Eugene Williams was 17 years old when he became a victim of the deadly “Red Summer” race riots over 100 years ago. On Saturday, a Chicago-area cemetery will place a marker at his grave.
A Chicago-area cemetery will add a marker on Saturday to the grave of Eugene Williams, the first victim to die in one of the worst race riots in U.S. history, more than 100 years after he was buried.
Mr. Williams was a 17-year-old Black grocery worker who drowned on July 27, 1919, after a white man threw stones at him and his friends as they floated on a raft in Lake Michigan. Mr. Williams’s death sparked a fierce argument between Black and white people at the beach that day, leading to five days of racial violence that paralyzed Chicago and left 38 dead and many more injured or displaced.
The new grave marker, which will be located at Lincoln Cemetery near the city’s South Side, joins similar efforts around the country to honor victims of past racial violence. Events include ceremonies this year marking the 100th anniversary of aA history center opened in June in the Greenwood area of the city where the violence occurred. Also in June, officials unveiled a historical marker describing the lynching of a Black man and a riot in Omaha, Neb., in 1919.
“I wanted to give him a proper grave,” said Tammy Gibson, who led the Chicago effort. “I wanted to correct a wrong, and I love history.” With the help of the Sigma Omega Foundation, a charitable organization of the Chicago chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc., a Black fraternity, as well as several activists, Ms. Gibson raised the roughly $4,500 needed for a marker. The marker describes the circumstances of his death and rioting that followed.
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