Victims of 1919 Chicago Race Riot are honored with historical markers
CHICAGO (WLS) -- Dozens of cyclists gathered Saturday to honor those who lost their lives during the 1919 Chicago Race Riot.
The event marked the completion of a citywide art project that commemorates the victims with memorial markers across the city.
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People took part in a guided bike tour focused on sites connected to the racial violence, including the lakefront location where 17-year-old Eugene Williams was killed in 1919.
"So, 107 years ago, a short distance from here, a 17-year-old Black man named Eugene Williams, with four of his friends, went swimming right over here in Lake Michigan on a hot Sunday afternoon," said Professor Peter Cole of Western Illinois University. "And when his raft drafted southward to approximately this location, a white man standing where I'm about started throwing rocks at these children and killed one. Eugene Williams was murdered."
Historians at the event say back in the day, there was an unofficial boundary that separated swimming areas used by Black people and white people.
Williams' death sparked an outbreak of racial violence in Chicago that left 38 people dead and hundreds injured.
"These markers form Chicago's first citywide memorial dedicated to the victims of racial violence," said Dr. Franklin Cosey-Gay, co-director of the Chicago Race Riot of 1919 Commemoration Project.
The project includes 38 memorial markers spread across approximately 30 square miles of the city. Organizers said the memorial markers serve as a lasting tribute to the victims and as a reminder of a painful chapter that shaped the city of Chicago.
"We ensure that every person who lost their life during the Chicago Race Riot of 1919 is remembered where that life was taken - not erased in time, not reduced to just some simple footnote, but permanently woven into the landscape of our city," said Kenya Merritt, commissioner of Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.
