Responses to the killing of George Floyd demonstrate the power not only of protest, but also of public art. From Houston to Berlin, art activists have brought his image to the streets. In Minneapolis, a large mural now crowns the site of Floyd’s murder. In war-torn Syria, a mural stands in solidarity amid the rubble.
Simultaneously, protesters around the world are bringing down monuments to Confederates, slave traders and other embodiments of racism. Their actions show us that, just as new public art must commemorate injustice, so must no public art honoring its perpetrators be allowed to stand.
The time has come for Chicago to join this global wave and embrace public art as a vehicle for racial justice and healing. That is the mission of the Chicago Race Riot of 1919 Commemoration Project (CRR19).
Launched last year, CRR19 looks back to July 27, 1919, when five black boys escaped the heat by swimming in Lake Michigan. Their makeshift raft drifted into a “white-only” part of the lake. A white man threw rocks at them, causing the death of 17-year-old Eugene Williams. When the white police officer refused to arrest the white perpetrator, violence exploded in what became known as the Chicago Race Riot of 1919.
One week of violence left 38 people dead, over 530 people injured, and several thousand homeless. White men initiated the violence, invading black neighborhoods and attacking innocent black people. Two-thirds of casualties were black — but so were two-thirds of those arrested. Notably, 15 of the dead were white. Long before Malcolm X and the Black Panthers, some black people refused, to quote Jamaican poet Claude McKay, to “stand idly by.”
The 1919 riots had an important effect in cementing residential segregation and inequality in Chicago. In particular, the city’s economic and political elites embraced “restrictive covenants” that literally closed entire neighborhoods off to black residents. Though ruled unconstitutional in 1947, other racist tactics, such as “redlining,” further hardened the segregation that persists.
In contrast to Minneapolis today, Chicago never marked its racial violence. No official monument was erected. No museum was created for this history. Schools didn’t teach this history. Essentially, this history disappeared.
That must change. Our vision is to install markers at the locations where each person was killed during the 1919 riots. We take inspiration from Germany, where artist Gunter Demnig has installed 75,000 brass plaques into the sidewalks outside the last-known residences of Holocaust victims. They’re called “stolpersteine,” or “stumbling stones.” When people “stumble” across these small monuments, they are reminded of genocide. Present thoughts of everyday pedestrians merge with memories of the past in an active acknowledgement of both injustice and continued responsibility.
We are working to create something similar for the streets of Chicago. We are building a community of local artists, educators, citizens and community groups who share our vision. We want to install the first set of five markers at what, in 1919, was dubbed the “vortex of violence,” near 35th and State streets. There, in the heart of Bronzeville, four black men and one white man were killed the day after Williams’ murder.
This locale is a powerful reminder of how past racism and present struggles for racial equity continue to merge in our city. Nearby stand the Chicago Military Academy, previously home to the all-black 8th Illinois Infantry and the Victory Monument that honors black WWI soldiers.
Across the street, though, sits the Chicago Police Department’s headquarters. There, too, stands De La Salle High School, where both Mayors Daley graduated. Coincidentally in 1919, Richard J. Daley was a 17-year-old like Eugene Williams. He belonged to the Hamburg Boys, a so-called athletic club that terrorized black people during the riots.
One hundred and one years later, as anti-racism protests swept the country in response to Floyd’s murder, this very intersection saw Chicago police using snow plows to stop black protesters and their allies.
Like a splinter never removed, Chicago’s history of racial violence never has “healed.” The pain and trauma persist. Like that splinter, racism digs deeper and deeper into our collective body.
CRR19 is one important step toward a corrective. Although the coronavirus pandemic has slowed our progress, we continue to work with community partners to raise the funds and support. Now is the time to strategize with Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s recently created Offices of Equity and Racial Justice and Public Safety and Violence Reduction as well explore a partnership with the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events to endorse, adopt, fund and coordinate with us and our partners.
Chicagoans must commit to remembering our racist, violent past so that finally we can move beyond it. Public art such as the CRR19 project offers a corrective to amnesia and denial, and a step to building a more just society.
Dr. Peter Cole is a professor of history at Western Illinois University. Dr. Franklin Cosey-Gay is the executive director of the Chicago Center for Youth Violence Prevention at the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago. Together, they direct the Chicago Race Riot of 1919 Commemoration Project (CRR19).
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.
Get our latest editorials, commentaries and columns, delivered twice a week in our Fighting Words newsletter. Sign up here.
