the large increase in Negro population did not bring into existence any
new large colonies but resulted in the expansion and increased density
of areas in which groups of Negroes already lived in 1910.
[Illustration: DISTRIBUTION OF NEGRO POPULATION 1910
DATA OBTAINED FROM FEDERAL CENSUS]
By far the largest number of Negroes in 1910 and 1920 lived in what
may be termed the old "South Side," which includes the original "Black
Belt" embracing the area from Twelfth to Thirty-first streets and from
Wentworth to Wabash avenues. This and other areas of Negro residence in
various parts of the city, with their approximate boundaries in 1910
and 1920 and their Negro population for both years, are listed here
under designations which are arbitrarily given for convenient reference;
they do not embrace the whole of each area commonly included under such
designations.
SOUTH SIDE
1910 boundaries: On the north, Twelfth Street; on the west,
Wentworth Avenue; on the south, Fifty-fifth Street; and on
the east, Indiana Avenue. Negro population, 34,335, or 11 per
cent of the total population of 311,049.
1920 boundaries: The same as in 1910. Negro population, 92,501,
or 24.6 per cent of the total population of 376,171.
WOODLAWN
1910 boundaries: On the north, Sixty-third Street; on the
west, Eberhart Avenue; on the south, Sixty-seventh Street;
and on the east, Grand Avenue. Negro population, 319; total
population, 4,783.
1920 boundaries: On the north, Sixty-first Street; on the west,
South Park Avenue; on the south, Sixty-seventh Street; and
on the east, Cottage Grove Avenue. Negro population, 1,235;
total population, 8,861.
LAKE PARK AVENUE AREA
1910 boundaries: On the north, Fifty-third Street; on the
west, Harper Avenue; on the south, Fifty-seventh Street; and
on the east, Lake Park Avenue. Negro population, 438.
1920 boundaries the same as in 1910. Negro population, 238.
OGDEN PARK AREA
(Vicinity of Ogden Park in Englewood)
1910 boundaries: On the north, Fifty-ninth Street; on the
west, Loomis Street; on the south, Sixty-third Street; and
on the east, Halsted Street. Negro population, 1,403; total
population, 25,880.
1920 boundaries the same as in 1910. Negro population, 1,859;
total population, 38,893.
MORGAN PARK AREA
1910 boundaries: On the north, 107th Street: on the west,
Vincennes Avenue; on the south, 111th Street; and on the east,
Loomis Street. Negro population, 126.
1920 boundaries, the same as in 1910, except on the south,
115th Street. Negro population, 695.
THREE MINOR COLONIES IN THE SOUTHERN DIVISION OF THE CITY
South Chicago in the vicinity of the steel plants bordering
on Lake Michigan at Ninety-first Street: 36 Negroes in 1910
and 117 in 1920.
Burnside, in the vicinity of South State and Ninety-first
streets: 2 Negroes in 1910 and 205 in 1920.
Oakwoods, in the vicinity immediately east of Oakwoods Cemetery,
between Sixty-seventh and Seventy-first streets: 52 Negroes
in 1919 and 58 in 1920.
WEST SIDE
1910 boundaries: On the north, Austin Avenue; on the west,
Western Avenue; on the south, Lake Street to Racine to
Washington to Halsted; on the east, Halsted Street. Negro
population, 3,379. This includes a scattering of Negroes living
immediately southwest of this area.
1920 boundaries: On the north, Austin Street; on the west,
California Avenue; on the south, Washington Boulevard; and on
the east, Morgan Street. Negro population, 8,363, including
scattered residents as far south as Twelfth Street.
NORTH SIDE
1910 boundaries: On the north, North Avenue; on the west,
Larrabee Street; on the south, Chicago Avenue; and on the
east, State Street. Negro population, 744.
1920 boundaries: The same as in 1910. Negro population, 1,050.
RAVENSWOOD
1910 boundaries: On the north, Lawrence Avenue; on the west,
Ashland Avenue; on the south, Montrose Avenue; and on the
east, Sheridan Road. Negro population, 105.
1920 boundaries: The same as in 1910. Negro population, 175.
The total Negro population in the north division of the city,
including the part designated "North Side," the Ravenswood
colony, and scattered residents in other parts, was 1,427 in
1910 and 1,820 in 1920.
B. NEIGHBORHOODS OF NEGRO RESIDENCE
While the principal colony of Chicago's Negro population is situated in a
central part of the South Side, Negroes are to be found in several other
parts of the city in proportions to total population ranging from less
than 1 per cent to more than 95 per cent. In some of these neighborhoods
whites and Negroes have become adjusted to one another; in others
they have not. There are numerous degrees of variation between the two
extremes. In this study the term "adjusted neighborhood" indicates one
in which whites and Negroes have become accommodated to each other, and
friction is either non-existent or negligible; "non-adjusted neighborhood"
is one where misunderstandings, dislikes, and antagonisms resulting from
contacts of any degree between whites and Negroes express themselves in
racial hostility, sometimes involving open clashes.
I. ADJUSTED NEIGHBORHOODS
1. THE SOUTH SIDE
The most striking example of "adjusted neighborhoods" is the district
known as the "Black Belt." Because 90 per cent of the Negroes of Chicago
live within this area, it is usually assumed that the district is 90
per cent Negro. This, however, is not the case. The area between Twelfth
and Thirty-ninth streets, Wentworth Avenue and Lake Michigan, includes
the oldest and densest Negro population of any section of its size in
Chicago. However, the actual numbers of whites and Negroes living there
are 42,797 and 54,906 respectively. In this area the Negro population has
increased gradually and without disturbance for many years. Although for
a long period Negroes were confined to the area bounded by State Street,
Wentworth Avenue, Twelfth, and Thirty-ninth streets, their movement
into the neighborhood east of State Street was ultimately looked upon
as a natural and expected expansion. Within the whole of this territory
a relationship exists, which, although perhaps not uniformly friendly,
yet is without friction or disorder. During the riot few white persons
living or engaged in business there were attacked by Negroes, who were
in the majority in many parts of the area. Many whites remaining in the
area, which was formerly all white, are small property owners who for
sentimental reasons prefer to live there. Numbers of family hotels and
large apartment houses there continue to be occupied by whites, who are
apparently little affected by the presence of 10 per cent more Negroes
than whites around them. Michigan Avenue and Grand Boulevard are the
streets into which Negroes have moved most recently. The only recorded
bombing within this area occurred on Grand Boulevard. The Grand Boulevard
district is affiliated with the Kenwood and Hyde Park Property Owners'
Association. Although the bombing was an expression of resentment against
Negroes because they moved into this block, there are circumstances
which indicate that the resentment did not come from the neighbors. For
example, the wife of a Negro physician owning and living in a house in
the same block was asked by her white neighbors to serve as chairman of
a committee to keep up the property in the neighborhood.
[Illustration: RACIAL CONTACTS AMONG CHILDREN IN AN ADJUSTED
NEIGHBORHOOD]
The first Negro family to move into the Vernon Avenue block immediately
south of Thirty-first Street bought its residence in 1911. It was five
years before another Negro family came. White neighbors, who were and are
very friendly, said this family's good care of its lawn was an example
for the whole block.
When an apartment house in which a Negro family lived on South Park
Avenue near Thirty-first Street was burned, white neighbors took them
into their home and kept them until another house was secured. At a
meeting of the City Club of Chicago a white man who had lived in this
area for forty years thus characterized the relations between whites
and Negroes living there:
Having lived on the South Side in what is now known as the
"Black Belt" for forty years, I can testify that I have never
had more honest, quiet, and law-abiding neighbors than those
who are of the African race, either full or mixed blood. In
the precinct where I live we have several families blessed
with many orderly and well-behaved children, of Caucasian and
African blood. They seem to get along nicely, and why should
they not?... There is no race question, it is a question of
intelligence and morality, pure and simple.
Occasional minor misunderstandings have resulted from contacts in this
area, but they have not been conspicuously marked by racial bitterness.
Objections, sometimes expressed when the tradition of an "all white"
neighborhood was first broken, disappeared as the neighbors came to know
each other. Long residence is apparently one condition of the adjustment
process.
_Expansion and adjustment._--The first noticeable expansion of the
Negro population following the migration in 1917 and 1918 was in the
area extending south from Thirty-ninth Street to Forty-seventh Street
on Langley, St. Lawrence, and Evans avenues. Negroes began moving into
this area early in 1917, first a few and finally in large numbers. There
is yet no compact group, for these Negro families, while numerous, are
well distributed. The experiences of some of the first families there
are interesting.
A Negro woman bought a piece of property on Langley Avenue, near
Forty-third Street, when every other family in the block was white.
The courtesy shown her by them was all that could be desired, she
declares. There are still six or eight white families in the block,
and they continue on the most friendly terms with her. A Negro woman
in another block has white neighbors all around her, but there has
been no racial objection or friction. Another, who owns her property
on Evans Avenue, has had no trouble with white families that remain in
the block. So with a Negro who rents from the Negro owner of a flat on
East Thirty-sixth Street. A Negro who has bought a home on St. Lawrence
Avenue near Forty-seventh Street declares that the white families living
thereabouts "treat my family right." In one block on St. Lawrence Avenue
a Negro family is surrounded by white neighbors, but no trouble has been
experienced. In a block on Langley Avenue another family of Negroes
has had no clashes with the white neighbors who compose most of the
neighborhood.
A woman who built her home in the 4800 block on Champlain Avenue, when
hers was the only Negro family there and has lived there ever since,
had no trouble with neighbors until other Negroes moved in. Then a white
woman circulated a petition for the purpose of compelling the Negroes to
move out. This effort failed. In another block on East Forty-sixth Street
a Negro family lives in a neighborhood which has a majority of whites,
but the relations have been amicable. An apartment house on Champlain
Avenue near Forty-sixth Street is occupied entirely by Negroes, though
there are white families all through the neighborhood. One Negro who
has lived there for three years says they have never been molested. A
pioneer Negro family in a white block on Vernon Avenue near Thirty-ninth
Street reports no trouble with the white neighbors.
[Illustration: DISTRIBUTION OF NEGRO POPULATION 1920
DATA OBTAINED FROM FEDERAL CENSUS]
Two women who were among the last of the whites to leave the Langley
Avenue vicinity say they always found the Negroes to be kindly neighbors.
A Negro family on Forty-first Street has been there a year without
friction with white neighbors. In another block on East Forty-second
Street a Negro woman reported that, though there are white people all
through the neighborhood, the two races get along peaceably. In the 400
block of East Forty-sixth Street a similar report is given. In still
another block on Champlain Avenue lives a woman who has been in the midst
of white families for a number of years without experiencing animosity.
On East Forty-second Street a Negro family has lived for three years in
similar freedom from racial friction.
In another instance a pioneer Negro family in a block otherwise wholly
white was well regarded by all except one of the neighbors. This white man
who voiced loudly his objections to the "invasion" was one who, because
of his drunken habits and troublesome nature, had long been considered
an undesirable neighbor by other whites in the block.
_Woodlawn._--Relations in Woodlawn, where the Negro population increase
has been relatively large, are for the most part friendly. There is
an association of Negro property owners interested in keeping up the
physical appearance of their homes in the neighborhood. No clashes have
been reported except one instance of a group of white boys from another
neighborhood throwing stones at a building where they saw Negroes.
Following the stirring up and organization of anti-Negro sentiment in
Hyde Park, an attempt was made to organize white Woodlawn property owners
against the invasion of the district by Negroes. This organization was
not a great success. There have been no bombings in this district, and
no concerted opposition to the presence of Negroes as neighbors. Long
residence together and the good character and conduct of both Negroes
and whites are probably important reasons for lack of friction.
2. THE WEST SIDE
A situation like that in the adjusted neighborhoods of the South Side
exists in the district bounded by Washington and Kinzie, Ashland and
California avenues, where there has been a settlement of Negroes for
many years. Houses are cheaper than on the South Side, and although the
general standard of workingmen's homes compares favorably with that on
the South Side, few of the abandoned good residences formerly occupied
by wealthy persons are available for Negroes. The densest and oldest
settlement of Negroes is within the boundaries named, although the Negro
residence area actually extends many blocks beyond them on all sides.
