Cicero race riot of 1951

The aftermath of World War II saw a revival of white attacks on blacks in the Chicago area, mostly on the city's South and Southwest Sides, but also in the western industrial suburb of Cicero.

[1] In early June 1951, Mrs. DeRose, who owned an apartment building at 6139–43 W. 19th Street in Cicero, got into a controversy with her tenants and was ordered to refund a portion of the rent.

Afterwards, out of anger and/or profit, she rented an apartment to Harvey E. Clark Jr., an African-American World War II veteran and graduate of Fisk University, and his family in an all-white neighborhood.

On July 11, 1951, at dusk, a crowd of 4,000 whites[1] attacked the apartment building that housed the Clark family and their possessions.

[2] The Cook County grand jury failed to indict any of the accused rioters, instead indicting Clark's attorney from the NAACP (George N. Leighton, later a federal judge; his own defense counsel would be future Justice of the Supreme Court Thurgood Marshall[4]), the owner of the apartment building, and the owner's rental agent and lawyer on charges of inciting a riot and conspiracy to damage property.

[2][5][6] A federal grand jury then indicted four Cicero officials and three police officers on charges of violating Clark's rights in connection with the race riots after the United States Attorney General launched an investigation of the incident.

[2][7] Charges were dropped against the fire chief, whose firefighters refused to direct their water hoses at the rioters when requested by the police, and the town's president.

The Cicero Race Riot of 1951 lasted several nights, involved two- to five thousand white rioters, and received worldwide condemnation.

The press reports in the 1940s Chicago housing attacks were largely ignored, but when the eruption occurred in Cicero in 1951, it brought worldwide condemnation for the first time and a dramatic climax to an era of large-scale residential change.