author
Chicago Commission on Race Relations
Created in the aftermath of the 1919 Chicago race riot, this interracial commission produced one of the most detailed early studies of race, migration, housing, labor, and violence in urban America. Its landmark 1922 report still stands out for the breadth of its investigation and its plainspoken effort to explain how a city reached a breaking point.
1 Audiobook
The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot
by Chicago Commission on Race Relations
About the author
The Chicago Commission on Race Relations was not a single writer but a nonpartisan, interracial investigative committee appointed by Illinois governor Frank Lowden after the 1919 Chicago race riot. It was formed to examine the causes of the violence and to recommend ways to prevent it from happening again.
Its best-known work, The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot, was published in 1922. The report ran to 672 pages and drew on field research, data, interviews, and mapping, reflecting the influence of early Chicago sociology while keeping a close eye on everyday life in the city.
What makes the Commission memorable as an "author" is the scale of its ambition. Rather than treating the riot as an isolated event, it looked at migration, jobs, housing, discrimination, policing, and neighborhood tensions together, creating a document that remains an important historical source on Black life in Chicago and on race relations in the United States.