There has been little friction, though the area has 9,221 whites and
6,520 Negroes. South of Washington Boulevard occasional difficulties
have been met by the incoming Negro population, similar to those found
in areas where the most congested Negro population on the South Side is
spreading. On the West Side no bombings have occurred, although there
have been frequent protests against the expansion. Some streets have
come to be recognized as Negro streets.
In recent years many Negroes have bought homes on the West Side when
they could not easily find living quarters in or near the older Negro
residence areas on the South Side. Almost uniformly they keep their
homes in good condition, which cannot be said of all the Negroes who
settled early in this district. West Side Negroes, laborers for the most
part, are generally home-loving, hard-working, and desirous of improving
conditions for their children. Older settlers among them have been able
to make their adjustments without great difficulty and with no marked
antagonism from white neighbors.
Though occasionally trivial conflicts arise between Negro and white
neighbors, the attitude of whites in nearby areas is customarily friendly
if not cordial. For example, a Negro doctor has a considerable practice
among nearby Italians in the vicinity of the Chicago Commons Social
Settlement. At Chicago Commons itself no distinction is made with respect
to the few Negro families which at times make use of the facilities.
Children of these families have entered classes and clubs, and one of
them became a leader of a group.
The Poles who mainly occupy the neighborhood around the Northwestern
University Social Settlement are entirely friendly to Negroes. Three
years ago an educated Negro was at the head of the boys' department of
the settlement, and, with one exception, no one in that position has
made more friends among the boys and their families.
On the West Side, as on the South and North sides, Negroes have
established their own restaurants and barber shops and some groceries
and delicatessen stores. There are several theaters whose patronage is
largely Negro.
3. THE NORTH SIDE
On the North Side, Negroes live among foreign whites and near a residence
area of wealthy Chicagoans. Their first appearance occasioned little
notice or objection, since they were generally house servants living
near their work. The largest numbers are to be found between Chicago
Avenue and Division Street on North Wells, Franklin, and cross streets
connecting them.
This neighborhood has experienced several complete changes in population.
It was first occupied by Irish, then by Swedes, then by Italians. The
present neighbors of Negroes are Italians. As indicated by the population
changes, the neighborhood is old and run down, and the reasons given by
Negroes for living there are low rents and proximity to the manufacturing
plants where they work.
The Negroes there are renters, because the property, although undesirable
for residence purposes, is valuable for business and too expensive for
them to buy. The families are chiefly respectable, hard-working people.
They have their own barber and tailor shops and similar business places.
In social affairs they confine themselves largely to meetings, dances,
and similar gatherings held exclusively for their own race. Formerly
the second floor of a building on Division Street was frequently rented
by the Negroes for church and other meetings, and dances. Recently they
have found other meeting places, particularly for religious devotions.
Some of their social gatherings and meetings take place at Seward Park.
[Illustration: A SAVINGS BANK IN THE NEGRO RESIDENCE AREA ON SATURDAY
EVENING]
[Illustration: CHILDREN AT WORK IN A COMMUNITY GARDEN]
They are welcomed not only in Seward Park, one of the city's recreation
centers, but in the settlements. At Eli Bates House, 621 West Elm Street,
for example, there has been a club of Negro young men, and applications
have been received for admission of Negro children to some classes.
The head resident of the settlement reports, however, that it has not
had much contact with the Negro group. A few Negro children come to the
kindergarten; a group of Negro boys makes use of the gymnasium, and some
neighboring Negro families have asked settlement residents for advice.
In this neighborhood friendly relations exist between the Sicilians, who
predominate, and their Negro neighbors. Some Negroes live harmoniously
in the same tenements with the Sicilians. Their children play together,
and some Negro children have learned Sicilian phrases, so that they are
able to deal with the Sicilian shopkeepers.
Elsewhere on the North Side the feeling between Italians and Negroes is
not so cordial. During the riot of 1919, serious trouble was averted
on the North Side through prompt and effective efforts by the police
and members of the community. It was reported throughout the district
that automobiles loaded with armed Negroes were on their way from the
South Side to "shoot up the North Side." The Italians immediately armed
themselves and began to shoot recklessly. They were eventually quieted
by the police and others, and there was no retaliation of the Negroes.
Many Negroes who have purchased homes and lived on the North Side for
years report little opposition. One family on North Wells Street has lived
there since 1888 and now owns several valuable pieces of property. The
man had no trouble in buying property, and the whites have always been
friendly to them and to all Negroes in that section. Another Negro family
on North Wells Street, where Negroes first lived, had no difficulty in
getting their flat sixteen years ago. This block is occupied by whites
and Negroes without friction.
Minor expressions of antagonism attended the moving in of some Negro
families, but after several months the white neighbors accepted them
and now are on good terms with them.
II. NON-ADJUSTED NEIGHBORHOODS
Failure of adjustment between whites and Negroes has greatly accentuated
the difficulties of the housing problem for Negroes. When a general
shortage of housing is relieved there may still be a serious shortage for
Negroes because of the hostility of white neighborhoods. The sentiment
for "all-white" neighborhoods has grown with the increase in Negro
population and the threatened occupancy in small or large degree by
Negroes. These non-adjusted neighborhoods fall into distinct classes:
1. Neighborhoods of unorganized opposition. These are neighborhoods
where few Negroes live. Though contiguous they are sharply separated
from areas of Negro residence and are definitely hostile to Negroes,
even those passing through the neighborhood going to and from work, but
the hostility in them is unorganized.
2. Neighborhoods of organized opposition. (_a_) Neighborhoods in which no
Negroes live but which are in the line of Negro expansion. Opposition to
threatened invasion has been strong. As yet they are exclusively white,
and every effort is being made to keep them so. They are illustratively
treated here as "exclusive neighborhoods." (_b_) Neighborhoods in which
the presence of Negro residents is hotly contested, by organized and
unorganized efforts to oust them. These for convenience are termed
"contested neighborhoods."
1. NEIGHBORHOODS OF UNORGANIZED OPPOSITION
In Certain West Side neighborhoods white property owners objected to
the expansion of the principal Negro residence area of that section.
The pastor of the Negro Presbyterian Church on Washington Boulevard, who
came to Chicago in 1919, bought the houses at 2006 and 2008 Washington
Boulevard, in which white people had formerly lived. He moved into one
of them in May, 1919, and both he and his tenants in the other house
received warning letters advising them to move or take the consequences.
The last of these was received during the riot in July, 1919. No attention
was paid to them.
During the riots little trouble was experienced by the Negroes in the
West Side district, who generally remained in their own houses and
neighborhoods. Some became involved in clashes on their way to or from
work, but there was no serious clash.
The district west of Cottage Grove Avenue and south to Sixty-third Street
in Woodlawn is rather sparsely built up, most of the buildings being
one- and two-family houses. Numbers of white people in the neighborhood
believe that the district has been blighted because of the occasional
presence of Negroes.
On the North Side some hostility to Negroes was shown during the 1919
riot. One Negro, who had lived on North Franklin Street for five years
and in Chicago for thirty years, told of having been spit at by rowdy
Italians, and on another occasion threatened with shooting by young
roughs in a passing automobile. White neighbors, however, intervened.
Under pressure of the riot excitement, some Italian children pushed
through windows and doors pictures of skulls and coffins inked in red.
At the time of the riot Eli Bates House issued a circular deploring race
hatred and appealing for order and fairness.
Although the few Negroes living in the Lake Park Avenue area[19] have
experienced little opposition in their present homes, there has been no
Negro expansion there. The colony, has in fact, dwindled in size since
1910. It is made up largely of Negroes who were house servants for white
families near-by or worked in the hotels of the district.
Negroes of this colony are barred from all white restaurants in
the district except one place conducted by a Greek. In three of the
motion-picture houses they are not allowed to sit in the best seats. In
one of these theaters a sign reads, "We reserve the right to seat our
patrons to suit ourselves." Negroes are permitted in the balcony or in
the rear seats of the main floor.
On Langley, St. Lawrence, and adjoining streets south of Fifty-fifth
Street there is considerable friction resulting from the presence of
Negroes.
There are residence districts of Chicago adjacent to those occupied
by Negroes in which hostility to Negroes is so marked that the latter
not only find it impossible to live there, but expose themselves to
danger even by passing through. There are no hostile organizations in
these neighborhoods, and active antagonism is usually confined to gang
lawlessness. Such a neighborhood is that west of Wentworth Avenue,
extending roughly from Twenty-second to Sixty-third streets. The number
of Negroes living there is small, and most of them live on Ada, Aberdeen,
and Loomis streets, south of Fifty-seventh Street. In the section
immediately west of Wentworth Avenue and thus adjoining the densest Negro
residence area in the city, practically no Negroes live. In addition to
intense hostility, there is a lack of desirable houses. Wentworth Avenue
has long been regarded as a strict boundary line separating white and
Negro residence areas. The district has many "athletic clubs."[20] The
contact of Negroes and whites comes when Negroes must pass to and from
their work at the Stock Yards and at other industries located in the
district. It was in this district that the largest number of riot clashes
occurred.[21] Several Negroes have been murdered here, and numbers have
been beaten by gangs of young men and boys. A white man was killed by one
of two Negroes returning from work in that district, who declared that
they had been intimidated by the slain man. Speaking of this district,
the principal of the Raymond School, a branch of which is located west
of Wentworth Avenue, said that antagonism of the district against Negroes
appeared to have been handed down through tradition. He said:
We get a good deal of the gang spirit in the new school on the
other side of Wentworth Avenue. There seems to be an inherited
antagonism. Wentworth Avenue is the gang line. They seem to
feel that to trespass on either side of that line is ground
for trouble. While colored pupils who come to the school for
manual training are not troubled in the school, they have to
be escorted over the line, not because of trouble from members
of the school, but groups of boys outside the school. To give
another illustration, we took a little kindergarten group over
to the park. One little six-year-old girl was struck in the
face by a man. A policeman chased but failed to catch him.
The condition is a tradition. It is handed down.
2. NEIGHBORHOODS OF ORGANIZED OPPOSITION
"_Exclusive neighborhoods._"--In neighborhoods which are exclusive on
the basis of social class, whose restrictions apply to Negroes and the
majority of whites alike, the high price of property is a sufficient
barrier against Negroes; it is in the neighborhoods where property values
are within the means of Negroes that fears of invasion are entertained.
In many new real estate subdivisions houses are sold on easy payments.
Almost without exception these sections are exclusively for whites,
and usually it is so stated in the prospectus. Other sections longer
established come to notice when some incident provokes the expression
of opposition already organized and awaiting it.
Such a section is the neighborhood known as Park Manor and Wakeford.
This neighborhood lies between Sixty-ninth and Seventy-ninth streets,
and Cottage Grove and Indiana avenues. It is newly built, chiefly with
small dwellings, most of them not more than five years old. Many of the
residents had lived in a neighborhood to the north, nearer Woodlawn,
whose growth of Negro population had caused some of them to move. Park
Manor and Wakeford were startled by the following advertisement in the
_Chicago Daily News_ in July, 1920:
For sale--Colored Attention: homes on Vernon, South Park
and Indiana Aves. Sold on easy terms; come out and look this
locality over; Protestant neighborhood, Park Manor and Wakeford;
good transportation. Blair, 7455 Cottage Grove Avenue.
Blair, a real estate agent, denied all knowledge of the advertisement
and attributed it either to an enemy or to a practical joker. He sent
notices to be read the following day in the nine churches of the district,
so stating, deploring the occurrence and pledging himself to aid the
other residents in excluding Negroes and in hunting down the author of
the advertisement.
Meanwhile the entire district had been aroused, and a meeting called for
the evening of July 12, in front of a church at Seventy-sixth Street and
St. Lawrence Avenue. About 1,000 people gathered for this meeting, which
was conducted by the presidents of the South Park Manor and Wakeford
Improvement Associations. The former announced that he had visited the
_Daily News_ and learned that the advertisement had been handed to a
clerk in typewritten form and with a typewritten signature, and paid for
in advance, whereas Blair's regular advertising was done on a charge
account. This and other information tended to show that the agent was
not responsible for the advertisement. In its issue of Monday, July 12,
the _Daily News_ printed an explanatory statement.
