and whites dotted the street. As they regained consciousness they were arrested or permitted to leave the neighborhood.

Women Fight With Brooms

While the main battles were in progres, women, blacks and whites, battled away in front yards with brooms and missiles. In one of these fights, a white woman was knocked unconscious and taken to a hospital.

In one battle on Thirty-Fourth street, negroes knocked two policemen unconscious and were drawing guns when a group of discharged negro soldiers came to the rescue of the whites.

In another battle soon after, three policemen were shot. One may die.

In an effort to prevent quick transportation of rifle-bearing policemen from one section to another. the negroes began cutting telephone and telegraph wires.

Attack Car Men

The blacks began firing on street car conductors and motormen when they refused to allow negro passengers to board their cars because of threats made by white passengers. One conductor was reported shot in the leg.

Ambulances and patrol wagons threaded their way through the black belt throughout the early hours of the night.

A number of wounded negroes crept into alleys and other dark places. When tbey were found they were hurried to the Provident hospital for colored, which for several hours, received a virtual procession of injured men and terror-stricken women.

The more seriously wounded negroes participated in a battle with whites near Thirty-fifth and State streets. Several thousand of the blacks congregated at this point within a period of 10 minutes. It was an orderly gathering for a time. Suddenly four maddened negroes raced up the street and surrounded the home of a white man. In a twinkling shots began to fly in all directions. More than a score of negroes fell. Some were carried off by companions.

Snipers Fire Indiscriminately

For more than two blocks along one street, negro snipers fired from house tops and windows. Not a single death, resulted from this method of warfare, however.

After threats had been made by whites to "clean up" the stock yards district, a small army of negroes formed ready to meet the challenge. An automobile of negroes started over the district to estimate the number of whites present. They were stoned. Then they drew revolvers and racing at top speed, fired at whites along the road. A white man was shot in the shoulder and a bullet grazed the head of a white woman.

Police Curb Outbreak

The negroes were overtaken and rescued from the mob by policemen. In the meantime squads of mounted police arrived in the district in anticipation of trouble, and what was expected to be the most serious outbreak of the night was curbed.

Police wires were busy all nipht with pleadings from frightened women for protection. Many of them feared to leave the scene of action and they were terrified by the dramatic battles and feared their homes would be wrecked before morning.

Street lights along some streets were smashed and the streets darkened. Then the bright flashes from pistols would signify a new atttack and in almost no time the immediate vicinity would be a surging mass of whites and blacks. When they came together in large crowds, fists, knives and clubs were used.

One of the morning newspapers will place the estimated dead at 14, nine whites and five blacks, and another will place the number of dead at 13, 11 blacks and two whites. The city news bureau places the dead at seven.

After a motorman had been dragged from his car and killed by a group of maddened blacks shortly before midnight and a dozen street cars wrecked, the street car company ordered that no more cars be taken into the troubled area. The elevated trains also quit running in dangerous territory.

Troops continued to move to a centralized point on the South Side throughout the night, but up to midnight they had not been ordered to begin patrolling the streets. This was explained by the statement that the outbreaks had slackened to such extent that the police could afford as much protection as the troops.

Hundreds of stenographers, clerks and loop employers who must pass through the black belt to reach their homes remained in the business district hotels and at North Side lodging places.

Poolrooms, moving picture houses and other gathering places in the black belt were ordered closed.

While the blacK belt was seething with strife, negro educators and churchmen sent out appeal after appeal that the negroes go to their homes and keep peace.

They charged that in most outbreaks, the negroes had been heckled by whites.

The disorders did not extend north to the business district, except for minor outbreaks.