A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 by Claire Hartfield - ADVISABLE

A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 by Claire Hartfield, 197 pages. NON FICTION Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018 $19.00 Language: PG (brief use of the 'n' word) Mature Content: G; Violence: PG

MS, HS - ADVISABLE 

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE 

In July of 1919, 2 black teenage boys went out for a swim on a hot summer's day, one was hit and killed by a rock thrown by a white man. This started a race riot on the South Side of Chicago that left nearly 40 people dead and many more wounded. But tensions between the Irish and the blacks had been building for nearly half a century, as the civil war ended and southern blacks began to come north looking for work and a better life. Now, Polish and Lithuanian immigrants had joined the workforce, and the racial bias of the meat industry owners, police, politicians and the wealthy Chicago elite made matters worse. 

Hartfield's well-researched and timely recounting of the 1919 riot as well the best parts were the discussions of the living conditions and the troubles building up to the riot is an important book. I had several "no wonder" moments as I read about the economic injustices, the housing situations, the unfair hiring practices, and the ways the owners would break strikes and undermine the unions. No wonder there was a riot! Includes photographs, newspaper cartoons, author notes, and an extensive bibliography and index.


Lisa Librarian