CHAPTER IV

THE NEGRO POPULATION OF CHICAGO

A. DISTRIBUTION AND DENSITY

The Negro population of Chicago, as reported by the Federal Bureau of the Census, was 44,103 in 1910 and 109,594 in 1920. The increase during the decade was therefore 65,491, or 148.5 per cent. Negroes constituted 2 per cent of the city's total population in 1910 and 4.1 per cent in 1920. The increase in the white population during the decade was 450,047, or 21 per cent, bringing the white population up to 2,589,104 in 1920. The remainder of the population consisted of 3,007 Chinese, Japanese, and Indians, of whom there were 2,123 in 1910. Chicago's total population in 1920 was 2,701,705.

In order to indicate where the Negro population of the city lived in 1910 and in 1920, the Commission sought the co-operation of the Census Bureau. On the basis of a rough preliminary survey, certain areas in which it was evident that the main groups of Negroes lived were delimited, and liberal margins allowed to include scattered residents living near the main areas. For these areas the Census Bureau supplied figures showing the total and Negro population by census-enumeration districts. Since each enumeration district embraced from one or two to six city blocks in the more crowded portions of the city, the data thus made available enabled the Commission to prepare maps showing with a fair degree of accuracy where Negroes in Chicago lived in 1910 and in 1920, and also their proportion to the total population in these units of area.

The 510 enumeration districts covered for 1910 included 40,739, or 92.3 per cent of the 44,103 Negroes reported by the Census Bureau for that year; and the 730 enumeration districts covered for 1920 included 106,089, or 96.8 per cent of the 109,594 Negroes reported for that year. The small remaining number of Negroes scattered throughout the parts of the city not embraced in these areas in 1910 and 1920 included many janitors living in the buildings where they worked, and others employed in private homes and living on the premises, thus making their presence inconspicuous among white residents. The areas in which 40,739 Negroes were living in 1910 contained a total population of 657,044, the Negroes thus constituting 6.2 per cent of the total. The areas in which 106,089 Negroes lived in 1920 contained a total population of 779,279, the Negroes thus constituting about 13 per cent of the total.

The outstanding fact concerning these data for 1910 and 1920 is that 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.

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.

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.

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:

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.

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.

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:

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:

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.

"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:

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:

Other remarks of speakers at these meetings were:

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."