A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919

A Few Red Drops:
The Chicago Race Riot of 1919

By Claire Hartfield

Project Contributors: Ashley Boswell, Alexis Bush, Hania Chaudhry, Hannah Clabough

Review

            Claire Hartfield's A Few Red Drops depicts the heart-wrenching struggles of Chicago's African American community during the tumultuous summer of 1919. It all began on the 29th and 26th street beaches, where an invisible line had been drawn segregating whites and blacks. On a sunny Sunday in July, five black teens were floating on their raft and began to slowly drift near the unspoken divide of the white beach. Once spotted, a white man became disgruntled and decided to throw rocks at the young boys, one of which ended the life of seventeen-year-old Eugene Williams and thus sparked the tinderbox of racial and social unrest that had been brewing in Chicago. Leading up to this point, the city's population had seen a sharp influx of 56,000 African Americans by 1919. This resulted in the formation of the Black Belt, where two-thirds of Chicago's population lived at this time. Due to an increased population, there was high competition in the city's stockyards which pitted African Americans against whites. The outcome would mark a moment in history known as "the red summer." African American people would fight for their rights in spite of racial injustice and systematic oppression. Hartfield outlines a detailed and accessible history of Chicago as a quickly growing meat-processing center, the formation and influence of trade unions, the influx of European immigrants, and the WWI-era black migration from the South. A Few Red Drops presents an honest perspective on Chicago's history by chronologically accounting for major milestones in the local community and discussing, in expansion, the hardships that gradually contributed to the abrupt awakening of the Chicago Race Riots in 1919.
            The book surveys themes of loss, love, and deceit as seen through the everyday lives of citizens during the period. Hartfield also introduces ideas of hard work, endurance, and bravery while heavily focusing on politics, class-divide, and segregation. Though these themes prove relevant and relatable to a younger crowd, as they are able to be so universally applied, the book falls flat in serving its purpose as a young adult nonfiction narrative. While A Few Red Drops presents a thoroughly researched timeline of events that led up to the Chicago Race Riots of 1919, it lacks a detailed description of the actual event. This book will quickly bore young readers as it takes on an intense descriptive narrative rather than an engaging text that YA readers will enjoy. The topic remains interesting as it is important to discuss, but A Few Red Drops fails to retain the audience. One aspect of the book that remains promising is its use of images that help to transport the reader to the setting, which can aid in comprehension and enjoyment. This book is not ideal for a high school English classroom as it would require an overly active lesson plan just to keep the students focused, Overall, the book lacks the life of a typical young adult nonfiction novel.

Biography

Among being the 2019 Coretta Scott King Book Awards Author Winner and a finalist for the 2019 Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Claire Hartfield’s most recent book, A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919, has been recognized as a Junior Library Guild Choice, a 2019 Illinois Reading Council Top Book, and a Chicago Public Library Best of the Best Books of 2018. Hartfield’s career is centered on helping underprivileged children receive the education they need to achieve their fullest potential. Since graduating from Yale University and The University of Chicago Law School, she has helped develop desegregation plans for schools around Chicago and Illinois and has led a non-profit organization that helps create leaders for secondary schools.

Hartfield's inspiration for writing A Few Red Drops came from a memory of sitting at her grandmother's side, listening to stories about the 1919 Chicago Race Riots. Her aim is "to share this story with young people to give them perspective on the world they are facing now, and tools for shaping better ways to move forward" (McBroom 1). She hopes that knowing about our past will help us work towards a brighter future. Recalling the dry and often unrelatable texts she read in her history classes, Hartfield specifically wrote A Few Red Drops in a story-like manner so that it would resonate with readers, giving meaning to the experiences.

Hartfield came up with the title A Few Red Drops after researching into a reporter named Carl Sandburg, who covered the riot for the Chicago Daily News. She found one of his poems called "I Am the People, the Mob", which describes the "splattering of a few red drops".  She intends to continue writing about people and events that are important, in order to reach out to "readers young and old with fascinating stories that explore the past to create a brighter future" (Hartfield 1).