Other speakers at the meeting were a real estate dealer and an alderman.
Considerable indignation was expressed over the false light in which the
community had been placed. Even the suggestion that Negroes might by
chance become a part of this community seemed to be abhorrent. As far
as Negroes were concerned there was no excitement, but they resented
being used to frighten white residents.
[Illustration: PROPORTION OF NEGROES TO TOTAL POPULATION 1910
DATA OBTAINED FROM FEDERAL CENSUS]
"_Contested neighborhoods._"--The contested neighborhoods are by far
the most important among the types of non-adjusted neighborhoods, both
because of the actual presence in them of varying numbers of Negroes
and their bearing on the future relations of the races. The efforts in
such neighborhoods to keep out Negroes involve stimulation of anti-Negro
sentiment and organization of property owners, and the campaign against
the presence of Negroes as neighbors develops into a campaign against
Negroes. Negroes in turn resent both the propaganda statements and the
organized efforts. A continuous struggle, marked by bombings, foreclosures
of mortgages, and court disputes, is the result.
The most conspicuous type of a "contested neighborhood" is that known as
Kenwood and Hyde Park. In this general neighborhood, from Thirty-ninth
to Fifty-ninth streets and from State Street to Lake Michigan, hostility
toward Negroes has been plainly and even forcibly expressed through
organized efforts to oust them and prevent their further encroachment.
The situation is peculiar. This is the part of the old South Side in
which most of the Negro population of Chicago has settled. The so-called
"Black Belt" has been overcrowded for years. Old and deteriorated housing
and its insufficiency have been steadily driving Negroes out of it in
search of other homes.
It was inevitable that the great influx of migrants should overflow
into surrounding territory. Many migrants brought funds, having sold out
their homes and other possessions. Negroes who had lived for some time
in the "Black Belt" were eager to escape from it, and here was their
opportunity. They did not wish to go too far from their churches and
other established institutions, and Hyde Park was immediately adjoining.
Conditions in Hyde Park during 1916 and 1917 favored the overflow.
Numbers of new, and in some instances high-grade, apartment houses had
been built during the previous ten or fifteen years. Many whites were
leaving their individual houses to live in these apartments or to move to
the North and South Shore regions. The houses had become less desirable,
and many of them were vacant. The district, except for certain definite
neighborhoods, had lost much of its former aristocratic air, with the
coming of rooming-and boarding-houses. During 1914, 1915, and 1916 many
houses and apartments in Hyde Park were vacant or were rented at low
prices. Inducements were offered to prospective tenants in the form of
extensive decorations and repairs, or some rental allowance.
Negroes bought houses and apartment buildings and rented anything
rentable. This expansion of the Negro boundaries was promoted by both
white and Negro real estate agents and property owners with little
opposition. These men soon learned that Negroes, with their increased
wages due to war conditions, were able to make first payments, at least,
on houses and to rent better houses or flats than they had previously
been obliged to occupy.
Then the entrance of the United States into the war in 1917 and the
suspension of building operations occasioned a house shortage which
became acute in 1918. The white demand for dwellings began to exceed
the supply. Real estate men of the neighborhood began to discuss plans
for re-establishing it as an exclusively white neighborhood. A survey
by the Kenwood and Hyde Park Property Owners' Association showed that
of the 3,300 property owners in the district, about 1,000 were Negroes.
Neighbors had objected little, the entrance of the Negroes having been
so gradual that it was almost unnoticeable.
Both Kenwood and Hyde Park, using these terms in the more restricted sense
of the original residential localities that bore the names, had enjoyed
the activities of local improvement organizations whose function it was
to keep the streets sprinkled and clean, to procure better lighting, and
otherwise improve civic conditions. The Kenwood and Hyde Park Property
Owners' Association became prominent in 1918 on account of its agitation
to "make Hyde Park white." In October, 1918, a form letter was sent out
calling a meeting of the Grand Boulevard district of this Association
for October 20. The letter said in part: "We are a red blood organization
who say openly, we won't be driven out. We make no secret of our methods,
they are effective and legal." A dodger announcing the same meeting read:
Every white person Property Owner in Hyde Park come to this
meeting. Protect your Property.
Shall we sacrifice our property for a third of its value and
run like rats from a burning ship, or shall we put up a united
front and keep Hyde Park desirable for ourselves? It's not
too late.
The Grand Boulevard district, described as extending from Thirty-ninth
to Sixty-third streets, and from Michigan to Cottage Grove avenues was
included in the consolidated organization of the Hyde Park and Kenwood
districts. This Association, as was asserted by its president, also
had the co-operation of three other similar organizations, one in the
Washington Park district, the Lake Front Community Property Owners'
Association, operating in the district north of Thirty-ninth Street and
south of Thirty-third Street, east of Cottage Grove Avenue; and one in
the Englewood district, which is southwest of Hyde Park.
Organization of sentiment: It does not appear that the residents
of this neighborhood rose spontaneously to oppose the coming in of
Negroes. If this had been the case, the first Negroes moving into the
district in 1917 would have felt the opposition. The sudden interest in
race occupancy was based upon the alleged depreciation of property by
Negroes. With this emphasized, it was not difficult to rally opposition
to Negroes as a definite menace. The real estate men gave the alarm,
alleging a shrinkage in property values. The effort through the Hyde
Park and Kenwood Association was intended to stop the influx and thereby
the depreciation. Meetings were held, a newspaper was published, and
literature was distributed. Racial antagonism was strong in the speeches
at these meetings and in the newspapers. The meeting which probably
marked the first focusing of attention on the Kenwood and Hyde Park
districts was held May 5, 1919, when the sentiment was expressed that
Negro invasion of the district was the worst calamity that had struck
the city since the Great Fire. A prominent white real estate man said:
"Property owners should be notified to stand together block by block
and prevent such invasion."
Distinctly hostile sentiments were expressed before audiences that came
expecting to hear how their property might be saved from "almost certain
destruction." A speaker at one of the meetings said in part:
We are taught that the principle of virtue and right shall be
the rule of our conduct in all of our transactions with our
fellow-men, and therefore it is our duty to help the Negro, to
uplift him in his environment, mark you, not ours. But it is
not our duty, now mark this, it is not our duty as I see it,
nor is it according to the laws of nature for us to live with
him as neighbors or on a social basis. There is an immutable,
unchanging law that governs the distribution, association and
conduct of all living creatures. Man is no exception to the
universal rule. In every land and clime man obeys the second
law of his nature and seeks his own kind, avoiding every
other, and ever, ever is he warring with his unlike neighbor,
families, classes, societies, tribes, and nations.
There are men who proclaim to the world and ourselves that the
destiny of the black man and the white man is one. I do not
believe it; I cannot believe it. Now, listen! As far back as
September 18, 1858, in his famous joint debate with Stephen
A. Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, that wonderful, Godlike man, the
liberator of the slaves, said this (Now listen, 1858, over
sixty years ago): "I am not nor ever have been in favor of
bringing about in any way the social and political equality
of the white and the black race. I am not nor ever have been
in favor of qualifying them to intermarry with white people,
and I will say in addition to this, that there is a physical
difference between the white and black races living together
on terms of social and political equality."
Other remarks of speakers at these meetings were:
The depreciation of our property in this district has been two
hundred and fifty millions since the invasion. If someone told
you that there was to be an invasion that would injure your
homes to that extent, wouldn't you rise up as one man and one
woman, and say as General Foch said: "They shall not pass"?
* * * * *
There isn't an insurance company in America that will turn
around and try to buck our organization when we as one man
give them to understand that it is dangerous to insure some
people.
* * * * *
Why I remember fifteen or twenty years ago that the district
down here at Wabash Avenue and Calumet was one of the most
beautiful and highest-class neighborhoods of this great city.
Go down there today and see the ramshackle broken-down and
tumble-down district. That is the result of the new menace
that is threatening this great Hyde Park district. And then
tell me whether there are or not enough red-blooded, patriotic,
loyal, courageous citizens of Hyde Park to save this glorious
district from the menace which has brought so much pain and
so much disaster to the district to the south of us.
* * * * *
You cannot mix oil and water. You cannot assimilate races of
a different color as neighbors along social lines. Remember
this: That order is heaven's first law.
Throughout the meetings, profession was made of friendliness toward
the Negroes, together with a desire to serve their needs and accord
them fair treatment. The _Property Owners' Journal_, published by the
Association, was less guarded. While some of its columns made similar
professions, its remarks in other columns were characterized by extreme
racial bitterness and antagonism.
An apparently conciliatory attitude was also taken by speakers at meetings
of the Hyde Park Association and its Grand Boulevard branch. In a meeting
of the latter on January 19, 1920, the chairman declared that he wished
to say for publication: "We have no quarrel with the colored people.
We have no desire to intimidate them by violence." The mission of the
organization, he said, was peaceable, and it was the purpose to proceed
according to law and order. The Association, he averred, had been charged
"by the colored press" with being parties to bombing outrages. He wanted
it known that "we have denounced officially the action of anyone or any
set of people who would indulge in a practice of that character." The
story of the bombing campaign is given in another section of this report.
At another meeting it was asserted that the Kenwood and Hyde Park
Association had a membership of 1,000 persons, and it was estimated that
in the district to which it applied the investment in real estate was
$1,000,000,000. The purpose of the organization was declared to be "to
guard that $1,000,000,000 against depreciation from anything." One speaker
said he did not believe there was a piece of property west of Cottage
Grove Avenue in Hyde Park that was worth 33 cents on the dollar "as it
stands now with this invasion." He said his home cost about $25,000,
but he felt safe in saying that he could not then get $8,000 for it. A
city alderman was one of the speakers at this meeting.
Most of the real estate dealers in the area were claimed as members of the
Kenwood and Hyde Park Association or its Grand Boulevard branch. Special
reference was made at various times and in scathing terms to dealers who
declined to affiliate. At the meeting of the Grand Boulevard district
on January 19, 1920, it was reported that the Executive Committee of
the parent association had succeeded during the previous two or three
months in educating real estate men. "The colored man," a speaker said,
"would have never been in this district had not our real estate men in
their ambition to acquire wealth and commissions, which is perfectly
legitimate, put them here, although this action on their part has been
very shortsighted, as some of them now admit." This speaker said also
that the Association's "greatest successes" had been in getting all but
five or six of the real estate men to sign a pledge not to show or rent
or sell any property "within our locality that we claim jurisdiction of
in the future to colored people."
[Illustration: PROPORTION OF NEGROES TO TOTAL POPULATION 1920
DATA OBTAINED FROM FEDERAL CENSUS]
The _Property Owners' Journal_ exerted no little influence in the creation
of this sentiment. Claiming a wide circulation, its utterances were so
extreme in bitterness against Negroes that many of the residents of the
district, although opposed to the coming in of Negroes, held aloof from
the organization because they could not indorse appeals to race hatred
and advocacy of measures which they felt were illegal and dangerously
near to violence. These extracts are from its issue of December 13, 1919:
To damage a man's property and destroy its value is to rob him.
The person who commits that act is a robber. Every owner has
the right to defend his property to the utmost of his ability
with every means at his disposal.
Any property owner who sells property anywhere in our district
to undesirables is an enemy to the white owner and should be
discovered and punished.
Protect your property!
Property conservatively valued at $50,000,000 owned by some
10,000 individuals is menaced by a possible Negro invasion of
Hyde Park. The thing is simply impossible and must not occur.
These are from its issue of January 1, 1920:
As stated before, every colored man who moves into Hyde Park
knows that he is damaging his white neighbors' property.
Therefore, he is making war on the white man. Consequently, he
is not entitled to any consideration and forfeits his right
to be employed by the white man. If employers should adopt a
rule of refusing to employ Negroes who persist in residing in
Hyde Park to the damage of the white man's property, it would
soon show good results.
The Negro is using the Constitution and its legal rights to
abuse the moral rights of the white.
