Eve Ewing: ‘This Is A Tough History To Tell’

In 1919, Chicago erupted into race riots after white beachgoers killed a Black teen named Eugene Williams. Poet Eve Ewing tells the story of that so-called "Red Summer" in her poetry collection 1919. Now, playwright J. Nicole Brooks has re-imagined Ewing's poems as a play, which debuts at the Steppenwolf Theatre on Oct. 4. Reset sits down with Ewing about the adaptation, the emotional weight of that summer in 1919, and how it continues today.