Newspaper Reporting during the Heat of Red Summer

Newspaper Reporting during the Heat of Red Summer:

The Black Perspective

Most Chicagoans did not participate in the race riot of 1919. They read about events in the city’s newspapers, both English and foreign language. Consequently, the media played a dominant role in shaping public opinion during the riot. A racially-focused newspaper like The Chicago Defender knew its black audience wanted in depth, personal reporting of the riots from an African-American perspective. The Defender’s Lucius C. Harper reported “the story of his experience at the hands of a mob which had pounced upon him unannounced at 31st street and Archer ave.” After escaping, he took cover from the bullets flying from police revolvers as authorities fired into crowds in an attempt to restore order. Harper dramatically conveyed the wave of the hysteria sweeping the South Side districts from 27th to 39th Streets on July 28th. He described a woman in agony after being shot in the arm and a man Harper encountered while fleeing who gushed blood from the gunshot wound in the back of his neck. On August 9, after the violence concluded, The Defender summarized events from an African-American perspective.

“(T)he evidence seems to show, as is usually the case, that in Chicago the whites were the aggressors in stoning a negro lad into a watery grave because he had passed a supposed line of segregation between white and negro bathers on a city beach. Soon, however, both sides were guilty of lawless assaults and murder. As always, the negroes suffered most.”

While black people and the black press regretted the lawlessness and rioting, they understood the riots represented a form of political resistance a long time coming. The more influential national press did not share this perspective.

The White Perspective

The white press reached a much larger audience than The Defender. Often, in their reports of the riot, they wrote sensational stories based on partial information that advanced hasty interpretations regarding the causes of the riot. Not surprisingly, Southern newspapers repeated inflammatory headlines with suggestive language that proclaimed blacks responsible for the violence. In the aftermath of the riot, The Chicago Commission on Race blamed sensational reporting for inflaming raw emotions and precipitating the rioting and bloodshed. The Commission noted that

“for a public which depends upon newspapers for its information an inordinately one-sided picture is presented. This emphasis on individual crimes specifying Negroes in each offense tends to stamp the entire Negro group as criminal.”

Chicago Newspapers like The Tribune reported a more complex story. Historically, the Republican affiliated, Protestant-owned Tribune viewed the Democratic, Roman Catholic Irish population as a problematic source of criminality and political corruption. While the Tribune did not share the sympathetic race perspective of the Defender, the paper condemned the Irish invaders. The Tribune wrote “Who does not know that the most depraved, debased, worthless and irredeemable drunkards and sots which curse the community are Irish Catholics.” The evidence suggests prior to 1919 ethnic and religious divisions divided Chicagoans as significantly as racial division. These long-held prejudices made it difficult for the majority of Chicagoans to envision themselves simply as “white people.” Nevertheless, events like the Chicago race riot led increasing numbers of whites to unite in hostility toward blacks.