A historic photo collection documenting the 1919 Chicago Race Riot has been donated by the DuSable to the Center on Cottage Grove and is now on public display.
The exhibition, titled “Troubled Waters: Chicago 1919 Race Riot,” features 24 rare images captured during the unrest that followed the murder of Black teenager Eugene Williams at Lake Michigan.
The photographs were gifted by the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center to the Center on Halsted, and they are being shown at the Center on Cottage Grove—the Center’s South Side location at 6323 S. Cottage Grove Ave.—through February 2026.
Center on Halsted leaders say the gift is both an honor and a responsibility.
“We are grateful to the DuSable for sharing this collection with us,” said Center on Halsted CEO Joli Robinson. “These photographs offer a somber reflection on a painful chapter in our city’s history and remind us that knowing and confronting our past is crucial to understanding the present and shaping a more just future.”
Robinson said the exhibition aligns with Center on Cottage Grove’s role as both a service center and an arts and cultural space for the Woodlawn community. The site regularly hosts exhibitions and installations curated with guidance from its advisory board, which meets monthly to shape programming responsive to the community’s needs and interests.
Robinson said the connection to the DuSable began with a member of the Cottage Grove advisory board who had ties to the museum and suggested the exhibition could have a new chapter “right down the street.”
The idea came in a brainstorming session about activating the Center on Cottage Grove space, Robinson said. She recalled board members asking, “Who can we partner with? What things for the art gallery space should we have displayed? Or do we have the opportunity to work with? Are there other artists? And so the suggestion was thrown out there about this exhibit that was at the DuSable.”
DuSable President and CEO Perri Irmer said the collaboration made immediate sense based on the organizations’ shared histories and values.
“The DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center is proud to support the Center on Halsted, an important community partner, with the gift of Chicago 1919,” Irmer said. “As others seek to erase or distort our history, the building of coalitions between organizations and institutions whose missions are aligned in truth and service are more important than ever.”
Irmer said she has a personal connection with the Center on Cottage Grove because her daughter serves on the advisory board. She was the one who connected the two organizations for the installation.
“She asked if they could borrow it,” Irmer said. “I said, you know, we would be happy to gift it to the center, because we would love to have an ongoing partnership with the center.”
Robinson said receiving the collection affirms the work the Cottage Grove team has been doing to build trust, belonging and cultural programming rooted in the community.
“I think it is huge, you know, beyond excited and grateful that DuSable would entrust us at the Center to have this gift,” Robinson said. “Being able to display it is a testament to the work that we’ve been doing.”
The photographs reflect one of the darkest episodes in the city’s history, but both leaders said the collection also highlights resilience and resistance.
“You know, our community history is one of resilience,” Robinson said. “And that is even more apparent when we remember our past and we look toward our future.”
Both leaders framed the exhibition as an opportunity to build solidarity across movements and communities rather than operate in separate spheres.
“It is just so important for us all to build a coalition of equal justice, equal rights, human rights, civil rights, health care rights, marriage equality—all of the things that we all stand for separately, we should stand for and will stand for together,” Irmer said.
Robinson said she hopes visitors leave with a sense of collective memory and collective responsibility.
“We are a resilient city, and we are resilient people,” Robinson said.