Opening event test - embedded resources
Saturday, February 23, 2019, 2:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
DuSable Museum of African American History
740 E. 56th Place, Chicago, IL 60637 (Map)Program Description
The Chicago 1919 Race Riots were the most violent week in Chicago history, sparked by the death of Eugene Williams, an African American teenager stoned and drowned by a white man for floating his raft over an invisible line into a whites-only South Side beach. The police refused to arrest the white perpetrator, and the city erupted in arson, looting, and thirty-eight deaths (23 black, 15 white), until the National Guard was called to restore order.The riots inflicted lasting scars on the city, still visible in the lines of segregation throughout the city's built environment, its schools, and its selective policing.
Join the Opening Event of our year-long series of conversations on the history and legacy of the 1919 race riots. What happened one hundred years ago on a Chicago beach during a sweltering summer day? How and why did violence erupt across the city? What were the effects of the riots in the ensuing decades? And what can we learn from the past that might help us imagine a better future?
Following a dramatic, multi-media presentation about the riots—with Jabari Chiphe playing the role of Eugene Williams and Robin Williams narrating—audience members will have the opportunity to join in breakout conversations about the following topics. Each session will occur twice:
- Housing and Color Lines, facilitated by Lee Bey, Architectural Critic, Photographer, and Writer.
- Policing and Violence, facilitated by Robin Robinson, Special Advisor for Community Affairs at the Chicago Police Department and former Chicago news anchor, and Michael Chuchro, Policing Historian.
- Media and Race, facilitated by Christopher Benson, Lawyer, Screenwriter, and Associate Professor at the Medill School of Journalism.
- World War I and Chicago’s Black Soldiers, facilitated by Christopher Reed, Emeritus Professor of History at Roosevelt University.
- An Artifact and Archival Show-and-Tell of the DuSable exhibit, Two Colored Women in the US Expeditionary Forces: The Story of Kathryn Johnson, led by Armand Gonzalzles, Author, Doctor, and Teacher.
- Young Adult book reading and discussion, A Few Red Drops, with Education Policy Specialist and Coretta Scott King Award Winning Author Claire Hartfield.
- Video Booth: Record your own Great Migration or Family Migration Story.
Key Program Organizers
Karen Christianson, Director of Public Engagement, The Newberry LibraryCalmetta Coleman, Senior Vice President of External Affairs, The Chicago Urban League
Elizabeth Cummings, Public Programs Manager, The Newberry Library
Erica Griffin, Director of Education, The Dusable Museum of African American History
D. Bradford Hunt, Vice President for Research and Academic Programs, The Newberry Library
Liesl Olson, Director of Chicago Studies, The Newberry Library
Robin Robinson, Director of Public Affairs, Chicago Police Department
