A few red drops : the Chicago Race Riot of 1919
Claire Hartfield (Author)
"A white man threw a stone that hit and killed a teenage black boy, and a day at the beach--July 27, 1919--exploded into an urban nightmare. The ensuing race riot that took over Chicago's South Side streets killed and wounded many and left their neighborhoods in ruins. The tensions that fueled the riot had been building in the city for decades. Looking for a better life in Chicago, waves of white immigrants from Europe and black migrants from the South converged to form an underclass divided by racial prejudice. As workers in the busy stockyards, they were pitted against one another by the tycoons who controlled the labor market. Politicians and the police force made no attempt to defuse the tension. Most other white Chicagoans wanted nothing to do with their black neighbors. The violence in Chicago's streets simmered down but has erupted time and again, and continues to appear in national headlines to this day, a century later. Claire Hartfield's eye-opening, authoritative account of the 1919 race riot, the conditions that created it, and its legacy sheds light on an important and painful moment in the ongoing struggle for racial justice"--Jacket
Print Book, English, 2018
Clarion Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, 2018
Coretta Scott King Award
Ages 12 and up.
198 pages : illustrations, maps ; 27 cm
9780544785137, 9780605971912, 9781328699046, 0544785134, 0605971919, 1328699048
953709906
Catalyst. The beach ; A time to reap
First whispers. Freedom fight ; Self-reliance ; White Negroes ; Waste matters ; Parallel universes ; A stone's throw
Up from the South. A higher call ; The northern fever ; A real place for Negroes ; A job, any job ; Full to bursting ; Respectability and respect
Reaping the whirlwind. Tensions rising ; Last straws ; Race riot ; Ratcheting up ; Point-counterpoint ; Moment of truth