1919

The Chicago Race Riot of 1919, the most intense of the riots comprising the nation's Red Summer, has shaped the last century but is not widely discussed. 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 city. Ewing uses speculative and Afrofuturist lenses to recast history, and illuminates the thin line between the past and the present."The ebb and flow of energy in her reading includes an onset of repetition, lullaby singing, and cultural vernacular. Ewing is youthful in her lullabies but clearly an adult in her descriptions when she speaks of the drowning of Eugene Williams and the onset of violent acts."---AudioFile