{"id":252927,"date":"2026-07-13T02:28:32","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T23:28:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/a-few-red-drops-claire-hartfield\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T02:28:32","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T23:28:32","slug":"a-few-red-drops-claire-hartfield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/a-few-red-drops-claire-hartfield\/","title":{"rendered":"A Few Red Drops – Claire Hartfield"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Three weeks later he wrote, \u201cEverything is just like they say, if not better.\u201d He made arrangements to bring his family to join him\u2014 first his wife to set up house; later, when all was ready, Mrs. Hunter would bring their six children. A little down the way, in Hattiesburg, the Defender was generating excited conversation at Robert Horton\u2019s barbershop. Proud of his shop\u2019s status as the community hub, Horton took forty to fifty copies of the Defender every week, magnanimously distributing them to customers at cost. The Defender\u2019s talk of political freedom in the North fascinated him.<\/p>\n

Blacks didn\u2019t just have the right to vote; they had the right to vote their own into office. Horton could think of no greater satisfaction. But he was cautious. His barbershop, his Hattiesburg clientele, was his livelihood. It seemed too risky to go up north and start from scratch. He had been tempted once, when he traveled to New Orleans to attend his daughter\u2019s graduation from Straight University. Looking to pass some time while his daughter was otherwise engaged, he had sauntered down to the local barbershop, where he met a man who was talking up the North, promising a bushelful of jobs, offering free train tickets to Chicago.<\/p>\n

Horton shook his head. He wasn\u2019t ready. But he couldn\u2019t dismiss the idea, and he mulled it over with family and friends when he returned home to Hattiesburg. Moving day in the Black Belt. The word was spreading. Someone up north had sent a letter to someone in Georgia, and that letter was carefully handed from person to person, winding its way across state lines to Laurel, Mississippi, where it was taken up and read out loud at a meeting of the Sisters Home Mission.<\/p>\n

Back in nearby Hattiesburg, a family\u2014the Martins (first names unknown)\u2014decided to test the waters. Mr. Martin went up first and reported back that wages in Chicago were high and that for the first time in his life, he felt like a man. Sell everything and join me, he told his wife.<\/p>\n

Mrs. Martin showed the letter to her friends, who were excited, and to her pastor, who was very much against it. But she paid him no mind. She sold her house, chickens, cow, and as much furniture as she could, and led a group of ten to Chicago.<\/p>\n

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New York, New York 10016 Copyright \u00a9 2018 by Claire Hartfield All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to trade.permissions@hmhco.com or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016. Clarion Books is an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Cover photograph: Chicago Skyline, by Kaufmann & Fabry Co., retrieved from the Library of Congress Cover design by Lisa Vega www.hmhco.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.<\/p>\n

ISBN 978-0-544-78513-7 eISBN 978-1-328-69904-6 v1.1217 1kitap1.com\/en To Emily, Caroline, Corinne\u2014and the generations of young people who will shape the future. 1kitap1.com\/en Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember. Then\u2014I forget. \u2014Carl Sandburg \u201cI Am the People, the Mob\u201d 1kitap1.com\/en 1kitap1.com\/en PROLOGUE ON A LAZY SUMMER SUNDAY in 1919, fourteen-year-old John Harris and his friends set out for a fun-filled, beat-the-heat afternoon at the beach. On that fateful July day, the boys\u2019 water play went dreadfully wrong, sparking a blood-soaked race riot that would shake the city of Chicago and send shock waves across the nation.<\/p>\n

The rage didn\u2019t appear out of nowhere that day on the beach. It had been a long time coming, born in the city\u2019s beginnings, written in the countless daily interactions of ordinary citizens and city leaders. Black migrants up from the South clashed with white immigrants from Europe; laborers and union leaders struggled to hold their own against mighty industrialists; police officers and gang members strove to control the streets; Democratic aldermen and a Republican mayor faced off over patronage and power.<\/p>\n

This is the story of their conflicting interests built over time, layer upon layer, ultimately exploding in bloodshed on the city\u2019s streets. It is also America\u2019s story. 1kitap1.com\/en PART ONE CATALYST Aerial view of a Chicago beach. And so I say On a summer\u2019s day, What\u2019s so fine as being a boy? Ha, Ha!<\/p>\n

\u2014Paul Laurence Dunbar, \u201cA Boy\u2019s Summer Song\u201d 1kitap1.com\/en ONE THE BEACH THE DATE WAS JULY 27, 1919, a day that would forever change the life of John Turner Harris and cause the whole city of Chicago to rethink where it had been and where it was headed.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.<\/em><\/p>\n

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