Instructional Resources

1. Teaching Race: Pedagogy and Practice: This site summarizes some of the common challenges instructors face when teaching racial justice, offers broad pedagogical principles for teaching it, and provides strategies for the implementation of those principles. More specifically, this site will assist instructors in identifying their precise learning goals, designing a lesson plan to reach those goals, and approaching classroom discussions on race.
2. The National Association of Social Workers Press’s Guidelines for Describing People: This link benefits both instructors and students in providing informative guidelines for describing not only race, which is important for a discussion of A Few Red Drops, but other specific groups of people, allowing for an positive and productive dialogue in the classroom. Beyond the specific guidelines, this link emphasizes the importance of positivity, specificity without using labels, and always trying to ascertain what the specific person or group being talked to/about prefers to be described as.
3. Searching for Eugene Williams: So much of A Few Red Drops focuses on what led up to the 1919 Chicago Race Riot, yet the author spends very little time actually discussing the boy whose death officially sparked it. This link provides educators with extra information about Eugene Williams’s life, death, and final resting place so that, should a student be curious about him, there is extra information to give. 
4. Chicago's Meatpacking Industry: Dr. Marvin Byrd, who created his Vision Chasers channel as a tool for the success of middle school and high school students, uses art, photographs, and quotes to aid in his instruction of Chicago’s early meatpacking industry, how Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle exposed it, and what was done to fix the matter. 
5. Why Were the Irish Once Hated in America?: While A Few Red Drops depicts the mistreatment of Irish immigrants, details the tensions that involved them, and partially blames the length of the 1919 Chicago Race Riot on them, it does not properly explain why the Irish were hated. This video will clarify that for students, delving into the origins for the hatred the Irish experienced both in America and abroad, and explaining how America’s perception of the Irish has evolved. 
6. Housing Segregation: A Few Red Drops often discusses the effects of housing segregation, but it does not fully explain what it is. NPR uses Baltimore as an example in its full explanation of housing segregation, the Fair Housing Act and its lack of enforcement, and the long-lasting effects of housing segregation on schools, health, wealth, and policing. 
7. Timeline of Chicago in 1919: This timeline, created as part of the year-long Chicago 1919: Confronting the Race Riots initiative organized by the Newberry Library and 13 other Chicago institutions, includes important and influential 1919 events not discussed in A Few Red Drops. Such events include the ratifying of the Eighteenth Amendment (Prohibition), the Seattle General Strike, the Red Scare, and the Wingfoot Air Express Crash.
8. Interactive Map of the 1919 Chicago Race Riots: This interactive map—which is again provided by the Chicago 1919: Confronting the Race Riots initiative—utilizes pictures, newspaper clippings, and Xs to help viewers better imagine what happened to which race and where, making the entire event feel more real.The different layers include riot deaths, riot injuries based on commission vs. newspaper reports, riot arson, and bombings, as well as a riot heatmap, a display of the percentage of the black population in Chicago in 1920, and a Chicago 1920 street map.
9. 1919 Race Riots in Chicago: A Look Back 100 Years Later: This Chicago news broadcast, which looks a century into the past at the 1919 Chicago Race Riot, includes an interview with the author, Claire Hartfield, and information not covered in her A Few Red Drops. It also delves further into the Chicago’s history and troubles following the riot.
10. The Historical Harm of Blackface: How to Talk With Young People : This article, written by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), is important not only because A Few Red Drops indicates that gangs tried to prolong the 1919 Chicago Race Riot through the use of blackface, but because many people—average citizens, celebrities, even politicians—still do not understand exactly what blackface is, nor the harm that it inflicts. Among the steps the ADL recommends for discussing blackface with young people are: sharing the full history; talking about it in context with other forms of bias, hate, and oppression; discussing the difference between intent and impact, and why that matters; and discussing it in relation to contemporary issues of racism.

Instructional Activity

Preview: This activity will be targeted at grades 9-12 and involves students analyzing the events that led up to the Chicago Race of Riot of 1919. By using the book, A Few Red Drops, students will understand what historical nonfiction is and, in turn, create their own "Riot Commission," which will discuss important issues that were arising in Chicago. Using the book, students will create a timeline that chronicles important events that happen in the book. 

California Common Core Standards:

1)CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.2 
Determine two or more central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to provide a complex analysis; provide an objective summary of the text.

2) CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.3
Analyze a complex set of ideas or sequence of events and explain how specific individuals, ideas, or events interact and develop over the course of the text.

3) CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.11-12.4
Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

4) CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.1 
Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussion (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led), with diverse partners on grades 11-12 topics texts, and issues, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.

5) CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.4
Present information, findings, and supporting evidence, conveying a clear and distinct perspective, such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning, alternative or opposing perspectives are addressed, and the organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose, audience, and a range of formal and informal tasks.

Resources and Preparation: Teachers should first prepare themselves by thoroughly reading A Few Red Drops. They must become familiar with the main events that occur in the text and be prepared to answer questions about historical figures and issues surrounding racial violence. The only handout needed for the class is the timeline of critical events worksheet that students will fill out in groups. 

Activity:

Grade Level: 9-12 

Materials: In class notes to write on, timeline of events worksheet, and a pencil or pen to write with.