This is from its issue of February 15, 1920:
There is nothing in the make-up of a Negro, physically or
mentally, which should induce anyone to welcome him as a
neighbor. The best of them are insanitary, insurance companies
class them as poor risks, ruin alone follows in their path. They
are as proud as peacocks, but have nothing of the peacock's
beauty. Certain classes of the Negroes, such as the Pullman
porters, political heelers and hairdressers are clamoring
for equality. They are not content with remaining with the
creditable members of their race, they seem to want to mingle
with the whites. Their inordinate vanity, their desire to
shine as social lights caused them to stray out of their paths
and lose themselves. We who would direct them back where
they belong, towards their people, are censured and called
"unjust." Far more unjust are their actions to the members
of their race who have no desire to interfere with the homes
of the white citizens of this district. The great majority of
the Negroes are not stirred by any false ambition that results
only in discord. Wherever friction arises between the races,
the suffering is usually endured by the innocent. If these
misleaders are sincere in their protestations of injustice,
if they are not hypocritical in their pretence of solving the
race question, let them move. Their actions savour of spite
against the whites, whose good will can never be attained by
such tactics. The place for a Negro aristocrat is in a Negro
neighborhood.
In the same issue, under the heading _Caveat Vendor_ (Let the Seller
Beware) appeared the following:
People who sell their property to Negroes and take first and
second mortgages and promises to pay monthly sums do not know
what risks they are taking in trying to collect the money. Mrs.
Nora Foster of 4207 Prairie sold her house to some niggers and
when she went to collect she was assaulted and thrown down a
flight of stairs. This is not a case of saying it served her
right because more than seven of her neighbors sold before
Mrs. Foster did, but it does serve as a splendid example of
the fact that niggers are undesirable neighbors and entirely
irresponsible and vicious.
The Negroes' innate desire to "flash," to live in the present,
not reckoning the future, their inordinate love for display
has resulted in their being misled by the example of such
individuals as Jesse Binga and Oscar De Priest. In their loud
mouthing about equality with the whites they have wormed their
course into white neighborhoods, where they are not wanted
and where they have not the means to support property.
Keep the Negro in his place, amongst his people and he is
healthy and loyal. Remove him, or allow his newly discovered
importance to remove him from his proper environment and the
Negro becomes a nuisance. He develops into an overbearing,
inflated, irascible individual, overburdening his brain to such
an extent about social equality, that he becomes dangerous to
all with whom he comes in contact, he constitutes a nuisance,
of which the neighborhood is anxious to rid itself.
Another building which has been polluted by Negro tenancy is
to be renovated on May 1st.... Either the Negro must vanish
or decay sets in. Who is next?
Misleaders of the Negro, those flamboyant, noisy, witless
individuals, who, by power of superior gall and gumption, have
blustered their way into positions of prominence amongst their
people, wonder why this district resents their intrusion. To
allow themselves an opportunity to parade their dusky persons
before an audience of their followers, these misleaders held
a meeting of the Protective Circle (composed, no doubt, of
Negro roundheads), at which a varied assortment of Negro
preachers, politicians and other what nots exposed our methods
and organization work. With much comical oratory, they dangled
our association before the spellbound eyes of their sable
dupes and after extreme fuming and sweating appointed about
fifteen committees to annihilate all Hyde Parkers.
III. BOMBINGS
A form of organized resistance to the coming of Negroes into new
neighborhoods was the bombings of their homes and the homes of real
estate men, white and Negro, who were known or supposed to have sold,
leased, or rented local property to them.
From July 1, 1917, to March 1, 1921, the Negro housing problem was marked
by fifty-eight bomb explosions. Two persons, both Negroes, were killed,
a number of white and colored persons were injured, and the damage to
property amounted to more than $100,000. Of these fifty-eight bombs,
thirty-two were exploded within the square bounded by Forty-first and
Sixtieth streets, Cottage Grove Avenue and State Street. With an average
of one race bombing every twenty days for three years and eight months,
the police and the state's attorney's office succeeded in apprehending but
two persons suspected of participation in these acts of lawlessness. One
of these, James Macheval, arrested on the complaint of C. S. Absteson,
a janitor, was released on a $500 bond. At the writing of this report,
one year after the arrest, there has been no trial. Another man was
apprehended, questioned, held under surveillance for two days by the
police, and finally released.
News of threatened bombings in many cases was circulated well in advance
of the actual occurrence. Negroes were warned of the exact date on which
explosions would occur. They asked for police protection, and, in some
instances where police were sent beforehand, their homes were bombed,
and no arrests were made.
The persons directing these bombings did not limit their intimidations to
Negro residents in white neighborhoods; residences of Negroes and white
real estate men were bombed because they had sold or rented property in
these exclusive areas to Negroes, and Negro bankers' houses were bombed
because they made loans on Negro property and supported their mortgages.
These bombings increased rapidly in frequency and damaging effect. The
six months' period ended October 1, 1920, witnessed as many bombings
as the entire thirty-five months preceding. Prior to 1919 there were
twelve bombings. Four of these were directed at properties merely held
by Negro real estate men as agents, two of them in Berkeley Avenue just
north of Forty-third Street, and near the lake. Five were in the 4500
block on Vincennes Avenue, two at 4200 Wabash Avenue, and one at 4732
Indiana Avenue.
Bombing of real estate men's properties appears to have been part of a
general scheme to close the channels through which the invasion proceeded
rather than a protest of neighbors. The four explosions in the 4500
block on Vincennes Avenue appear to have been deliberately aimed at the
tenants. This block is at the center of the neighborhood most actively
opposed to the coming in of Negroes. In January, 1919, a white and a
Negro real estate agent were bombed; in March, Jesse Binga's real estate
office at 4724 State Street and an apartment at 4041 Calumet Avenue were
bombed. In April there were two more bombings, one of a realty office.
Following a public meeting on May 5 to arouse white property owners of
the Hyde Park district against Negro invasion, there were four bombings.
Between January 1, 1920, and March 1, 1920, there were eight bombings
in eight weeks. Responsibility for the creation of the sentiment thus
expressed was in some instances assumed by organizations. For example
the _Property Owners' Journal_, in its issue for February 1, 1920, said:
Our neighborhood must continue white. This sentiment is the
outgrowth of the mass meeting of property owners and residents
which was held Monday, January 19. Mr. George J. Williams
furnished the climax of the meeting when he informed the
audience in terse, pithy language that "Hyde Park enjoys a
reputation too splendid as a neighborhood of white culture to
allow Negroes to use it as their door mat."
In the issue of December 13, 1919, white and Negro real estate men and
owners selling property to Negroes in the district were "branded as
unclean outcasts of society to be boycotted and ostracized in every
possible manner," and W. B. Austin, white, was accused of violating a
gentleman's obligation to his community in selling a home to a Negro.
It was asserted falsely that the house which he had sold had been used
during the race riots as a "rendezvous for Negroes who fired volleys of
revolver shots from doors and windows at white boys in the street who,
according to the testimony of neighbors, had not attacked the premises."
On December 26 the home of J. H. Coleman, a white real estate man who
had sold a house to a Negro, was bombed. The transaction was not public,
and occupancy was not to take place for five months. On December 27
the home of Jesse Binga, a Negro real estate man, was bombed. One week
later, on January 6, came the bombing of W. B. Austin, on the North Side.
During 1919 and 1920 committees and delegations of whites and Negroes
appealed to the chief of police, the mayor, State's Attorney Hoyne, and
the press, but nothing was done. The mayor referred these matters to his
chief of police. The police were unable to discover the bombers or anyone
directing them. The state's attorney, in response to appeals, emphatically
defined his duty as a prosecuting rather than an apprehending agent. All
the while, however, the bombings continued steadily; no arrests except
the two mentioned were made; and the Negro population grew to trust less
and less in the interest of the community and the public agencies of
protection.
1. TYPICAL BOMBINGS
The circumstances of the bombings were investigated by the Commission,
and details of what happened in several typical cases are here presented.
_Bombing of the Motley home._--In 1913 S. P. Motley, Negro,
and his wife purchased a building at 5230 Maryland Avenue
through a white agent, and on March 15, 1913, the family moved
in. For four years they lived there without molestation save
the silent resentment of neighbors and open objection to the
presence of Negro children in the streets. On July 1, 1917,
without warning or threat, a bomb was exploded in the vestibule
of the house, and the front of the building was blown away.
The damage amounted to $1,000. Police arrived from the station
at Fifty-second Street and Lake Park Avenue ten minutes after
the explosion. No clews were found and no arrests were made.
The original owner of the building was bitterly opposed to
Negroes and was a member of an organization which was seeking
to keep Negroes out of the district.
Some time after this incident it was rumored that Motley was
planning to purchase the building adjacent. At 4:00 A.M. June
4, 1919, a dynamite bomb was exploded under the front of the
house adjacent and tore up its stone front. The neighbors
were in the street immediately after the explosion. No clews
were found and no arrests were made. The Motley family on
this occasion was accused of inviting another Negro family
into the block. The new family in question negotiated for its
own property, and before an actual settlement had been made,
received numerous telephone messages and threats. It moved
in, but was not bombed.
[Illustration: HOMES BOMBED IN RACE CONFLICTS OVER HOUSING
JULY 1, 1917-MARCH 1, 1921]
_Bombing of Moses Fox's home._--Moses Fox, white, connected
with a "Loop" real estate firm, lived at 442 East Forty-fifth
Street. The house was too large, and he decided to move to
smaller quarters. The building was sold through a real estate
firm to persons whom he did not know. On March 10, 1920, a few
days after the sale, he received a telephone call informing
him that he must suffer the consequences of selling his home to
Negroes. At 7:30 that evening an automobile was seen to drive
slowly past his home three times, stopping each time just east
of the building. On the last trip a man alighted, and deposited
a long-fuse bomb in the vestibule. The fuse smoked for four
minutes. Attracted by the smoke, Fox ran toward the front of
the house. The bomb exploded before he reached the door. It was
loaded with dynamite and contained slugs which penetrated the
windows of buildings across the street. The evening selected
for the bombing was the one on which Patrolman Edward Owens,
Negro, was off duty and a white policeman was patrolling his
beat. The bombing was witnessed by Dan Jones, a Negro janitor,
and Mrs. Florence De Lavalade, a Negro tenant. The front of
the building was wrecked and all the windows shattered. Damage
amounting to $1,000 was done. No arrests were made.
_Bombing of Jesse Binga's properties._--Jesse Binga is a Negro
banker and real estate man. His bank is at 3633 State Street,
his real estate office at 4724 State Street, and his home at
5922 South Park Avenue. He controls more than $500,000 worth of
property and through his bank has made loans on Negro property
and taken over the mortgages of Negroes refused by other banks
and loan agencies.
On November 12, 1919, an automobile rolled by his realty office
and a bomb was tossed from it. It left the office in ruins.
The police were soon on the scene, but the car was well beyond
reach by the time of their arrival. No clews to the bombers
were found, and no arrests were made. It was the opinion of
the police that white residents of the Hyde Park district
resented Binga's handling of Negro property in that district.
Twenty-one days later an automobile drew up in front of Binga's
home at 5922 South Park Avenue, and its occupants put a bomb
under the front steps. It failed to explode. When the firemen
arrived they found it sizzling in the slush beneath the porch.
The police declared that this was an expression of racial
feeling.
Twenty-five days later the bombers reappeared and left a third
bomb. It tore up the porch of Binga's home. Again the police
found that the explosion had been caused by "racial feeling,"
white men having said that "Binga rented too many flats to
Negroes in high-class residence districts." The house was
repaired and police provided to guard the house. At twelve
o'clock each night the guard changed watch. On the night of
February 28 the policeman on duty until twelve o'clock left
a few minutes early, and the policeman relieving him was just
a few minutes late. In this unguarded interval an automobile
swung around the corner, and as it passed the Binga home a man
leaned out and tossed a bomb into the yard. The bomb lit in a
puddle of water and the fuse went out. It was found that the
bomb had been made of black powder, manila paper, and cotton.
The explanation of the attempt was that "his $30,000 home is
in a white neighborhood."
