The Chicago Commission on Race Relations was a non-partisan, interracial investigative committee, appointed by Illinois governor Frank Lowden. The commission was set up after the Chicago riots of July and August 1919 in "which thirty-eight lives were lost, twenty-three Negros and fifteen whites, and 537 persons were injured".The purpose of the commission was to investigate the causes of the Riot and make recommendations to prevent a tragedy like this from reoccurring. The research was the first extensive research on interracial Black-white relations conducted in Chicago funded by a government agency.