Today is the 102nd anniversary of the murder of Eugene Williams. What happened after would be part of the Red Summer of 1919.
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It was hot on July 27, 1919 in Chicago when Eugene Williams and some friends decided to sneak away to go swimming in Lake Michigan. They had to sneak, because their parents forbade them to swim on Sunday. As was the custom for teenagers of the time, Eugene and his friends had built a raft that they could swim and dive off. As they played in the lake, they didn’t notice that they had drifted perilously close to the invisible “color line” between the 25th Street beach and the 29th Street beach. The first they noticed was when the rocks came. Twenty-four year old George Stauber had begun hurling rocks and bricks at the boys. Eugene was in the water, and when he came up, a rock hit him in the head, knocking him unconscious. He slowly sank into the water and never woke up. Daniel Callahan, the first police officer to arrive, refused to take Stauber into custody for Williams’ murder. Stauber was eventually arrested and tried, but was acquitted. That was after the eight days of riots and murder that followed. The Chicago Riots of the Red Summer of 1919 are only a blip in any textbook that mentions them. Local “Athletic Clubs”—basically Irish street gangs—would roam the streets at night during those eight days looking for victims. Among them was the Hamburg Athletic Club, whose most prominent member was a 17 year old Richard J Daley, the future Mayor of Chicago. There’s a reason why MLK never trusted Daley. Although he was never mentioned by name, the Hamburg gang was one of the leaders in going after the Black residents of Chicago.
The city eventually settled with victims of the riots. Eugene Williams’ mother received a settlement of $4500. Today there is a monument to Eugene Williams near where he was murdered. In 2018, the Grace Chorale of Brooklyn set a commissioning for a piece about Chicago and the Red Summer. It was to be a collaborative commission, with both a Black and a White composer. The commission was won by Flannery Cunningham and Tanyaradzwa Tawengwa, two women who became friends at Princeton. It was premiered in 2019. They also collaborated with poet Angel C .Dye. This year, the choir I sing in, the Apollo Chorus of Chicago, collaborated with the Grace Chorale to present the conclusion to the piece. It includes interviews with both composers, and historical perspective from one of the curators at the Chicago History Museum. Please listen and reflect:
UPDATE: This past Saturday, a headstone for Eugene Williams was unveiled in a Chicago area cemetery. (Behind a Paywall) .
For more information, check out the Chicago History Museum.
More resources:
That which is past, is present.
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