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

 Just The Basics

    Published: January 2nd, 2018

    Genre: Nonfiction 

    Pages: 208 pages

    Acknowledgements: Coretta Scott King Award for Nonfiction 2019

        "Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops of history to remember. Then-- I forget."

                     - Carl Sandburg (From "I Am the People, the Mob)

    "A Few Red Drops" is a nonfiction work by Claire Hartfield offering a brief history of the 1919 Chicago Race Riots. In a way that centers historical context beyond the description of racial violence, Hartfield's report creates a student-forward explanation of the Great Migration, the Meat Packers Union, the history of Chicago, and the racial powder keg the city was building until its explosion in 1919 over the death of Eugene Williams. With the riots used as a narrative frame, Hartfield uses many first-hand accounts to allow for an understanding of the tensions between Southern Black migrants and mostly mid-European immigrants that arose from a shortage of jobs, a series of labor strikes, and housing shortages, and how these conflicts eventually led to the death of 13 men and the horrific bombings of several Black-owned properties. The Chicago Race Riots were the first in a series of conflicts around America called the "Red Summer," where the Great Migration of southern Black Americans resulted in racially charged violence that would have ripple effects across US history.  

    Why "A Few Red Drops"?

    After reading Paula Yoo's Rising from the Ashes earlier this year, I was very interested in nonfiction about racialized violence in America. Both Yoo's and Hartfield's works had different approaches to retelling these events; however, when paired together, they had several noticeable correlations. Unlike Yoo's report, Hartfield's A Few Red Drops is separated from contemporary readers by almost 110 years. A Few Red Drops was not nearly as personal as Rising From the Ashes, and instead was more of a cursory glance at the Red Summer and the fallout effects of the Great Migration. Hartfield's work was a good supplementary nonfiction addition to my YA list, as it felt like it balanced out my understanding of what nonfiction YA can look like. I originally picked up this work just to follow a through-line of racialized violence in America, but as a result of reading this text, I feel as if I now understand the different stylistic takes in contemporary YA nonfiction. 

    Teaching Considerations

     For a book about racial violence, A Few Red Drops surprisingly had almost no description of violence. There were statistics given about those who died in the rioting, photos of those properties bombed in this time frame, and the attention drawn to the young boy Eugine William's death by accidental stoning and drowning. However, it felt as if the gruesome details of this time were understated on purpose for the book's intended audience. This means this book can be taught in a classroom with less apprehension; the only other trigger warning should be the use of the n-word (but with understanding the topical focus, this should almost be expected). I think this book would be a great supplementary text for a unit on riots, systematic racism, protest, or even labor rights and unionizing. I keep thinking back to Yoo's work, and just really prefer that book overall, so I could also recommend that A Few Red Drops be taught in conjunction with Rising from the Ashes as a part of a quad-text framework or some type of literature circle. I think A Few Red Drops is appropriate reading for all secondary students, from 6th to 12th grade, with the right teacher support and scaffolds. Again, this book just doesn't seem like a good fit to teach on its own without additional materials. 

      Sections to Read Aloud  & Reasoning

1. Five, White Negros 

• "Just west of Chicago's Black Belt sat the white immigrant communities known as Packingtown. The men and women who settled there had come to get away from oppression in their homeland. Irish and Germans arrived in the mid-nineteenth century, Poles and Lithuanians a few decades later" (Ebook page, 61)

    Chapter 5 would be important for students to understand because it sets up the other ethnic communities that are essentially at war with those Black Americans living in the Black Belt. It is between these multiple communities that struggle for jobs in Packingtown (a meat-packing district), the strikes, the unions, the scabs (usually hired Black people), all together lead to the strained communities of Chicago. As the title of this chapter alludes to, all these groups were disenfranchised by the White-Anglo majority of Chicago's richer areas. These minority groups were largely manipulated by the rich men who owned Packingtown to remain in control and not have to deal with negotiating with labor unions and the resulting strikes. 

        2. Seventeen, Race Riot 

• ''Around white neighborhoods, the story went that the drowned boy was white and the stone thrower was black. In black areas, among stories of Officer Callahan's villainy was the claim that he had prevented expert swimmers from saving Eugine, and that he had held black bathers while they were pelted with bricks and stones." (Ebook page 234)

    What is most interesting about this selection, and this entire chapter, is the amount of misinformation that causes people to take violent action on the street. Eugine Williams was a black boy and was hit in the head by a stone from white aggressors. Officer Callahan had no involvement. It would be fruitful to break down these moments with students, so they can understand the role information and misinformation always have in moments of mass civil unrest. This chapter also has all the details of those who died in the riots, so its improtant to analyze this section for more critical information and a timeline of events. 

    Overall Thoughts

        A Few Red Drops was interesting, informative, and easily digestible. The reason I am not as satisfied with this text is that it lacks humanism. Yes, the reader gets some key names, and the text serves as remembrance for Eugene Williams; however, I was spoiled by how much mor reverence I felt when reading Rising From The Ashes. Yoo's work felt like a candle still burning for those who were lost, for those who helped start the LA riots. A Few Red Drops felt more like reading an unbiased newspaper article. Maybe this is the English Teacher side of me talking, but I want stories we read in class to be stories about people, with morals and even some bias towards the racism shown in the Red Summer. Maybe A Few Red Drops would be more fitting for a social studies teacher to use in class, where unbiased materials are more of a mainstay. Even though these events took place over one hundred years ago, and testimonies have been lost to time, I still felt like Hartfield's work was too brief a dive into an important and thematically relevant topic in the history of racism in the United States. 

    Future Explorations

     This is Hartfield's only nonfiction book; her only other work is a picture book. It may be a bit of an insult to Hartfield, but reading this book made me want to go back to Paula Yoo's work. I am beginning to really enjoy reading YA nonfiction, as these works make history digestible and easily understandable to me. I think something like the history of civil unrest in America can get messy, and I have enjoyed using the nonfiction works on this list to better educate myself on the basics of these important events. A Few Red Drops is the final YA nonfiction book on this list, so I am wishing I ended this part of my journey with a deeper and more substantive book.