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71 4 SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS Back home in Chicago, I was soon working again as a waiter on the Michigan Central Railroad. As I have already mentioned, the first day of the bloody Chicago Race Riot (July 28, 1919) came while I was working on the Wolverine run up through Michigan. When I arrived home from work that afternoon, the whole family greeted me emotionally. We were all there except for Otto. The disagreements I had had with my father in the past were forgotten. Both my mother and my sister were weeping. Everyone was keyed up and had been worrying about my safety in getting from the station to the house. Following our brief reunion, I tore loose from the family to find out what was happening outside. I went to the Regimental Armory at Thirty-Fifth and Giles Avenue because I wanted to find some of my buddies from the regiment. The street, old Forrest Avenue, had recently been renamed in honor of Lieutenant Giles, a member of our outfit killed in France. I knew they would be planning an armed defense, and I wanted to get in on the action. I found them, and they told me of their plans. It was rumored that Irishmen from west of the Wentworth Avenue dividing line were planning to invade the ghetto that night, coming in across the tracks by way of Fifty-First Street. We planned a defensive action to meet them. It was not surprising that defensive preparations were under way. There had been clashes before, often when white youths in “athletic clubs” invaded the Black community. These “clubs” were really racist gangs, organized by city ward heelers and precinct captains. One of the guys from the regiment took us to the apartment of a friend. It had a good position overlooking Fifty-First Street near State Street. Someone hadbroughtaBrowningsubmachinegun;he’dgottenitsometimebefore,most likely from the Regimental Armory. We didn’t ask where it had come from, or about the origin of the 1903 Springfield rifles (army issue) that appeared. We set to work mounting the submachine gun and set up watch for the invaders . Fortunately for them, they never arrived, and we all returned home in the morning. The following day it rained, and the National Guard moved into the Black community, so overt raids by whites did not materialize. Ourswasnottheonlygroupthatuseditsrecentarmytrainingforself-defense 72 Searching for Answers of the Black community. We heard rumors about another group of veterans who set up a similar ambush. On several occasions, groups of whites had driven a truck at breakneck speed up South State Street, in the heart of the Black ghetto, with six or seven men in the back firing indiscriminately at the people on the sidewalks. The Black veterans set up their ambush at Thirty-Fifth and State, waiting in a car with the engine running. When the whites on the truck came through, they pulled in behind and opened up with a machine gun. The truck crashed into a telephone pole at Thirty-Ninth Street; most of the men in the truck had been shot down, and the others fled. Among them were several Chicago police officers—“off duty,” of course! I remember standing before the Angeles Flats on Thirty-Fifth and Wabash, where the day before four Blacks had been shot by police. It appeared that enraged Blacks had set fire to the building and were attacking some white police officers when the latter fired on them. Along with other Blacks, I gloated over the mysterious killing of two Black cops with a history of viciousness in the Black community. They had been found dead in an alley between State and Wabash. Undoubtedly they had been killed by Blacks who had taken advantage of the confusion to settle old scores with these Black enforcers of the white man’s law. Bewilderment and shock struck the Black community as well. I had seen Blacks standing before the burned-out buildings of their former homes, trying to salvage whatever possible. Apparent on their faces was bewilderment and anger. The Chicago riot of 1919 was a pivotal point in my life. Always I had been hot-tempered and never took any insults lying down. This was even more true after the war. I had walked out of a number of jobs because of my refusal to take any crap from anyone. My experiences abroad in the army and at home with the police left me totally disillusioned about being able...

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