This weekend, I bought a first edition copy of a book titled “The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot” by the Chicago Commission on Race Relations. The book published in 1922 is a very comprehensive review of the events that led up to Chicago’s “Red Summer” riots.

In reading the chapter on crime and the Negro in Chicago, I came across this paragraph:

“In its inquiry the Commission met the following current beliefs among whites in regard to the Negro criminal:

That the Negro is more prone than the white to commit sex crimes, particularly rape; that he commits a disproportionate number of crimes involving felonious cuttings and slashings; that the recent migrant from the South is more likely to offend than the Negro who has resided longer in the North; and that Negroes willingly tolerate vice and vicious conditions in the midst of their residence districts.”

This was written in the early 1920s but one could hear similar sentiments being expressed in 2013…