On July 30, 1919, the Chicago Tribune reported that nine playgrounds had closed, street sweeping and garbage removal were suspended in the second and third wards, and maintenance and construction on streets, sewers, and other public works throughout the city had ground to a halt. The disruption was due in part to strikes by streetcar drivers and water pipe construction crews, but the primary cause was the terror felt by thousands of African American municipal workers as mobs of white men and boys rampaged through the city attacking Black people. Only a quarter of the workforce at the municipal garbage reduction plant showed up for work, and three of the city's asphalt plants were shuttered due to lack of labor. Fifteen hundred city laborers were laid off, “most of them colored,” and the commissioner of public works ordered five hundred Black laborers in streets, sewers, and construction to remain home...

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