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November 6, 2013

Using Data – The Chicago Homicide Project

Filed under: Uncategorized @ 5:09 pm

Given the data Eugene Williams and July 27, 1919 I searched both the Chicago Homicide Project’s interactive database and Wikipedia.  Search results from both returned that Eugene Williams, a 17 year old African American was killed on July 27, 1919 in Chicago by a white man named Ges. Stauber on a segregated beach causing a race riot.

The data found in the Chicago Homicide Project’s interactive database for the homicide of Eugene Williams in Chicago on July 27, 1919 gives a succinct accounting of the who, what, where, and when of the crime and the why is even provided but the details surrounding the why are lacking and without this context researcher’s do not get a full understanding of the events surrounding the Chicago Race Riot of 1919.

The Wikipedia results provide same data about the who, what, where, and when but in more limited fashion because they focus on the why and the resulting Chicago Race Riots of 1919.

The database gives cause of death as drowning because victim was too tired after dodging rocks that were being thrown at him by Stauber.  When one of these rocks did strike him, he panicked and drowned.  Stauber’s motive was race related, negroes swimming on segregated beach and Stauber was acquitted of the crime.  Wikipedia backs this data up and provides even more background material on what caused the friction between the two races to begin with and how this incident in particular and the police handling of it fueled the race riots in Chicago during the summer of 1919.  Wikipedia’s source material is made up of secondary sources including books, magazine articles, newspaper articles and even a commission report on Chicago’s race relations and these appear to be very reliable even though it does not include the police report of the homicide of Eugene Williams which is the basis of the data in the Chicago Homicide Project’s interactive database.

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