Chicago 1919: Confronting the Race Riots

Name: Chicago 1919: Confronting the Race Riots
Start: 2019-02-23T00:00:00-06:00
End: 2019-02-23T01:00:00-06:00
Location: Chicago 1919: Confronting the Race Riots

Feb 23, 2019

All event information can be found at https://chicago1919.org/events 

Chicago's 1919 race riots barely register in the city’s current consciousness, yet they were a significant turning point in shaping the racial divides we see today. The Newberry Library and 13 other Chicago institutions have organized Chicago 1919: Confronting the Race Riots, a year-long initiative funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, engaging in public conversations about the legacy of the most violent week in Chicago history.

Chicago 1919 is 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.

People across Chicago are invited to share in our collective reckoning with a little-known yet tremendously consequential chapter in the city’s history.

Read the Newberry's announcement about the project, and visit Chicago1919.org to learn about the series of events, explore digital resources, and more.

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. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in these programs do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Our Youth Engagement Sponsor is Allstate. The project is made possible in part by the generous support of Edith Rasmussen Ahern and Patrick Ahern.

Chicago 1919: Confronting the Race Riots

Schedule of Events

Find registration links on the individual event pages.

Chicago 1919: Confronting the Race Riots, Opening Event

Reporting on Race: From The Chicago Defender and Carl Sandburg to Chicago Journalism Today

Migration and Housing: A Century of Color Lines

Segregation and Public Education: Separate and Not Equal in 20th-Century Chicago

’63 Boycott: Film Screening and Discussion

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

Chicago 1919 Project Partners

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