Most people view race relations in the United States in the context of their own times. I would even be willing to bet that most non-black Americans know little about any civil rights issues that roiled the country in the days before they were born. Since I was coming of age in the late 1960s, many of my views on the subject had been shaped for better or worse by events that took place during that turbulent decade. But I always knew there had to be more to the story than the simplistic bad Southerner/good Northerner hogwash most of us were fed in school. Race Riot offers those of open minds an opportunity to learn that racism is a lot more complicated than a mere dislike of a group because of skin color.
My family is from Chicago and I got my copy of this book from my maternal grandfather who was interested in all things Chicago and who according to notes in the front of the book remembered exactly where he was when the troubles began. This made it doubly exciting for me to read. In Race Riot, author Tuttle starts by recounting the incident that ignited the racial tinderbox that Chicago had become in the years leading up to the riot's eruption. He covers in great detail the issues of overcrowding, the massive infux of rural Southern blacks and their subsequent ghettoization, inter-ethnic labor competition, the cynical policies of Chicago's city leaders, and any social and economic factors that led to polarization of feelings between the races. He writes of the New Negro, recently back from the war in Europe, who had heightened expectations of social and economic progress. And he writes of corrupt politicians, black and white, whose graft and conniving had helped turn black neighborhoods into crime-ridden cesspools of vice and degeneracy. Most importantly, Tuttle gives the reader a glimpse of the history of race-related riots in the US dating from the days before the Civil War on up through the ones in the early 20th century that did so much to fuel a sense of frustration among Chicago's black residents.
Race Riot is not a perfect book by any means and often is steeped in a pioneer style of mealy-mouthed political correctness, but it is still a valuable tool for students of the history of black-white relations in the United States. Tuttle doesn't bore the reader with irrelevant details but the book is heavily footnoted so those who want to learn more have a multitude of sources to which they can turn. If this is a subject that interests you, then you are sure to find this an absorbing read.