Attacking Black Chicago has long been part of the white supremacist playbook. Five hundred Black men are arrested in a night of terror as hundreds of police, who “would not dare to launch such a campaign in a white community unless they were engaged in a “red” raid,” descend on Chicago’s South Side claiming to be after a single assailant of a dead cop.

‘Chicago Police Attack Negro Neighborhoods’ from The Daily Worker. Vol. 3. No. 287. December 18, 1926.

THE Chicago police force, following the shooting of an officer by a Negro bandit, inaugurated a reign of terror in the South Side Negro district Wednesday night.

According to the capitalist press, 350 arrests were made during the search for the criminal.

The Herald and Examiner story, written in a lyrical tone, says:

THE HUNT BY THE POLICE PROGRESSED THRU THE NIGHT. MANY HOMES WERE INVADED. IN SOME CASES OFFICERS SMASHED DOORS WHEN THERE WAS DELAY IN ADMITTING THEM.

Some months ago Assistant State’s Attorney McSwiggin was shot to death by machine guns in the hands of underworld elements in Cicero. To date, there has not been a single indictment.

Neither was there any widespread raid during which homes were broken into nor were there 350 arrests.

It seems plain the police have taken advantage of the fact that out of the dozens of hold-ups and murders committed in Chicago in the last month one was committed by Negroes.

There is no shadow of excuse for the manner in which the police were turned loose upon the South Side and they would not dare to launch such a campaign in a white community unless they were engaged in a “red” raid.

The leaders of the Negro race in Chicago should organize mass protests against the outrages perpetrated by the Chicago police–a police force so notoriously connected with crime and vice of all kinds that it is able only to work with a free hand in a section of the city inhabited by a suppressed racial minority which it thinks is unable to make an effective protest.

The Negro organizations should show the city authorities that they are mistaken in this belief and the matter should be handled in a way that will leave no room for doubt as to the resentment of the Negro race and its determination to prevent such outrages in the future.

We hold no brief for criminal elements. Neither do the Chicago Negroes, but the Chicago police force must not be allowed to create the impression that it is only on the South Side that robberies and murders occur.

CHICAGO POLICE ARREST 500 INNOCENT VICTIMS IN MANHUNT THRU CITY’S NEGRO NEIGHBORHOODS

Armed with shotguns and tear bombs, fifteen bureau squads and 600 uniformed police swooped down on Negro districts in Chicago Wednesday night, terrorizing the inhabitants and arresting more than 600 Negro men indiscriminately. The excuse for the raid on the Negros, which resulted in throwing innocent persons into crowded jails overnight, was the hunt for the slayer of Patrolman Julian Bonfield, who is claimed to be a Negro. Practically every recreation hall and cafe on the south side was raided by the police, who herded the Negroes into police wagons, giving few of them opportunity to demonstrate they had no possible connection with the crime.

The raids began Wednesday afternoon and lasted until early Thursday morning

None Identified.

Thursday all of the arrested Negroes were taken to the Wabash station and forced to submit to examination by witnesses of the slaying of the policeman at the University Extension Conservatory, 742 East 41st street.

None of those arrested were identified by the witnesses and the police reluctantly released most of the Negroes, holding some they claimed have “records.”

The police chief and mayor’s office Thursday was bombarded with telephone calls from Negro leaders protesting the unwarranted arrests of innocent men. Rough treatment of the а Negroes by the officers was also charged and protested.

Throw Tear Bomb.

At a recreation hall at 3010 South State street the police threw a tear bomb thru the transom when the Negroes refused to open the door to admit the raiders. Suffocation caused by the bomb caused the terror-stricken men to open the door. Twenty-eight were grabbed by the police here. All of them were released later.

Indignation Spreads.

Indignation against the police action is spreading throughout the Negro districts today. The action of the police in arresting 500 persons in connection with a crime involving one person is branded as indefensible and outrageous by leaders of the race.

Police Try to Cover Up.

The police department had been severely criticized for its slowness in sending officers to the scene of the crime, and it is believed the officials conducted the raid in a desperate attempt to cover up their inefficiency in the case.

Patrolman Bonfield was killed when he appeared on the scene of the robbery of the conservatory. It was an half hour after he was killed before other police arrived, it is reported.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1926/1926-ny/v03-n294-NY-dec-28-1926-DW-LOC.pdf