Thread by @NPR

1/ 100 years ago today, a black teenager named Eugene Williams inadvertently crossed a line separating the black & white sections of a beach in Chicago.

A white beachgoer, insulted, threw rocks, causing Williams to drown.

The event ignited 1 of the U.S.'s bloodiest race riots.

2/ In 1919, tensions in Chicago had been simmering — the city was changing fast and there was fierce competition for jobs and housing.

But Williams' death sparked the city's riots.

When a white policeman refused to arrest the white man who'd caused Williams' death, anger grew.

3/ The tale of Williams' death — and of a distraught black beachgoer who'd fired a gun at police and was then shot dead — angered groups of young white men.

Some drove through Chicago's black neighborhoods, firing at homes or assaulting any black person that crossed their path.

4/ A group of National Guard reserve men who'd returned from France after fighting in WWI, broke into an armory and grabbed guns, determined to protect black lives & property.

The resistance offset the riot. In the end, 38 people died and some 1,000 black homes were burned.

5/5 But Chicago wasn't the only site of the 1919 race riots — what would come to be called the country's "Red Summer."

More than 2 dozen cities throughout the U.S. had race riots that occurred for several months that summer.

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npr.org/sections/codes…