Join Facing History & Ourselves and Chicago Public Schools Department of Social Science and Civic Engagement virtually to learn about the new unit The Red Summer in Chicago. The new CPS vision for Social Science emphasizes that students are engaging in culturally relevant and sustaining content through the practices of inquiry. This means that all of our students' identities, experiences and histories are fully reflected across the social sciences. This unit was constructed to align to this vision, which sheds light on a defining moment in Chicago’s history: a week-long episode of racial violence in 1919 that claimed the lives of thirty-eight people.
Though it was a watershed event in local history, the violence was part of a nationwide wave of racist violence against African Americans (and in smaller numbers, Mexican Americans) that occurred from April to November of 1919. Legacies of this “Red Summer” are essential to confront in developing an understanding of the systemic racial injustice, in general, and in the city of Chicago today.
This unit is intended for 10th grade US History teachers. Educators of Ethnic Studies, African American History, Chicago History, and Contemporary American History are invited to apply.