Objective: Students will create a timeline of the main events leading up to the 1919 Chicago Race Riots to both help them organize the order of events and form a better understanding of the economic and social conditions that existed in Chicago during this time.

Instructional Plan:

1. Introduce the text to the class with a preface disclosing that racial violence will be discussed in both A Few Red Drops and in class.
2. After students have completed the book, begin the lesson with a short activity. Have students clear their desks and instruct them to participate in a timed challenge. Students will be timed and asked to shout out important dates as the teacher writes them down on the whiteboard. Give the class 1-2 minutes to identify as many events as they can.
3. After the introduction activity is completed, erase the whiteboard and have students divide into groups of 4-5. After the groups are formed, pass out the timeline of critical events worksheet to each group.
4. Instruct the groups to use the book to identify six major events that stand to them as a catalyst to the Chicago race riot of 1919.
• Some examples may include: the death of Eugene Williams, the housing shortage in the Black Belt, and a lack of jobs for returning black soldiers
5. Students will then work in groups and use their books to create their timelines. 
• Each event should include the date and/or timeframe, as well as citing page numbers. 
• Give the groups 20-30 minutes to complete this.
6. After their events have been chosen, students should work together to create both a brief description of what happened and a short paragraph explaining why they chose it. 
• Their answers should exemplify critical thinking skills and answer the question: How did this event contribute to the Chicago Race Riot of 1919?
• After finishing this step, the worksheet will be completed.
7.  Finally, each group will choose one event from their timeline and present their findings to the class.
8. The presentation should consist of naming the chosen event, a description of what happened, and why the group chose it. 
• Students should prepare a 2-3 minute presentation. No visual aids are necessary.
• No event should be presented twice.
• Teachers should encourage students to speak extemporaneously and with minimal notes. 
• If necessary, presentations can be done during the next class period. 

Outcomes: By creating a critical timeline of events that led up to the Chicago Race Riot of 1919 students will have a better understanding of the economic, social, and political factors that increased racial tension during that time. In doing so, students will understand how racial injustice can lead to violent altercations that put everyone in danger. During this activity, students will learn how to read informational text, organize a timeline of events, and showcase public speaking skills as they present their event. 

Bibliography

• “About.” Claire Hartfield, http://clairehartfield.com/about/#tab-id-2.
• Andrew, Amara, et al. “Race Riots and Chicago in 1919.” Edited by David Greenstein and Megan Keller Young, Chicago Collections: 1919, Chicago Collections Consortium, 2019, exhibits.chicagocollections.org/1919/index
• Anti-Defamation League. “The Historical Harm of Blackface: How to Talk with Young People.” Anti-Defamation League, Anti-Defamation League, 15 Feb. 2019, www.adl.org/blog/the-historical-harm-of-blackface-how-to-talk-with-young-people.
• Chegg, John. “Mapping the 1919 Chicago Riot.” Mapping the 1919 Chicago Riot, The University of Chicago, 2019, 1919map.rcc.uchicago.edu/.
• KnowledgeHub. “Why Were the Irish Once Hated in America?.” YouTube, 9 Sep. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvtKolUaMO4&feature=youtu.be.
• Loerzel, Robert. "Searching for Eugene WIlliams." Chicago Magazine, 1 Aug. 2019, www.chicagomag.com/city-life/August-2019/Searching-for-Eugene-Williams/.
• McBroom, Kathleen. “A FEW RED DROPS: An Interview with Claire Hartfield.” The Booklist Reader, 6 Feb. 2018, https://www.booklistreader.com/2018/02/05/books-and-authors/a-few-red-drops-an-interview-with-claire-hartfield/.
• McConkey, Brian. “About.” Claire Hartfield, http://clairehartfield.com/about/#tab-id-2.
• The National Association of Social Workers Press. “Chapter 8: Tools for Authors.” NASW Press, National Association of Social Workers, 3 Nov. 2014, www.naswpress.org/authors/guidelines/08c-tools.html.
• "Timeline Worksheet": https://www.smartsheet.com/free-blank-timeline-templates
• NPR. “Why Cities Are Still So Segregated | Let's Talk | NPR.” YouTube, commentary by Gene Demby, 11 Apr. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN_8KIpmZXs.
• Thurber, Amie M., et al. “Teaching Race: Pedagogy and Practice.” Vanderbilt University, Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching, 2019, cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/teaching-race.
• VisionChasers. “The Jungle and the Meatpacking Industry.” YouTube, created by Marvin Byrd, 12 May. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReuNaWPGEoM.
• WGN News. "1919 Race Riots in Chicago: A look back 100 years later." YouTube, commentary by Tonya Francisco, 26 Feb. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcR78NItUng&list=WL&index=4&t=0s