What was built
- Established or development period
- 1890s–1919
- Peak period
- 1919–1940s
- Who built the community
- Great Migration families from Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana, and an established Black professional and business class.
- Black population
- Roughly 109,000 Black Chicagoans by 1920, more than double the 1910 figure.
- Businesses
- Black-owned retail, funeral homes, restaurants and professional offices along State Street and 35th Street.
- Financial institutions
- Jesse Binga's Binga State Bank and Black-owned insurance companies.
- Churches
- Olivet Baptist, Quinn Chapel A.M.E., Pilgrim Baptist.
- Schools
- Not yet documented
- Hospitals
- Not yet documented
- Newspapers
- The Chicago Defender.
- Entertainment & cultural institutions
- The Stroll, theaters, cabarets and jazz clubs that would define Bronzeville.
- Other community institutions
- Not yet documented
- Black land & property ownership
- Black home ownership constrained by racially restrictive covenants and violent resistance to Black buyers outside the belt.
- Economic significance
- One of the great Black urban economies of the twentieth century.
What happened
- What happened?
- From July 27 to August 3, 1919, white gangs attacked Black residents after the drowning of Eugene Williams at a segregated beach. Black Chicagoans defended their neighborhoods; homes were burned and thousands were left homeless during the nationwide Red Summer.
- Trigger or precipitating event
- The stoning and drowning of Eugene Williams, a Black teenager, for crossing an unofficial color line at a Lake Michigan beach, and police refusal to arrest the assailant.
- Underlying historical context
- Great Migration housing pressure, restrictive covenants, home bombings of Black buyers, and labor competition in the stockyards.
- Method of destruction / displacement
- Mob Violence · Arson
- Date or period of destruction
- July 27: August 3, 1919
- Confirmed / documented deaths
- 38 deaths: 23 Black and 15 white.
- Estimated deaths
- Not yet documented
- People displaced
- Roughly 1,000 people, mostly Black, left homeless by arson in the stockyards district.
- Homes destroyed
- Hundreds of dwellings burned, largely in the Back of the Yards area.
- Businesses destroyed
- Not yet documented
- Acres or property lost
- Not yet documented
Afterward
- What happened to the land?
- The Black Belt remained, hardened by covenants, and matured into Bronzeville.
- Was compensation paid?
- None.
- Was the community rebuilt?
- Yes
- What was rebuilt?
- Bronzeville's commercial and cultural peak in the 1920s–1940s.
- Destroyed or displaced again?
- Yes
- Second displacement date
- 1950s–1960s
- Second displacement cause
- Urban renewal, the Dan Ryan Expressway and high-rise public housing clearance.
- What exists there today?
- Bronzeville, with landmark buildings, the Chicago Race Riot of 1919 Commemoration Project markers and ongoing redevelopment.
- Descendant, reparation & restoration efforts
- The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 Commemoration Project and public-history markers.
- Historical significance
- The largest episode of the Red Summer of 1919 and a turning point in Northern housing segregation.
Destroyed / displaced again
This community experienced a second documented episode of destruction or displacement: Urban renewal, the Dan Ryan Expressway and high-rise public housing clearance. (1950s–1960s).
Sources
- Source lookupFind
Chicago Commission on Race Relations, The Negro in Chicago (1922)
- Source lookupFind
William M. Tuttle Jr., Race Riot: Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919 (Atheneum, 1970)
- Source lookupFind
Chicago History Museum collections
- Source lookupFind
Newberry Library, Chicago 1919 resources
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Last verified: 2026-09-20. This is a living historical collection. Additional communities and documentation will be added as research and verification continue.