A police guard was still watching the house on the night of
June 18, 1920 when the bombing car appeared again. On this
occasion neither policeman was in sight when the car drew up.
A man alighted this time and carefully placed the bomb. The
explosion that followed almost demolished the front of the house
and smashed windows throughout the block. This last explosion
damaged the home to the extent of $4,000. Binga offered a
reward of $1,000 for the apprehension of those guilty of these
repeated acts of lawlessness.
On November 23 Binga was bombed again. This time the bomb
damaged his neighbors more seriously than it did Binga's
property. No clews were found and no one was arrested.
_Bombing of R. W. Woodfolk's home._--R. W. Woodfolk, Negro
banker and real estate dealer, purchased a flat at 4722 Calumet
Avenue. It was an investment of the Merchants and Peoples'
Bank, 3201 South State Street, which he controlled. The
building was occupied by one white and four Negro families.
On the evening of February 1, 1920, a person with keys to the
building locked the tenants in their apartments, sprung the
locks of the doors leading to the street, and planted a bomb
in the hallway. The explosion ripped up the hall and stairway,
tore away the brick work around the entrance, and shattered
the windows of adjacent buildings. The damage was estimated
at $1,000. No arrests were made.
_Bombing of the Clarke home._--Mrs. Mary Byron Clarke, Negro,
purchased through W. B. Austin, a white banker and real estate
man, properties at 4404 and 4406 Grand Boulevard, vacant
for a year at the time of purchase, and previously used by
prostitutes. A real estate dealer herself, she had frequently
been assisted by Austin in financing her transactions, one
of which was the sale to Negroes of Isaiah Temple, a Jewish
synagogue at Forty-fifth Street and Vincennes Avenue.
The dwellings were renovated and she moved into one of them;
the other she rented. During the riot of July, 1919, her home
was attacked by a mob. When the police arrived in response to a
call by the Clarkes, they battered in the doors at the demand of
the mob and arrested Mr. and Mrs. Clarke. They were acquitted.
On January 5, 1920, the house was bombed. The explosion caused
$3,360 worth of damage. The building was again bombed February
12, 1920, this time with a dynamite bomb thrown through the
plate-glass door in the hallway from a passing automobile. The
stairway was knocked down and large holes blown in the wall.
The police came, found no clews, and made no arrests. At the
request of Mrs. Clarke a special policeman was detailed to
guard the property.
Numerous threatening letters and telephone calls followed,
all of which were reported to the police. There were threats
of another bombing if she did not sell, and there were visits
from representatives of real estate interests in Hyde Park
making offers.
Tuesday evening, April 13, 1920, a third bomb was exploded
in spite of the presence of the two special policemen. The
bomb was thrown from the premises of Frederick R. Barnheisel,
an immediate neighbor, a telephone wire deflected it, and it
landed near the Clarke garage.
Mrs. Clarke made a statement concerning this bombing before
the Commission in which she said:
"Wednesday [the day following the third bombing] we got a
letter saying 'move out or sell, there is nothing else for
you to do. We missed you last night but we will get you the
next time. We are determined.' A letter prior to that stated
if we did not get out they would 'get our hides.'
"There has been some sinister influence brought to bear on the
insurance company since the riot and since the first bombing.
We have had our house insured against bombing since the first
bombing. The first damage of about $500 they paid and canceled
the insurance on 4404 Grand Boulevard. The second bomb did
damage to the extent of $3,360. They wrote saying they would
cancel it, subject however to pending loss. There was a clause
calling for settlement within sixty days. After sixty days
we would have to enter suit to get it. The sixty days have
passed, and there has been no attempt to settle. Some of the
glass has been replaced. They have accepted it, and there has
been no disposition on their part to settle.
"Berry, Johnston, & Peters, the men with whom we have had the
most business dealings, have insisted that we sell the place.
Mr. Peters said last week he could get a buyer from the Hyde
Park-Kenwood Association people, also said if any indebtedness
remained on the contract or deeds, that the money must first
be paid to them, then to us. We have been careful not to let
any indebtedness, even for ten days, come against 4406."
_Bombing of Crede Hubbard's home._--Following is part of
Hubbard's statement to the police immediately after the bombing
of his home at 4331 Vincennes Avenue on the night of April
25, 1920:
"The day on which I had planned to move, a man who said he was
Mr. Day, of the Hyde Park and Kenwood Association, telephoned
me. He said: 'I hear you have acquired property and you are
dissatisfied with it; we can take it off your hands--relieve
you of it.' I replied that I didn't think I needed any help. He
asked, 'What do you expect to do?' I said, 'I expect to move
into it or sell it if I can get my price.' I moved on Tuesday
and Wednesday he called in person. He said, 'I called to find
out if you want us to sell or handle your property for you.'
I told him I thought I could handle it, and that I was not
anxious to sell but would consider selling if I could get an
offer of say $11,000. He replied that his buyers were not able
to go that far. He continued, 'The point is, I represent the
Hyde Park-Kenwood Association. We have spent a lot of money
and we want to keep this district white.' I asked him why they
had not thought of buying the property before and told him
that the house had been for sale for eight months. He replied
that it was a lamentable fact that they had overlooked it. I
told him that I heard the Hyde Park Association had a $100,000
slush fund out of which $100 was paid for each bombing. He
said he would have some of his buyers come in and look over the
property. Shortly afterward, Mr. Stephen D. Seman and another
man came and represented themselves as buyers. They looked
over the inside of the house. I only carried them through the
halls. Mr. Seman said, 'You only paid $8,500 for this property.'
I told him that he had been misinformed, I had paid $9,000.
He said, 'I will give you $9,500 for it.' I refused. As they
were leaving he added, 'You had better consider our offer.'
Soon after that a man named Casson, real estate man, called.
I would not let him in. When he asked me my price I told him
$11,500.
"A week later a delegation from the Hyde Park Association
called. The spokesman began: 'I am Mr. Austin. You understand
the nature of our business with you, I suppose.' ... I told
the chief clerk of the office of the Northwestern Railroad to
inform you that we were coming to see you. We are the Hyde
Park-Kenwood Association and you will understand that you
are not welcome in this district. We want to know what can be
done.' I replied that I didn't know what could be done unless
they wanted to buy; otherwise I expected to live there, and my
price was $11,500. They continued, 'Do you suppose if I moved
into a black district where I wasn't wanted, that I would want
to live there?' I said, 'If you had bought property there and
liked the property, I don't see why you should move.' They
said, 'Why do you persist in wanting to live here when you
know you are not wanted?' I said, 'I have bought property here
and I am expecting to live here.' Then they filed out of the
door, and one of the members stated, 'You had better consider
this proposition.'
"In the office of the Northwestern Railroad, Mr. Shirley called
me in and read a letter to me which he had received from Mr.
Austin. 'Murphy, his name is,' he said, 'I know him fairly
well, and I simply want to make an answer to the letter. Don't
think I am trying to influence you one way or the other. This
is the letter: it goes about like this: "Crede Hubbard has
purchased a three-flat building at 4332 Vincennes Avenue.
Property values are always shot to hell when Negroes move in.
Use whatever influence you have to induce him to sell and find
out for us his lowest figures."' He added, 'Don't think I am
trying to brow-beat you into selling this property.'"
"On the following Sunday night on my way back to Milwaukee, I
read in the paper that my house had been bombed. My family was
at home, my two boys sleeping about ten feet from the place
that was most seriously damaged. The bomb was placed inside
the vestibule. The girl there heard a taxicab drive up about
twenty-five minutes to twelve and stop for a few minutes and
start off again. About six minutes after the taxicab stopped,
the explosion came, and in about five minutes there were
not less than 300 people on the street in front of the place
asking questions. There were a number of plain-clothes men
in the crowd. I told my story to the chief of police and to a
sergeant of the police and they said it was evidence enough to
warrant the arrest of the officials of the Association named,
but they also thought that it would do no good.... 'The thing
we will have to do is to catch somebody in the act, sweat him
and make him tell who his backers are.'
"The police believe that the actual bombing is being done by
a gang of young rough-necks who will stop at nothing, and they
expect a pretty serious encounter if they are interfered with.
A big automobile is being shadowed now by the police. It is
used by this bunch of young fellows under suspicion, and it is
thought that they keep the car well loaded with ammunition,
and whoever attacks them must expect trouble. There are four
plain-clothes men on guard in this district now. The police
told me to get anything I want from a Mauser to a machine
gun and sit back in the dark, and when anybody comes up to my
hallway acting suspiciously to crack down on him and ask him
what he was there for afterwards."
_Bombing of the Harrison home._--Mrs. Gertrude Harrison, Negro,
living alone with her children, contracted to buy a house
at 4708 Grand Boulevard. In March, 1919, she moved in. She
immediately received word that she had committed a grave error.
She and her children were constantly subjected to the insulting
remarks both of her immediate neighbors and passers-by.
On May 16, 1919, a Negro janitor informed her that neighbors
were planning to bomb her house. She called up the Forty-eighth
Street police station and told of the threatened danger. The
officer answering the telephone characterized her report as
"idle talk" and promised to send a man to investigate. The
regular patrolman came in and promised to "keep an eye on the
property," but there were ten blocks in his beat. A special
guard was secured and paid by Mrs. Harrison when it was learned
that one would not be furnished by the police.
The following night, May 17, her house was bombed while the
patrolman was "punching his box" two blocks away and the special
watchman was at the rear. A detail of police was then provided
both at the front and rear. The following night a bomb was
thrown on the roof of the house from the window of a vacant
flat in the adjoining apartment house. The flat from which
the bomb was thrown had been unlocked to admit the bombers and
locked again. The police failed to question either the persons
living in the apartment or those leaving it immediately after
the explosion.
The first explosion blew out the front door and shattered
the glass in the front of the house. The bomb was filled with
gravel and bits of lead. The second was of similar character,
but did not do as much damage. No arrests were made.
[Illustration: DAMAGE DONE BY A BOMB
This bomb was thrown into a building at 3365 Indiana Avenue, occupied
by Negroes. A six-year-old Negro child was killed.]
In all these fifty-eight bombings the police have been able to accomplish
nothing definite. Practically every incident involved an automobile,
descriptions of which were furnished by witnesses. The precautions taken
to prevent bombings, even if they were well planned and systematically
carried out, failed lamentably.
2. REACTION OF WHITES IN HYDE PARK
Increasing frequency of bombings, failure of the police to make arrests,
and the apparent association of these acts of open violence with the
white residents of Hyde Park drew out explanations.
Pastors of churches in the district who, it had been charged, helped
to give circulation to printed sentiments of the organized opposition
to the "invasion" were strong in their repudiation. The menace to law
and order was definitely recognized and the public given to understand
that neither the pastor nor his congregation had encouraged acts of
lawlessness in any manner. In a statement to a Commission investigator,
one of these pastors said, "I am not in sympathy with the methods and
am very doubtful about the aims of the Property Owners' Association and
have, therefore, been unable to join them or indorse their efforts."
A local paper, the _Real Estate News_, published a long article in
February, 1920, on "Solving Chicago's Race Problem." It was directed at
South Side property owners and carried a stern warning "against perils of
boycott and terrorism being promoted by local protective associations."
Referring to the bombing outrages, this paper, under the heading "Danger
in Boycotts and Bombs," said:
In Kenwood and Hyde Park, particularly, a number of "protective
associations" have been formed. Property owners have been urged
to join these bodies, which, without attempt at concealment,
advocate a boycott against all persons of a certain race.
At meetings of these groups there has been open advocacy of
violence. There has been incendiary talk. Bombs and bullets
have been discussed, and speakers talking thus have been
applauded. There have been repeated acts of violence. Night
bombing of Negro homes and apartments has taken place. Bombing
and shooting is increasing in frequency.
The time has come, we believe, for a word of solemn warning
to all South Side property owners. It is: Keep out of those
associations. If you are now in, get out! For you are in great
danger of the penitentiary! You are in grave peril of losing
your property by damage suits!
Another excerpt, under the heading "Perils of 'Protective' Organizations,"
said:
No one can justly criticize men for forming organizations
to protect or advance their own interests lawfully. Property
owners ought to unite wherever practicable for proper and lawful
purposes beneficial to themselves. For such unions operate to
the welfare of all.
