This year marks 100 years since the 1919 race riots in Chicago. Sparked by the murder of African American teenager Eugene Williams, who drowned after being stoned by a white man near a whites-only South Side beach, these riots are an oft-overlooked part of the city's history. Media coverage at the time largely got the story wrong with few notable exceptions, especially Carl Sandburg's reporting for the Chicago Daily News. We will draw connections between how reporting on the 1919 riots relates to the coverage of segregation nearly half a century later and what, if anything, has changed today.
Schedule
- 6:00-6:20 Introduction and ice breaker
- 6:20-6:50 Q&A with Angela Ford, Darryl Holliday, and Ethan Michaeli
- 6:50-7:00 Audience questions
- 7:00-7:35 Small groups activities:
- Improving local coverage
- Newsroom ethics
- Historical perspective
- Newsroom hiring
- Community engagement
- 7:35-7:55 Share out
- 7:55-8:00 Closing
Chicago 1919: Confronting the Race Riots
Visit this page for a complete list of Chicago 1919 public programs.
This event is part of the Newberry's year-long initiative, Chicago 1919: Confronting the Race Riots. It 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.
Speakers
Angela Ford is founder and Executive Director of Obsidian Collection Archives.
Darryl Holliday is a journalist and co-founder of City Bureau civic media lab.
Ethan Michaeli is an award-winning author, journalist, and university lecturer and author of The Defender: How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America.
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Past Public Programs
Check out video recordings of past Newberry public programs on our YouTube channel.