The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot

by Chicago Commission on Race Relations

Observers agreed with the mayor that the disturbances were not race riots. In this connection his proclamation said:

Now it is a definitely ascertained fact that no adult Negro was even remotely connected with the first stone-throwing; that the colored people did not then retaliate and have not since sought to retaliate in even the smallest measure; and that all the episodes have consisted simply of an attack upon people who have been as inoffensive throughout the entire affair as they could well be. All of which I submit stamps this affair as an example of disorderly conduct indeed, but not as a race riot.

3. THE "ABYSSINIAN" AFFAIR

Sunday afternoon, June 20, 1920, a small group of Negroes styling themselves "Abyssinians" ended a parade of their "order" in front of a café at 209 East Thirty-fifth Street frequented by both whites and Negroes. After a brief ceremony one of the leaders produced an American flag and deliberately burned it. He then began to destroy a second flag in the same manner. Two white policemen remonstrated with the men but were intimidated by threats and a brandishing of revolvers. They left immediately to notify police headquarters. Patrolman Owens, Negro, arrived as a second flag was lighted. Rushing up to the leader who held the burning flag in his hands and remonstrating with the group for their disloyalty, he was immediately shot and wounded. Robert Lawson Rose, a sailor on leave from the Great Lakes Naval Training Station, protested against the destruction of the flag and he too was shot; he staggered into the doorway of a cigar store at 207 East Thirty-fifth Street. Some of the parade leaders got rifles from a closed automobile which had followed the parade and was standing near by, and fired into the cigar store. One of these bullets killed Joseph Hoyt, a clerk in the store. The sailor, Rose, also died from his wound. In all about twenty-five shots were fired during the fracas, and several persons were injured.

The men who did the shooting escaped but were arrested later. Crowds attracted by the demonstration quickly dispersed when the shooting began, and from then on there was virtually no disorder except for attacks at a railroad station on three Negro ministers who were returning to the city and knew nothing of the shooting. Nine Negroes were arrested and held to the grand jury. One of them was Grover Cleveland Redding, thirty-seven or thirty-eight years of age, who was the "prophet" of the "Abyssinian" order in Chicago. Redding, who had admitted the shooting of Rose, was held with Oscar McGavick for murder, and the others as accessories after the fact.[11]

The exact reason for this flag-burning has not been disclosed, although it was apparently intended to symbolize the feeling of the "Abyssinian" followers that it was time to forswear allegiance to the American government and consider themselves under allegiance to the Abyssinian government.

The guns used in the shooting were found by the police in a garage, together with the regalia of the "Abyssinians," and much of their printed matter and other effects.[12]

The "Abyssinian" affair might easily have been turned into another great outbreak such as that of July, 1919. But the police, profiting by their experience of the previous year, were vigilant. They had organized an emergency force which was quickly mobilized and put in service in the district. Moreover, there was evident such a feeling of restraint on the part of both whites and Negroes that they combined to hunt down the offenders.

Indicative of this spirit of co-operation to prevent racial conflict, and helpful to it, was the careful handling of the matter by the press. Practically every newspaper gave prominence to the way in which the two races worked together to this end, and all dwelt on the courageous action of the Negro policeman. A picture printed in the Herald-Examiner the following morning showed people of the two races fraternizing after the shooting. The Daily News in reporting the affray said that only the co-operation of the white and Negro merchants of the district stopped the disturbance; that rowdies in the neighborhood were ready for a fight, but that "the better class of whites and Negroes worked directly with the police to stop any such trouble as a recurrence of the rioting last summer, which occurred in the same neighborhood."

To understand the "Abyssinian" affair an acquaintance with other characters, certain group propaganda and movements, is necessary. The "Back to Africa" movement, which lent fervor and enthusiasm to the development of lawlessness and wanton killing by this group of unlettered Negroes, has been in progress for more than two years. The Black Star Steamship Line and the Universal Improvement Association, headed by a Negro, Marcus Garvey, a British subject, were organized to establish commercial relations with Africa. To arouse interest and secure funds for the enterprise, sentiment has been created among Negroes for the developing of sections of Africa where they may govern themselves and build up their own institutions and commerce. The movement has gained thousands of adherents; although the language of its appeals has frequently been extreme, it has engaged in no dangerous or unpatriotic activities. Its connection with the tragic incident lies in the implication that "Back to Africa" means away from the land of unfair treatment, and thus suggests contempt for the United States.