Recently, however, a number of men have joined in forming and
promoting organizations on the South Side which are perilous to
themselves and to every property owner who joins them. Owners
of real estate should be the last men in the world to get mixed
up in movements involving violence, threats, intimidations,
or boycotts. Because they are responsible. Their wealth cannot
be concealed. Judgments against them are collectible.
Under the heading "Drastic Laws Forbid Conspiracies":
The law of conspiracy is drastic. Conspiracy is an association
together of persons for the purpose of doing an unlawful thing
in an unlawful way, or a lawful thing in an unlawful way, or
an unlawful thing in a lawful way. Under the law, all persons
in a conspiracy are equally guilty. One need not throw a bomb,
or even know of the intent of throwing a bomb, to be found
guilty. The act of one, no matter how irresponsible, is the
act of all.
Any association formed in Chicago for the purpose of, or having
among its aims, refusal to sell, lease or rent property to any
citizen of a certain race, is an unlawful association. Every
act of such an association for advancement of such an aim is
an act of conspiracy, punishable criminally and civilly in
the District Court of the United States. And every member of
such an association is equally guilty with every other member.
If one member hires a bomber, or a thug who commits murder in
pursuance of the aims of the association, all the organization
may be found guilty of conspiracy to destroy property or to
commit murder, as the case may be.
This entire article was widely circulated in the disturbed neighborhoods
by the Protective Circle, an organization of Negroes, 25,000 copies
being mailed to residents of Hyde Park.
Residents of the district, stirred by the succession of bombings, began
to protest. The paper of the Kenwood and Hyde Park Property Owners'
Association reflected this feeling in a statement declaring that the
Association had no connection with the bombings, and that its president
was considering the advisability of assisting the authorities in
apprehending these lawless individuals. On another occasion, this paper
took pains to explain that the bombing of George A. Hyers' property
on March 5 was an outgrowth of labor troubles and not of a property
owners' organization recently formed in this community. At a meeting of
the General Committee of the Property Owners' Association the following
resolution was unanimously adopted:
WHEREAS, Our attention has been called to various explosions
of bombs in our neighborhood at the houses of colored people
living in this vicinity, and
WHEREAS, While we are anxious to persuade these people to
move from this locality, we are opposed to violence of every
description, therefore, be it
_Resolved_, That we condemn the action of anyone resorting
to throwing of bombs or other methods not in accordance with
reason, law or justice.
The attention of the city was directed to these unlawful happenings and
protests from both white and Negro individuals made themselves heard. The
bombings, however, did not abate in frequency. Neither were the police
any more successful in locating their sources.
3. REACTION OF NEGROES
From the beginning Negroes were outspoken in their indignation over
the bombings, but their protests had no apparent effect in checking the
outrages.
The attacks, however, have made the Negroes firm in their stand. Mrs.
Clarke was bombed four times; she still lives in the property and declares
that she will not be driven out. Jesse Binga has been bombed six times
but states he will not move. Only two of the forty Negro families bombed
have moved; the others have made repairs, secured private watchmen or
themselves kept vigil for night bombers, and still occupy the properties.
Following the bombing of Jesse Binga on June 18, 1920, the _Chicago
Daily News_ quoted him as saying to a policeman, "This is the limit;
I'm going." When his attention was called to the statement he promptly
replied:
Statements relative to my moving are all false. My idea of
this bombing of my house is that it is an effort to retard the
Binga State Bank which will take over the mortgages of colored
people now buying property against which effort is being made
to foreclose. I will not run. The race is at stake and not
myself. If they can make me move they will have accomplished
much of their aim because they can say, "We made Jesse Binga
move; certainly you'll have to move," to all of the rest. If
they can make the leaders move, what show will the smaller
buyers have? Such headlines are efforts to intimidate Negroes
not to purchase property and to scare some of them back South.
In February a group of Negroes formed themselves into a body known as
the Protective Circle of Chicago, the purpose of which, as stated in its
constitution, was "to combat, through legal means, the lawlessness of
the Kenwood and Hyde Park Property Owners' Association and by organized
effort to bring pressure to bear on city authorities to force them to
apprehend those persons who have bombed the homes of twenty-one Negroes."
A mass meeting was held February 29, 1920, with 3,000 Negroes present.
A popular appeal for funds for the purposes of this organization raised
$1,000. Attacks were directed against the Kenwood and Hyde Park Property
Owners' Association. A representative of the Protective Circle said in
part:
The Hyde Park Property Owners' Association is not a new thing.
It is more than eighteen years old. Eighteen years ago they
proposed fourteen points as a platform for their Association.
The thirteenth point was that they would keep out undesirables.
All Negroes were classed as undesirables. Ten years ago Dr.
Jenifer, a Negro minister, appeared before the Association
and severely criticized the organization for its un-American
policies. It is just recently that this organization has shown
its hand openly, and the things that they have said and done
are dangerously near to illegality. I have in my files this
statement taken from a stenographic report of one of their
meetings, made by the president of the Association: "If Negroes
do not get out of Hyde Park, we will get Bolsheviks to bomb them
out." The bombers of the homes of Negroes have been allowed to
get away unpunished. Judge Gary hanged numbers of anarchists
in the Haymarket riot for very much less complicity in bomb
outrages than these men are guilty of. Hatred can never be
counteracted by hatred. We cannot put any stop to the bombings
of Negro homes by going out and bombing homes of white persons.
The Negro press severely condemned the bombings, and the Negro population
in general felt that the apathy of city authorities and even the
influential public was responsible for continuance of the outrages.
Protests were sent to the governor of the state. The mayor, chief of
police, and state's attorney were persistently importuned to stop the
destruction of Negroes' property and remove the menace to their lives.
Negroes pointed out, for example, that the authorities had shown ability
to apprehend criminals, even those suspected of bomb-throwing. They cited
the bombing of the home of a professional white "gunman," when eleven
suspected bombers were caught in the dragnet of the state's attorney
within thirty hours. Yet in fifty-eight bombings of Negro homes only
two suspects were ever arrested.
In March, 1920, a Commission from the Chicago Church Federation Council
sent a delegation to Mayor Thompson, Chief of Police Garrity, and
State's Attorney Hoyne, to demand action on the bombing of Negroes'
homes. Prominent white and colored men comprised this delegation. A
prominent Negro, testifying before the Commission, said that he, with
other Negroes, both from the local branch of the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People, and from other organizations,
had carried their grievances to city officials. He said:
We have been to the mayor's office, we have been to the state's
attorney's office, we have sent representatives to both these
offices, and nothing has been done--possibly something is being
done, but nothing of great moment. I think that the colored
people feel that they are so insecure in their physical rights
that rather than take any chance they're going out and paying
whatever the charge is for insurance against bombing.
Another delegation of Negroes in June, 1919, twice attempted to register
a complaint with the mayor against bomb outrages. The mayor's secretary,
however, refused them an audience with the mayor.
The editors of local daily papers have also been visited by mixed white
and Negro delegations in an endeavor to arouse public opinion.
The effect of these delegations and protests has been small. One joint
conference with the mayor, chief of police, and state's attorney brought
out the information that it was beyond the state's attorney's province
to make arrests. The mayor, after some discussion, instructed Chief of
Police Garrity to do what he could toward putting a stop to the bombing
of Negroes' homes. The chief of police, after explaining the shortage
of patrolmen, said he would do so.
The bombing question began to figure in local politics. Charges were
made before the primary election of September, 1920, that the city
administration had not given Negroes the protection it had promised.
The matter of apprehending the "nefarious bomb plotters" was included
in the platforms of Negroes running for office, and in those of white
candidates seeking Negro votes.
The Commission had neither authority nor facilities for accomplishing
what all public agencies had signally failed to do. It could, however,
and did, go over the trail of the bombers and collect information which
shows that the sentiment aroused in the contested neighborhoods was a
factor in encouraging actual violence. Whatever antagonisms there were
before the agitation were held in restraint, even though Negroes were
already neighbors. Other districts, like Woodlawn and sections of the
North Side, undergoing almost identical experiences as those of Hyde
Park, have had no violence; the absence of stimulated sentiment is as
conspicuous as the absence of violence. In the Hyde Park district,
between Thirty-ninth and Forty-seventh streets and State Street and
Cottage Grove Avenue, four-fifths of the bombings occurred. All but
three of those happening outside the district were against real estate
men accused of activities affecting the Hyde Park District. It seemed,
especially in the first bombings, that the bombers had information about
business transactions which the general public could not ordinarily get.
Houses were bombed in numbers of cases long before their occupancy by
Negroes. Each of the bombings was apparently planned, and the opportune
moment came after long vigil and, as it would seem, after deliberately
setting the stage. The first bombing of Binga does not appear to have
been the result of resentment of neighbors in the vicinity of his home,
for it was his office on State Street that was bombed. His office is in
a neighborhood around which there is no contest.
4. OTHER MEANS EMPLOYED TO KEEP OUT NEGROES
The Grand Boulevard Property Owners' Association officially decided
that its object should be "the acquisition, management, improvement and
disposition, including leasing, sub-leasing and sale of residential
property to both white and colored people within the said district
heretofore described." This district was to include the area from
Thirty-fifth to Sixty-third streets, and from the Chicago and Rock Island
Railroad tracks to Lake Michigan.
In August, 1920, the manager of the Association cited an instance in
which it had functioned. On Vernon Avenue a white man had sold property
direct to Negroes. The next-door neighbor had arranged a similar sale
to potential Negro buyers. The neighbor next to him, a widow, loath to
lose her home, appealed to the Association. After a conference with the
possible Negro buyers, their money was returned to them, the Association
purchased the house in question, and the whole matter was thus amicably
arranged.
During April, 1920, inquiries were made by the Commission into the
unrest caused by rumors that 800 Negro families intended to move into
Hyde Park. It developed that May 1, the customary "moving day," was
feared both by whites in Hyde Park and by Negroes in and out of Hyde
Park. Negroes living there feared that an attempt would be made to oust
them by canceling or refusing to renew their leases, and whites thought
Negroes might get possession of some of the properties vacated on that
date. The Commission found, however, only eighteen instances where leases
were canceled on houses occupied by Negroes who were having difficulty
in finding other places to live.
In the summer of 1920 the Kenwood and Hyde Park Property Owners'
Association stated that sixty-eight Negro families had been moved through
cancellation of leases and mortgage foreclosures.
Incidental to the general plan of opposition to the entrance of Negroes
in Hyde Park was the sending of threatening letters. For example, in
August, 1919, a leading Negro real estate agent and banker received this
pen-printed notice by mail:
HEADQUARTERS OF THE WHITE HANDS
TERRITORY, MICHIGAN AVE. TO LAKE FRONT
You are the one who helped cause this riot by encouraging
Negroes to move into good white neighborhoods and you know
the results of your work. This trouble has only begun and we
advise you to use your influence to get Negroes to move out of
these neighborhoods to _Black Belt_ where they belong and in
conclusion we advise you to get off South Park Ave. yourself.
Just take this as a warning. You know what comes next.
Respect.
WARNING COM.
This man's home and office have been bombed a number of times. Efforts
were made to buy out individual Negroes who had settled in the district,
as well as to cause renters to move out. There are numerous incidents
of this nature, with indications of many others. A Negro woman who was
living in the district, told one of the Commission's investigators that
she and her husband had formerly lived in the 3800 block of Lake Park
Avenue. White neighbors caused them so much trouble that they had moved
and bought the apartment house in which they are now living, renting out
the second and third flats. Almost immediately white people began to call
and inquire whether she was the janitress, or whether she was renting
or buying the place. When she gave evasive answers, letters began to
arrive by mail. One letter was slipped under the door at night. These
letters informed her that she was preventing the sale of the adjoining
house because she would not sell and no white person would live next
door to her. She was advised that it would be best for her to answer and
declare her intentions. Two white women called and offered her $1,500
more than she had paid for the property. She refused and a few days later
she received a letter demanding an immediate answer, to the Kenwood and
Hyde Park Property Owners' Association.
