Chicago's 1919 race riots barely register in the city's current consciousness, yet they proved a significant turning point in shaping the racial divides we see today. In 2019, the Newberry Library and thirteen partners organized Chicago 1919: Confronting the Race Riots, a yearlong initiative engaging in public conversations about the legacy of the most violent week in Chicago history.
Chicago 1919 was guided by the belief that the 1919 race riots can serve as a lens for understanding Chicago today. Racial tensions related to policing, migration, and housing all came to a head in 1919. By reflecting on the past 100 years, Chicagoans may see how our current racial divisions evolved from the race riots, as the marginalization of African Americans in Chicago became institutionalized through increasingly sophisticated forms of discrimination.
Throughout the year, people across Chicago came together to share in our collective reckoning with a little-known yet tremendously consequential chapter in the city's history. At the heart of Chicago 1919 were eleven dynamic public programs designed to engage audiences and encourage them to examine the mechanisms through which segregation and inequality have been created, solidified, and reinforced over the past 100 years.
Each program focused on a specific expression of institutionalized racism, from policing and education to housing and the media. Chicago 1919 events addressed difficult history and brought Chicagoans together in recognition and reconciliation, to imagine possible ways forward.
Introductory video about the project.
Links to Public Events
View video recordings of several programs.
Chicago 1919: Confronting the Race Riots Opening Event
Reporting on Race and Riots, 1919 to Today
Migration and Housing: A Century of Color Lines
Segregation and Public Education: Separate and Not Equal in Twentieth-Century Chicago
'63 Boycott: Film Screening and Discussion
Chicago 1919 Bike Tour: Visualizing the 1919 Riots in Today’s Chicago
Legacies of 1919: The Bughouse Square Debates
Reflections of Youth: Spoken Word Performance and Conversation
The Language of Bronzeville: Literature and Race in Chicago
Policing Racial Violence: 1919 and Beyond
Red Summer / Winter Blues: Rough-Cut Screening and Discussion
Chicago 1919: Confronting the Race Riots has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor, and by generous support from Edith Rasmussen Ahern and Patrick Ahern. Our Youth Engagement Sponsor is Allstate.
Collaborative partners in Chicago 1919 include the Black Chicago History Forum, Black Metropolis Research Consortium, Blackstone Bicycle Works, Chicago Architectural Club, Chicago Collection Consortium, Chicago History Museum, Chicago Public Library, Chicago Urban League, City Bureau, Kartemquim Films, Middle Passage Production, and Young Chicago Authors.
Chicago 1919: Confronting the Race Riots received the 2020 Outstanding Public History Project Award from the National Council on Public History.
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Past Public Programs
Check out video recordings of past Newberry public programs on our YouTube channel.