The Chicago Race Riots: July, 1919

This classic volume of reportage by the Pulitzer Prize–winning poet and journalist examines the racial tensions that erupted in the Red Summer of 1919.

In July of 1919, a black child swam past the invisible line of segregation at one of Chicago's public beaches. White men on the shore threw rocks at the boy until he was knocked unconscious and drowned. After police shrugged off demands for those white men to be arrested, riots broke out that would last for days, claim thirty-four lives, and...