Later three white men in overseas uniforms inquired as to the ownership
of the property, asking if she was the janitress and if she knew who
the owner was. She answered in the negative. One of the men tore down
a "For Sale" sign on the adjoining property, and another informed her
that it was the intention to turn the neighborhood back to white people
and that all Negroes must go.
This woman is the president of a neighborhood protective league, including
the Negroes in several of the blocks thereabouts. She received a letter
from the Kenwood and Hyde Park Property Owners' Association asking the
purposes and intentions of this league.
This woman also reported that a man had been going about the neighborhood
under the pretext of making calling cards, advising Negroes to sell out
and leave the neighborhood, as it was better not to stay where they were
not wanted. Another white man who had been about the neighborhood selling
wearing apparel, told her that two Negro families in the neighborhood
would be bombed. She inquired how he knew this and was told to wait and
see. Within two weeks these bombings had taken place.
IV. TREND OF THE NEGRO POPULATION
In considering the expansion of Negro residential areas, the most
important is the main South Side section where more of the Negro
population lives. This group is hemmed in on the north by the business
district and on the west by overcrowded areas west of Wentworth Avenue,
called in this report "hostile." During the ten years 1910-20 business
houses and light manufacturing plants were moving south from the downtown
district, pushing ahead of them the Negro population between Twelfth
and Thirty-first streets. At the same time the Negro population was
expanding into the streets east of Wabash Avenue. This extension was
stopped by Lake Michigan, about eight blocks east. Negro families then
began filtering into Hyde Park, immediately to the south.
In 1917 the Chicago Urban League found that Negroes were then living on
Wabash Avenue as far south as Fifty-fifth street east of State Street,
where they had moved from the district west of State Street. From
Thirty-first to Thirty-ninth streets, on Wabash Avenue, Negroes had
been living from nine to eleven years, and the approximate percentage
of Negroes by blocks ranged from 95 to 100; from Thirty-ninth Street to
Forty-seventh Street they had been living from one to five years and
averaged 50 per cent. The movement had been almost entirely from the
west and north.
On Indiana Avenue, from Thirty-first to Forty-second streets, a similar
trend was revealed. In the 3100 block, Negroes had been living for eight
years, in the 3200 block for fourteen years; in the more southerly blocks
their occupancy had been much briefer, ranging down to five months. In
the most northerly of these blocks Negroes numbered 90 per cent and in
the most southerly only 2 per cent.
On Prairie Avenue, farther east, two Negro families bought homes in the
3100 block in 1911, but the majority of the Negroes had come in since
1916. The percentage of Negroes in that block was 50. From Thirty-second
to Thirty-ninth Street the blocks were found to have more than 90 per
cent Negroes. One family had been there five years and the average
residence was one and one-half years. No Negroes were found from Fortieth
to Forty-fourth Street on Prairie Avenue. There were two families in
the 4500 block, and none south of that.
On Forest Avenue, from Thirty-first to Thirty-ninth Street, 75 per cent
of the families were Negroes and had lived there less than six years.
On Calumet Avenue, the next street east of Prairie, Negroes had begun
to live within four years. The population was 75 per cent Negro from
Thirty-first to Thirty-ninth Street. None live south of Thirty-ninth
Street, except at the corner, where they had been living for five months.
A similar situation was found on Rhodes Avenue, still farther east,
from Thirty-first to Thirty-ninth Street. Negroes had lived in Vincennes
Avenue, the next street east, less than two years, and in Cottage Grove
Avenue, still farther east less than one year.
South Park Avenue and its continuation, Grand Boulevard (south of
Thirty-fifth Street) was the most recent street into which Negroes had
moved in large numbers. This had occurred within the years 1915-17.
The first Negro families had moved into the 3400 block less than four
years previously. The percentage of Negroes between Thirty-first and
Thirty-fifth streets was less than 50. Within five months two Negro
families had moved into the hitherto exclusively white 3500 block.
Few Negroes had moved from east of State Street to west of that street.
[Illustration: A NEGRO CHORAL SOCIETY]
V. OUTLYING NEIGHBORHOODS
The Commission's investigation being confined to the city of Chicago,
the growing Negro colonies in such suburbs as Evanston and Glencoe
were not studied, but attention was given to two southwestern outlying
neighborhoods in the east part of Morgan Park, just inside the city
limits, and the village of Robbins, wholly Negro, just outside.
1. MORGAN PARK
In 1910, 126 Negroes lived in Morgan Park, with a total population of
5,269. In 1920 the area had been incorporated in the city of Chicago,
and there were 695 Negroes in a total population of 7,780 occupying
approximately the same area.
In its early days Morgan Park was the site of a theological seminary,
which in 1892 became part of the University of Chicago. The first Negroes
there were servants, mostly from the South, working in the households of
the professors. The colony remained, and its more recent increase was due
in considerable measure to the influx of well-to-do Negroes from farther
north in Chicago, many of whom bought houses. In some cases Negroes in
congested Negro residential areas sold out to Negroes arriving in the
migration and re-established themselves in much better dwellings and
surroundings in Morgan Park.
Less prosperous Negroes also came, despite the feeling of some home owners
that too great an influx of that type would injure property values and
render the neighborhood less desirable. Many of these work in the South
Chicago steel mills and the shops at Pullman. Some work in the Stock
Yards.
A number of Negroes of Morgan Park are employed at the Chicago City
Hall. Some are porters on Pullman cars. Only a small number are laborers.
Many of the women sew or work as car cleaners and seem reluctant to do
housework even at day wages.
Physically Morgan Park is attractive with comfortable homes and large
grounds. Several churches, a number of schools, and an attractive park
all add to the desirability of the place as a "home town." The lots
are deep, affording plenty of space for gardens, and many vacant lots
are cultivated. The opportunity for garden patches is an attraction for
many Negroes. There are two Negro churches, Methodist and Baptist, and
a Colored Men's Improvement Association which has provided a social hall
for the Negro population.
School facilities are inadequate, and the buildings are old and
overcrowded. Because of this congestion, it becomes necessary for children
in the sixth and higher grades to go three miles to a school on Western
Avenue. About twenty Negroes attend the high school. In the Esmond Street
school approximately 25 per cent of the children are Negroes. The Negroes
have repeatedly requested enlarged school facilities. They want a new
building conveniently situated for their children.
The white people of Morgan Park are not unfriendly toward their Negro
neighbors, though there seems to be a common understanding that Negroes
must not live west of Vincennes Road, which bisects the town from
northeast to southwest. A Negro once bought a house across the line but
found he was so unwelcome that he promptly sold again. More recently the
owner of a three-story brick flat building rented to Negroes the twenty
flats above his stores. A protest was made by both white and Negro house
owners, so that he was forced to eject the Negro tenants.
The demand for homes is shown in the numbers of Negroes who go to Morgan
Park on Sundays by automobile, street car, and train. In the spring of
1920 a number of houses were being erected for Negro occupancy in what
is known in Morgan Park as "No Man's Land," east of Vincennes Road from
109th to 112th streets. This swampy tract of land was being reclaimed.
Streets had been surveyed and laid out, though with little paving. Water,
light, and gas were available, and some efforts at drainage had been
made, leaving some stagnant pools. Other plans involved the building of
eighty five-room bungalows by a Chicago contractor. Six of these were
under construction at the time of the investigator's visit, and five had
been sold, corner-lot houses at $4,550, houses on inside lots at $4,330.
Morgan Park Negroes appear to be progressing financially. An officer
of a local trust and savings bank said that they met their obligations
promptly, only occasionally defaulting or suffering foreclosure and then
only because of illness, death, or loss of employment. The same officer
said savings accounts of Negroes were increasing in number, though small
in amount.
Whites and Negroes maintain a friendly attitude. During the 1919 riots
a number of conferences took place between Negroes and white people of
Morgan Park. The Negroes kept rather close to their own neighborhood,
and the only difficulty the police had was in controlling rowdy white
boys.
Younger children of the two races play together in the school yards.
A teacher in the Esmond Street school declared that no distinction was
made between Negroes and whites in that school. It was noted, however,
that when games were played, this teacher directed the little Negroes
to take little Negro girls as partners. Some prejudice is discernible
among whites in the community, but there is an evident desire to be fair
and to give the Negroes every reasonable opportunity to exemplify good
citizenship so long as they do not move from their own into the white
neighborhoods.
Those familiar with the Morgan Park settlement believe that it offers
unusual inducements as a home community for Negroes. The contractor who
is already building for Negroes there has confidence in the venture. He
has dealt before with Negroes and found them satisfactory clients.
2. ROBBINS
This village is the only exclusively Negro community near Chicago with
Negroes in all village offices.
Robbins is not attractive physically. It is not on a car line and there
is no pretense of paved streets, or even sidewalks. The houses are
homemade, in most cases by labor mornings, nights, and holidays, after or
before the day's wage-earning. Tar paper, roofing paper, homemade tiles,
hardly seem sufficient to shut out the weather; older houses, complete
with windows, doors, porches, fences, and gardens, indicate that some
day these shelters will become real houses. In 1920 the village took
out its incorporation papers, and while there are some who regret this
independence and talk of asking Blue Island to annex it, in the main
the citizens are proud of their village and certain of its future. There
are 380 people all told, men, women, and children, living in something
more than seventy houses. It is a long mile down the road to the street
car, but daily men and women trudge away to their work, taking with
them the feeling of home ownership, of a place for the children to play
unmolested, of friends and neighbors.
These men and women find many kinds of work in the neighboring towns--at
the mills, on the railroads, in the factories. Many of the women work
in the factory of Libby, McNeil & Libby. Their wages go into payments
for their homes. Men and women together are living as pioneer families
lived--working and sacrificing to feel the independence of owning a bit
of ground and their own house.
C. THE NEGRO COMMUNITY
I. THE BEGINNING OF THE NEGRO COMMUNITY
Negroes have been living in Chicago since it was founded. In fact, Jean
Baptiste Point de Saible, a San Domingan Negro, was the first settler
and in 1790 built the first house, a rude hut on the north bank of the
Chicago River near what is now the Michigan Boulevard Bridge.
There are records of Negroes owning property in Chicago as early as 1837,
the year of its incorporation as a city. In 1844 there were at least
five Negro property owners and in 1847 at least ten. Their property was
in the original first and second wards of the city, one on Lake Street,
others on Madison, Clark, and Harrison, and Fifth Avenue. In 1848 the
first Negro church property was purchased at the corner of Jackson and
Buffalo streets, indicating the presence of the first colony of Negroes.
In 1850 the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law caused many to flee for
safety to Canada, many of the property owners disposing of their holdings
at a great loss. In 1854 Negroes held two pieces of church property in
the same general locality. Although the great majority lived on Clark and
Dearborn streets north of Harrison Street, there was a tendency among
the property-owning class to invest in outlying property. Some of them
bought property as far south as what is now Thirty-third Street.
The year of the Great Fire, 1871, Negroes owned four pieces of church
property. That fire stopped at Harrison Street and did not consume all
of the Negro settlement. A second large fire in 1874 spread northeast
and burned 812 buildings over an area of forty-seven acres. With the
rebuilding of the city they were pushed southward to make room for the
business district.
In 1900 the most congested area of Negro residence, called the "Black
Belt," was a district thirty-one blocks long and four blocks wide,
extending from Harrison Street on the north to Thirty-ninth Street on
the south, between Wabash and Wentworth avenues. Although other colonies
had been started in other parts of the city, notably the West Side,
at least 50 per cent of the 1900 Negro population of 30,150 lived in
this area. As this main area of Negro residence grew, the proportion of
Negroes to the total Negro population living in it increased until in
1920 it contained 90 per cent of the Negroes of the city.
II. THE ORGANIZATION OF THE NEGRO COMMUNITY
In the discussion of race contacts attention is called to the peculiar
conditions which compel Negroes of the city to develop many of their
own institutions and agencies. Partly from necessity and partly from
choice, they have established their own churches, business enterprises,
amusement places, and newspapers. Living and associating for the most
part together, meeting in the same centers for face-to-face relations,
trusting to their own physicians, lawyers, and ministers, a compact
community with its own fairly definite interests and sentiments has
grown up.
