Charles S. Johnson, Robert E. Park and the research methods of the Chicago Commission on Race Relations, 1919-22: an early experiment in applied social research.

The article focuses on Chicago Commission on race relations. It probed the Chicago race riots of 27 July to 8 August, 1919, in which thirty eight people died and 537 were injured. Chicago race riots began when a Black was stoned by Whites on the twenty-ninth Street beach at the lake shore and was drowned. When the White police was called to the scene, they refused to write complaints against the stone-throwers. But they arrested one Black onlooker on the complaint of a White. Blacks at the scene attacked Whites, the police retaliated and the rioting began. Two initiatives for the formulation of a policy on race relations occurred during rioting. On 30 July, eleven leading citizens suggested to the Illinois governor a commission of five to eight members. Two days later, on 1 August a powerful appeal was issued to the governor by a meeting asking him to appoint an emergency state committee to study the psychological, social and economic causes underlying conditions resulting in the present race riots. The commission was unusual in having equal representatives of both races.