Eugene Williams

People

Eugene Williams

Outcome

unknown

On July 27, 1919, Eugene Williams, a 17-year-old African American, drowned in Lake Michigan after being struck in the head with a rock thrown by George Stauber, a 24-year-old white man. Williams and four friends had constructed a homemade raft and ventured into the lake from the 25th Street beach to escape the summer heat. They inadvertently drifted across an invisible line that divided the waters by race, entering waters near the 29th Street beach designated for white use only. Stauber threw rocks at the five Black boys until one struck Williams on the right side of his forehead, causing him to slide off the raft and drown. Williams's murder, and the police refusal to arrest his killer, sparked the Chicago Race Riot of 1919. Williams was born on March 10, 1902, and worked as a porter earning $18 per week. He lived at 3921 S. Prairie Avenue in the Black Belt (now Bronzeville) with his parents John and Luella Williams, who had migrated from Georgia to Chicago around 1908-1909, preceding the formal Great Migration of World War I. The first police officer at the scene, Daniel Callahan, refused to arrest Stauber. When a Black officer attempted to make the arrest, Callahan refused to allow it. This blatant failure of justice—a white man killing a Black child in broad daylight with no arrest—became the immediate spark for eight days of racial violence that left 38 people dead. George Stauber was eventually charged with manslaughter, but on May 27, 1920, he was acquitted by Judge Kavanaugh in a jury trial. Officers Daniel M. Callahan, Dennis S. Keating, and Dominick Feeney were charged with neglect of duty for failing to arrest Stauber, but all were exonerated by civil service proceedings. Eugene Williams was buried in an unmarked grave at Lincoln Cemetery in Blue Island, Illinois. For nearly a century, his grave went unrecognized. In 2018, a monument was finally unveiled at his gravesite through the efforts of local historian Tammy Gibson and community members working to preserve the history of the 1919 riot.