White gangs even invented a new form, the drive-by shooting:
"Automobile raids were added to the rioting on Monday night. Cars from which rifle and revolver shots were fired were driven at great spead through sections inhabited by Negroes." (6) No white raiders were arrested and Blacks began "sniping" in retaliation. Chicago's Police Chief admitted to the Commission: "There is no doubt that a great many police officers were grossly unfair in making arrests. They shut their eyes to offenses committed by white men while they were veryvigorous in gettijng all the colored men they could get." (34). Twice as many blacks were arrested than whites.
The next day gang violence grew worse:
"A white gang of soldiers and sailors in uniform, augmented by civilians, raide the "Loop" or downtown section of Chicago, early Tuesday, killing two Negroes and beating and robbing several others…..Gangs sprang up as far south as Sixty-third Street in Englewood and in the section west of Wentworth Avenue near Forty-seventh Street. Premeditated depredations were the order of the night. Many Negro homes in mixed districts were attacked, and several of them were burned." Lasalle Street railroad station was invaded twice, with white gangs hunting for Black workers or riders (20).
...........
The worst of the white gangs were "Ragen's Colts," a gang whose turf extended from Cottage Grove to Ashland and from Forty-third to Sixty-third Street. The gang was sponsored by Cook County Commissioner Frank Ragen. Gang members boasted that they were "protected" and "tipped off" by police. The Colts even broke into a police station at 47th and Halstead and stole evidence, including firearms.
James T. Farrell's
Studs Lonigan gives a graphic fictional dipiction of Irish racism at the time and the terrorism and
bombings of Irish gangs. Many other
Black poets and writers, representing the "new Negro," more militant and race conscious than his parents, expressed pent up frustration.