The institutions within the Negro community that have been developed
to aid it in maintaining itself and promoting its own welfare, are
of four general types: (1) commercial and industrial enterprises; (2)
organizations for social intercourse; (3) religious organizations; (4)
agencies for civic and social betterment.
1. COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL ENTERPRISES
Commercial and industrial establishments conducted by Negroes are listed
by Ford S. Black in his yearly _Blue Book_, which serves as a directory
of Negro activities. They increased from 1,200 in 1919 to 1,500 in 1920.
The compilation lists 651 on State Street, the main thoroughfare, 549 on
principal cross streets, and more than 300 on other streets. The increase
is strikingly shown in the following figures: In 1918 Negro business
places on Thirty-first Street numbered nine and seventy-one in 1920; on
Thirty-fifth Street there were forty-seven in 1918 and seventy-seven in
1920. On Cottage Grove Avenue, Negroes have only recently established
themselves in large numbers, yet between Twenty-eighth and Forty-fifth
streets there are fifty-seven Negro business places, including nine
groceries, three drug-stores, and two undertaking establishments.
A partial list of business places as listed in Black's _Blue Book_ is
given:
Art stores 14
Automobile schools and repair shops 10
Bakeries, wholesale and retail 13
Banks 2
Barbershops 211
Baths 2
Blacksmith shops 6
Book and stationery stores 6
Chiropodist 29
Cleaning, dyeing, and repairing establishments 68
Clothing stores 8
Decorators 12
Dressmaking shops 32
Drug-stores 31
Electricians and locksmiths 9
Employment agencies 15
Express and storage offices 71
Fish markets 7
Florists 5
Furnace and stove repairing 6
Groceries and delicatessens 119
Hairdressing parlors 108
Hotels 11
Ice-cream and confectionery stores 7
Insurance companies 3
Jewelers 5
Laundries 2
Medicine specialists 9
Millinery shops 15
Music and musical instruments 16
Newspapers and magazines 13
Musicians and music teachers 66
Notions 25
Optometrists 4
Orchestras 1
Photographers 4
Plumbers 4
Printers 20
Public stenographers 6
Real estate offices 52
Restaurants 87
Schools 4
Shoemaking and repairing shops 33
Shoe-shining parlors 26
Sign painters 4
Soft-drink parlors 11
Tailors 62
Toilet articles 10
Undertaking establishments 21
Vending machines 2
[Illustration: OLIVET BAPTIST CHURCH
The largest Negro church in Chicago (old building), at Twenty-ninth
and Dearborn streets.]
[Illustration: ST. MARK'S M.E. CHURCH
Located at Fiftieth Street and Wabash Avenue, built by Negroes.]
[Illustration: OLIVET BAPTIST CHURCH
The largest Negro church in Chicago, larger and more modern building,
Thirty-first Street and South Park Avenue, purchased recently by
Negroes.]
2. ORGANIZATIONS FOR SOCIAL INTERCOURSE
Various organizations for social intercourse and mutual helpfulness have
developed in the Negro community. Some are local lodges or branches of
national organizations, and others are purely local and independent. Some
are simply for social intercourse, and others have in addition benefit
features, professional interests, etc. Frequent reference is made in
the family histories given in this report to these various organizations.
_Fraternal organizations._--Fraternal organizations are an old institution
among Negroes. In the South they rank next in importance to the church;
in the North they have considerable prestige. Membership is large and
interest is strong. Following is a list of the most active in Chicago:
Elks, Great Lakes Lodge No. 43, I.B.P.O.
Elks of the World (an independent order of Elks)
Ancient Order of Foresters
Catholic Order of Foresters
American Woodmen
Builders of America
Knights of Pythias
Mosaic Templars of America
Masons
Grand Court Heroines of Jericho of Illinois
Eastern Star
The Golden Circle
Odd Fellows (G.U.O. of O.F.)
Royal Circle of Friends
United Brotherhood of Friendship
Sisters of the Mysterious Ten
All of these organizations, although having their own rituals, serve
as a means of group control and of exchange of views and opinions.
They are also a guaranty against absolute friendlessness, and that is
perhaps one of the strongest motives for the establishment of the first
organizations years ago. Much charitable and relief work is carried on
by these fraternal bodies among their members.
Out of these associations have grown clubs with social activities among
wider circles. There are, for example, the Easter Lily Club, the Mayflower
Club, and the Masonic Progressive Club.
_Social clubs._--Many of the clubs and societies with social, educational,
or professional interests are modeled after those of the larger community.
There are, for example, the Arts and Letters Society, the University
Society, and Civic Study Club. There are also many smaller clubs
organized for various purposes, but designed principally to serve the
Negro community. There are more than seventy women's clubs, leagued in
the Chicago Federation of Colored Women's Clubs. There are also the Art
and Charity Club, Chicago Union Charity Club, Cornell Charity, Dearborn
Centre, Diana Charity, East End 30th Ward, East Side Woman's Club,
Eureka Fine Arts, Fideles Charity, Giles Charity, Hyacinth Charity, Ideal
Embroidery Art, Ideal Woman's Club, Imperial Art, Kenwood Center, Mental
Pearls, Mothers' Union, Necessity Club, New Method Industrial, North
Shore, North Side Industrial, Motley Social Uplift, Phyllis Wheatley
Club, Progressive Circle of Kings Daughters, 37th Ward Civic League,
Volunteer Workers, West Side Woman's City Club, and the Woman's Civic
League.
Among the exclusive social clubs, perhaps the most important is the
Appomattox Club. Its membership includes the leading business and
professional men, and it has a well-appointed club building. Its
membership is limited and it carries civic and social prestige.
The Phalanx Club is an organization of government employees. Its
membership is large, though limited by occupational restriction. Its
interests are largely social. The Forty Club and Half Century Club are
purely social and still more exclusive.
Negro professional societies, sometimes formed because of the objections
of whites to the participation of Negroes in white societies of a similar
nature, include the Lincoln Dental Association, Physicians, Dentists and
Pharmacists' Association, a Bar Association, and a Medical Association.
3. RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS
_Negro churches._--The church is one of the first and probably one of the
strongest institutions among Negroes. The importance of churches in the
Negro community lies not only in their large membership and religious
influence, but in their provision of a medium of social control for
great numbers of Chicago Negroes, and in their great value in promoting
the adjustment of newcomers.
In the South the churches are the principal centers for face-to-face
relations. They serve as a medium for the exchange of ideas, making and
maintaining friendships, community co-operation, collective striving,
group competition, as well as for the dissemination of information,
assistance and advice on practical problems, and the upholding of
religious ideals. The pastors know the members personally, and the church
exercises a definite control over individual behavior.
The church is often the only Negro social institution with an unhampered
opportunity for development. In most southern cities, Negroes have no
Y.M.C.A., public playground, welfare organizations, public library,
gymnasium, orderly dance halls, public parks, or theaters. The church in
a large degree takes the place of these and fills a vacancy created by
the lack of the public facilities ordinarily found in white communities.
In many instances it determines the social standing of the individual
Negro. No one can escape the opprobrium attached to the term "sinner"
if he is not a member of the church, however successful otherwise.
The minister is the recognized leader of the Negroes, and often their
legal adviser and school teacher. He is responsible for the social good
behavior of his people. No movement can get the support of the people
unless it has his sanction.
In the North the function of both Negro church and pastor is different.
Negroes can find other places than the church for their leisure time;
numerous urban and civic organizations with trained workers look after
their interests, probably better than the church. In the Y.M.C.A. they
find religion related to the development of their bodies and minds. In
northern cities enterprises and movements thrive without the good-will
or sanction of the clergy, and even against their protest.
The field wholly occupied in the South by the church is shared in the
North by the labor union, the social club, lectures, and political and
other organizations. Some of the northern churches, realizing this, have
established employment agencies and other activities of a more social
nature in response to this new demand.
_Social activities._--The churches in Chicago serve as social-contact
centers, though not to the same extent as in the South. Frequently they
arrange lectures, community programs, fêtes, and meetings. Many of them,
seeking to influence the conduct of the group, have provided recreation
and amusements for their members. Several churches have social-service
departments, basket-ball teams, and literary societies. Olivet Baptist
Church, with a membership of 9,069, maintains an employment department,
rooming directory, kindergarten, and day nursery, and employs sixteen
workers; in its social organization there are forty-two auxiliary
departments. During the last five years it has raised $200,000,
contributed $5,600 for charitable relief, and found jobs for 1,100
Negroes.
Unique among such developments is the People's Church and Metropolitan
Community Center, organized by a group which withdrew from the Bethel
African Methodist Episcopal Church in October, 1920. Relying solely
upon its membership, it raised $22,000 during its first five months. Six
persons are employed to carry on the work, one a social-service secretary.
Land for a church building has been purchased, and plans have been made
to buy a community-center building to accommodate several thousand people.
_Relief work._--The records of the United Charities, which assumes the
care of dependent children of the juvenile court, show a much smaller
proportion of appeals for aid from Negroes than might be expected.
This is partly explained by the work of the churches in relieving
Negro families. A very high proportion of families below the line of
comfortable subsistence belong to the churches, the small "store-front"
churches. The number and variety of denominational divisions and sects
increases competition for membership and sends pastors and members out
into the community to gather in the people. Forty-one churches, many of
them small, reported a total of $15,038 distributed during 1920 for the
relief of the sick and distressed.
Following is a summary of information collected by the Commission
concerning the churches in the Negro community:
Number of churches, regular and "store-front" 170
Number visited 146
Number of churches owning their property 49
Value of property owned $1,677,183
Indebtedness on church properties being bought $325,895.91
Amount collected in 146 churches during 1919 $400,000.00
Membership of 62 of the 146 churches 36,856
Number in Sunday school in 57 of 146 churches 16,847
Number of persons in attendance in 64 of 146 churches
Morning 20,379
Evening 13,806
In a very few cases, Negroes are found to be members of white churches,
but the Negro churches have an entirely Negro membership with Negro
pastors.
_"Store-front" churches._--The "store-front" church membership is
merely a small group which, for one reason or another, has sought to
worship independently of any connection with the larger churches. The
establishment of such a church may be the result of a withdrawal of part
of the membership of a larger church. They secure a pastor or select
a leader from their own number and continue their worship in a place
where their notions are not in conflict with other influences. Most
frequently a minister formerly in the South has come with or followed his
migrant members and has re-established his church in Chicago. Or again
a group with religious beliefs and ceremonies not in accord with those
of established churches may establish a church of its own. The groups
are usually so small and the members so poor as to make the purchase of
a building impossible. The custom has been to engage a small store and
put chairs in it. Hence the name "store-front" church.
[Illustration: NEGRO CHURCHES]
_Denominations._--The varieties of denominational divisions are wide and
interesting. A classification on the basis of information collected by
the Commission is given in Table VII.
TABLE VII
=======================================+=========+==============
Denomination | Regular | "Store-Front"
---------------------------------------+---------+--------------
Baptist: | |
Missionary Baptist | 19 | 61
Free Will Baptist | ....... | 2
Primitive Baptist | ....... | 4
Methodist: | |
Methodist Episcopal | 6 | .......
African Methodist Episcopal | 9 | 6
African Methodist Episcopal Zion | 3 | 1
Colored Methodist Episcopal | 3 | .......
Independent Methodist Episcopal | ....... | 6
Presbyterian | 2 | 2
Episcopal | 1 | .......
Congregational | 1 | .......
Disciples of Christ | 1 | .......
Saints, Holiness, and Healing Churches | ....... | 20
+---------+-------------
Total | 45 | 102
---------------------------------------+---------+-------------
The steady growth in the number of churches is shown in the dates of
organization of sixty-five of them as given in Table VIII.
TABLE VIII
Year Number
1825-50 2
1850-80 2
1880-90 5
1890-1900 5
1900-1910 5
1910-15 12
1915-16 4
1917 3
1918 15
1919 6
1920 6
--
Total 65
_Church property._--It was not easy to determine the amount of money
raised and handled by the Negro churches for any specific period, because
only the better-organized churches keep accurate accounts.