Running Tour of A Few Red Drops with CRR19

Read & Run Chicago is partnering with the The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 Commemoration Project (CRR19) and Lookingglass Theater for a special, one-of-a-kind running tour commemorating the 1919 Chicago Race Riot on the same day and in the same place the multi-day riots began over 100 years ago.

The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 is long forgotten, despite its huge impact on the subsequent shape and development of the city. Runners will stop at various locations in Bronzeville featured in Claire Hartfield’s book A Few Red Drops and learn more about the devastating and lasting impact the events had on the city. Starting and ending from the Eugene Williams Memorial Marker, 125 Fort Dearborn Drive, Chicago (¼ mile north of 31st Street Beach), this running event includes an easy-paced loop in Bronzeville to visit important sites in our city’s memory of this tragic injustice. At the end of our route, runners will have the option to watch the free Lookingglass Theater performance of Sunset 1919, an artistic ritual featuring music, movement, art and word, commemorating the start of the 1919 Chicago Race Riot.

A portion of ticket sale profits will be donated to CRR19.

This event is child friendly, so parents: please feel free to bring your children to start teaching them about this important event in our city’s history!

The TL;DR:

MEET: Plan to meet the group between 4:30pm-4:45pm on Sunday, July 27 at the Eugene Williams Memorial Marker, 125 Fort Dearborn Drive, Chicago (¼ mile north of 31st Street Beach). We strongly recommend you arrive by public transportation, bike/Divvy, or ride share. If you decide to drive, please read here for driving and parking directions and plan to arrive with enough time to find nearby parking.

ROUTE: We'll run an easy-paced (~11:00 min/mile), 5-mile loop starting and ending at the Eugene Williams Memorial Marker, 125 Fort Dearborn Drive, Chicago (¼ mile north of 31st Street Beach).

END: Our run ends at the Eugene Williams Memorial Marker, 125 Fort Dearborn Drive, Chicago (¼ mile north of 31st Street Beach) by 6:55pm. We will stay to watch Lookingglass Theater’s free outdoor performance of Sunset 1919, an artistic ritual featuring music, movement, art and word, commemorating the start of the 1919 Chicago Race Riot.

We will provide light bites and some fuel samples, but we encourage you to bring food and picnic supplies to enjoy while watching the performance.

INCLEMENT WEATHER PLAN: If it becomes unsafe to run outside, we will hold a modified version of the event at the venue starting at 5:00pm. You will be notified via email no later than 4pm on Sunday, July 27 if there are any changes to the event.

All ticket holders will receive reminder emails and details 2 days and 4 hours prior to the event.

About your hosts:

Peter Cole: Peter Cole is a professor of history at Western Illinois University and a research associate in the Society, Work and Development Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. Cole is the author of the award-winning Dockworker Power: Race and Activism in Durban and the San Francisco Bay Area and Wobblies on the Waterfront: Interracial Unionism in Progressive-Era Philadelphia. He has also edited Ben Fletcher: The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly and co-edited Wobblies of the World: A Global History of the IWW.

Allison Yates: Allison (she/her) spends her free time traveling, freelance writing, running, reading, and jumping in Lake Michigan (when it's not freezing!), among other hobbies. Read more about her story.

CRR19: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 Commemoration Project (CRR19) exists to commemorate the worst incident of racial violence in the city’s history. The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 is long forgotten, despite its huge impact on the subsequent shape and development of the city. CRR19 will offer a powerful model for how to use dispersed public art to remember past atrocities and provoke conversations about their legacy to ignite conversations about racism, past and present, in Chicago and the nation. Inspired by Stolpersteine, an ongoing German project to honor Holocaust victims, we intend to create and install artistic markers at each of the 38 locations where someone was killed in 1919. Formally launched on the 100th anniversary of the 1919 riot, we believe that now is the moment for Chicago to confront its bloodiest chapter and heal the wounds that time alone has not. We must remember America’s troubled past of racial violence and white supremacy if we wish to improve the future. To move towards racial equality and justice by creating chances for more discussions and more challenging ones about race and racism, past and present.

Read & Run Chicago is a chapter of Read & Run Tours, LLC, the country’s first and only organization that hosts running events inspired by books. Founded in 2021 by queer educator, freelance writer, and runner Allison Yates, the mission of Read & Run Tours, LLC and the city chapters is to use movement and stories to explore locations. Our community-focused run programming includes running tours, book club runs, author talks, and other literary-themed fun runs all inspired by books set in the cities where chapters are located, written by local authors. While connecting runners to the city’s stories, we also actively support literacy programs, public libraries, independent bookstores, and local authors.

In Chicago, we have hosted more than 100 events (in English and Spanish) for over 300 Chicagoans, featuring over 30 authors or local experts, and we have been featured in various media outlets including CNN, Runner’s World, Midwest Living, NBC’s Chicago Today, Fox32 Good Day Chicago, WGN Radio, Block Chicago, and more.

More information at readandrunchicago.com, Instagram, and Facebook.

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