The Chicago Race Riot of 1919, the most intense of the riots that comprised the "Red Summer" of violence across the nation's cities, is an event that has shaped the last century but is widely unknown. In 1919, award-winning poet Eve L. Ewing explores the story of this event--which lasted eight days and resulted in thirty-eight deaths and almost 500 injuries--through poems recounting the stories of everyday people trying to survive and thrive in the...

""The Ordeal of the Jungle" boldly revises previous scholarship regarding Chicago's labor movement in the World war I era. It examines the failures of the Chicago Federation of Labor to build a progressive, interracial organization. Following failed strikes and a tumultuous time, the Chicago Race Riot of 1919 shattered the CFL's tenuous interracial alliance."--Provided by publisher.