the colored people on Dearborn Street in the 2800 block were moving out in fear of a white mob coming from across the tracks from across Wentworth Avenue. … On the southwest corner of Twenty-eighth and Dearborn I found a number of colored men standing in front of a building there. They had pieces of brick and stone in their pockets and were peering around the corner west on Twenty-eighth Street apparently in great fear.
Among the whites fear was not so prevalent. A fear-producing rumor was revealed, however, in the examination of two deputy sheriffs who fired on a Negro. The deputies had heard that Negroes were going to burn up or blow up factories in the district which they were patrolling. When a dark form was seen in an alley, panic seized both deputies, and they emptied their revolvers at an innocent Negro who lived in the adjoining house.
Chief among the anger-provoking rumors were tales of injury done to women of the race circulating the rumor. The similarity of the stories and their persistence shows extraordinary credulity on the part of the public. For the most horrible of these rumors, telling of the brutal killing of a woman and baby (sometimes the story is told of a Negro woman, sometimes of a white) there was no foundation in fact. The story was circulated not only by the newspapers of both races, but was current always in the crowds on the streets. Here is the story as told in the white press:
Chicago Tribune, July 29:
There is an account of "two desperate revolver battles fought by the police with colored men alleged to have killed two white women and a white child."
It is reported that policemen saw two Negroes knock down a woman and child and kick them. The Negroes ran before the police could reach them.
Herald-Examiner, July 29:
Two white women, one of them with a baby in her arms, were attacked and wounded by Negro mobs firing on street cars. …
A colored woman with a baby in her arms was reported at the Deering Police Station, according to this item, to have been attacked by a mob of more than 100 white men. When the mob finally fled before the approach of a squad of police both the woman and child were lying in the street beaten to death, "it is said."
Daily News, July 29:
Another man is held at the Stock Yards station charged with the murder of a white woman in West 47th Street and Wentworth. …
The Negroes, four in number, were arrested at East 39th and Cottage Grove Avenue, this afternoon by the detective. They are believed to be the ones who seriously wounded Mrs. Margaret Kelley, white woman, at W. 47th and Wentworth. She was shot in the back and may die. The names of those under arrest were not given out.
[Note.—"Murder" changed to "seriously injured" in the main story. Mrs. Mary Kelly was shot in the arm according to the police report and not in the back.]
The men arrested for the shooting were Henry Harris and Scott Brown, deputy sheriffs, and four others according to the records of the state's attorney. Sheriff Peters says of the case, that Harris was charged with shooting someone, but when the case came up the charge was dropped. Sheriff Peters was convinced that Harris was innocent.
Daily News, July 29. Headline, given place of first importance in the pink section: "Women Shot as Riots Grow." Columns 7 and 8 of first-page white section are headed, "Attack White Women as Race Riots Grow. Death Roster Is 30."
The item reads: "Race rioters began to attack white women this afternoon according to report received at the Detective Bureau and the Stock Yards Police Station." The article continues, that Swift & Company had not received any such reports of attacks on their women employees. But farther on the item gives an account of a Swift & Company truck filled with girl employees fired upon by Negroes at Forty-seventh Street and the Panhandle railroad. The driver was reported killed and several of the girls injured.
The juxtaposition of "Death roster is 30" and "Attack white women" gives a wrong impression. The "several girls injured" at Forty-seventh Street evidently refers to the case of Mrs. Mary Kelly. The records of the state's attorney's office also show that Josephine Mansfield was supposed to have been wounded by Harris, et al., but the charge was dropped. She was wounded in the shoulder, according to the police report.
Daily News, July 30:
Alderman McDonough described a raid into the white district the night before by a carload of colored men who passed Thirty-fifth Street and Wallace "shouting and shooting." The gunmen shot down a woman and a little boy who stood close by.
[Note.—No record of such a case.]
Here is the "injury done to women" story as it appeared in the Negro press:
Chicago Defender, August 2:
An unidentified young woman and three-months-old baby were found dead on the street at the intersection of Forty-seventh and Wentworth. She had attempted to board a car there when the mob seized her, beat her, slashed her body to ribbons, and beat the baby's brains out against a telegraph pole. Not satisfied with this one rioter severed her breasts and a white youngster bore it aloft on a pole triumphantly while the crowd hooted gleefully. The whole time this was happening several policemen were in the crowd but did not make any attempt to make a rescue until too late.
Concerning all of these stories it may be stated that the coroner had no cases of deaths of women and children brought before him. There was nothing in the police reports or the files of the state's attorney or hospital reports or the reports of Olivet Baptist Church, which would give any foundation for reports of the killing of a woman and child, white or Negro.
There were other rumors which had the same anger-producing effect as reports of attacks on women. A notable case of this kind was the fatal clash at the Angelus, an apartment house for white people at Thirty-fifth Street and Wabash Avenue, on Monday, July 28 (see p. 6). The trouble here grew from four o'clock in the afternoon until it culminated in the shooting at 8:00 p.m. The excitement was stimulated by the rapid spread of various rumors. It was said that a white mob was gathering at Thirty-fifth Street and Wentworth Avenue, only a few blocks from the colored mob which was massed on Thirty-fifth Street from State Street to Wabash Avenue. The rumor was that the white men are armed and prepared to "clean up the 'Black Belt.'" Another rumor had it that a Negro's sister had been killed while coming home from the Stock Yards where she worked. Finally came the rumor that a white person had fired a shot from the Angelus building, wounding a colored boy. The rumor quickly went through the crowd swarming around the building, but no one heard or saw the shooting. A search of the building disclosed no firearms. Police Sergeant Middleton, Negro, described the situation as "everybody trying to tell you something and you couldn't get anything." Another Negro policeman said it was "just a rumor that went around through the crowd and everybody was saying, 'He shot from that window'; I would go to that window and the crowd would say, 'That is the window over there.'"
The anger-provoking power of rumor was seen in the ensuing clash. About 1,500 Negroes massed on one corner of Thirty-fifth Street and Wabash Avenue, and about 100 policemen grouped themselves at the intersection of the two streets. At the sight of a brick flying from the Negro mob the police fired a volley into the midst of the mob. More shots came quickly from both sides. Four Negroes were killed, and many were injured, among both the Negroes and the police.
The Angelus rumor appeared as follows in a Negro newspaper, the Chicago Defender, August 2: "White occupants of the Angelus apartments began firing shots and throwing missiles from their windows. One man was shot through the head but before his name could be secured he was spirited away."
In
