Reading the American Past: Printed Page 137
DOCUMENT 22–5
An African American Responds to the Chicago Race Riot
Race riots exploded in almost two dozen American cities during the summer of 1919. White mobs attacked African Americans indiscriminately beating, shooting, and lynching them. Shortly after the bloody riot in Chicago, the governor of Illinois appointed a biracial commission to study the causes of the melee. Stanley B. Norvell, an African American Chicagoan, wrote the following letter to Victor F. Lawson, editor of the Chicago Daily News, who had just been appointed as one of the white members of the commission to study the riot. Norvell described whites' ignorance of blacks and pointed out that a “new Negro” had been created by the experiences of World War I and the continuing injustices of white racism.
This selection has been omitted intentionally in this electronic edition.
From Stanley B. Norvell to Victor F. Lawson, in William Tuttle, ed., “Views of a Negro during the Red Summer of 1919,” Journal of Negro History 51 (July 1966), 211–18.
Questions for Reading and Discussion