In 1919, waves of racist violence covered the US, including Chicago. In Chicago, that violence (known as the Chicago Race Riots)was part of a larger and longer struggle for Black rights in Chicago. Over the years, those battles were fought in government chambers, newspaper columns, and courtrooms. And they were also fought at work, in shops, in restaurants, and with landlords. Those earlier battles did not cause the 1919 riots in Chicago (too many of the participants in the riots were newcomers to the city for that to be true), though they laid the foundation for what happened in July and August 1919.
I talk about that past in a section of my new open-access book: https://chicago1919.domains.uflib.ufl.edu/fightforrights/fight-for-rights-chicago-before-the-1919-riots
Elizabeth R. Dale 