29th Street Beach
A drowning, a refused arrest, and a week of rioting.
Listen to this place’s story in Peplos.
How the story begins
A homemade wooden raft drifted south along this shore on Sunday 27 July 1919, and a few yards off the beach at 29th Street it crossed a line that was marked nowhere. On it were Eugene Williams, who was seventeen, and four friends. They had pushed off from the 26th Street beach, the one kept for Black swimmers. White people held the beach at 29th Street as theirs. On the shore, George Stauber, a white man of twenty-four, threw stones at the boys.
The rest is in the app. Peplos plays the full story when you reach the place. You can also listen ahead of time.
Visiting
On the lakefront at about 29th Street, reached along the Lakefront Trail. Public and free. Margaret Burroughs Beach is just to the south.
Sources
- The Murder of Eugene Williams and a Racial Reckoning, Chicago History Museum
- The Race Riot of 1919, Chicago Race Riot of 1919 Commemoration Project
- Eugene Williams, Chicago Race Riot of 1919 Commemoration Project
- Summary, Chicago 1919, Newberry Library
- 1919 Race Riot Plaque, OpenStreetMap
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