Media 2070 FINAL - Flipbook - Page 13
"Chicago Beach" by Edzed Photography
I. A Day at the Beach
THE STORY OF EUGENE WILLIAMS
Eugene Williams was 17 years old in 1919 and worked at a
local grocery store.1
His parents John and Luella had ventured from their
birthplaces in South Carolina and Georgia to the big city of
Chicago, with a young Eugene in tow. They likely rented
a room when they arrived and were excited to start a new
life with their little boy away from the Jim Crow South.2
people were allowed, with his friends and their great raft.5
Eugene was sailing his vessel when witnesses say he
drifted into the unofficial whites-only waters near 29th
Street. That’s when a 24-year-old white man standing on
the beach threw rocks at Eugene and his raft. The attack
caused Eugene to drown.6
And in 1919, during a typical hot Chicago summer, their
teenage son and his friends decided to build a raft.3
Police arrived at the scene and arrested a Black man rather
than Eugene’s attacker. A fight broke out, and the violence
escalated into rioting across Chicago.7
Eugene’s friend John Turner Harris said later that the raft
was about 14 by 9 feet, “a tremendous thing.”4 One can
only imagine the anticipation Eugene felt as he arrived
at Lake Michigan near the 25th Street beach where Black
Newspapers paid little attention to Eugene’s life. Only
the local Black-owned newspaper, The Chicago Defender,
posted a photograph of him in the weeks following his
murder.8
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