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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
OLIVET BAPTIST CHURCH
The largest Negro church in Chicago (old building), at Twenty-ninth and Dearborn streets.
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.
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:
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.
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 | $1,677,183.00 | |
| 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.
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.
| 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.
| 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.
The total value of the property holdings of twenty-six of the larger and better-organized churches is $1,677,183.02, with a total indebtedness on nineteen of them of $318,595.91. In twenty of the twenty-six annual collections aggregate $226,216.25.
Out of 100 "store-front" churches visited only seven own or are buying the property they use. The total value of the property of these seven churches is $44,300. Four of the seven have an indebtedness of $7,300; and the four that kept records showed a total annual collection of $5,170.
The pastors.—A sharp division both as to education and experience is found between the pastors of the regular churches and those of the "store-front" churches. Generally the larger churches have the better-trained, more experienced, and more highly salaried ministers. Exceptions are found in the case of one or two "holiness" churches.
The ministers in these various churches represent a range of training from that of such seminaries as Newton Theological and institutions like Yale University, University of Chicago, and Northwestern University, down to that of the sixth grade in grammar school. Some have had no schooling at all. The number of specially trained ministers totals twenty-one. Six of these are graduates of recognized northern institutions, while fourteen are graduates of recognized Negro institutions such as Lincoln University, Howard University, Virginia Union University, and Livingston College. Four are graduates of standard high schools and four of other high schools below the standard rating. The remainder fall below the sixth grade. Among this last group it is not unusual to hear that "God prepares a man to preach; he does not have to go to school for that. All he must do is to open his mouth and God will fill it. The universities train men away from the Bible."
The range of active service in the ministry is from two months to forty-four years. Here again the larger established churches have the ministers of longer service. Typical examples are found in churches like Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, whose pastor has had forty-four years of service; Shiloh, thirty-seven years; Bethesda Baptist Church, thirty-seven years; Grace Presbyterian Church, thirty-two years (all at this one church); Original Providence, thirty-five years; Berean Baptist Church, thirty years.
Social agencies in the Negro communities are an expression of group effort to adjust itself to the larger community. Within the Negro community there are two types, those especially for Negroes and those which are branches of the agencies of the larger community but located conveniently for use by Negroes.
TRINITY M.E. CHURCH AND COMMUNITY HOUSE
Located at Prairie Avenue near Thirty-first Street, purchased recently by Negroes.
SOUTH PARK M.E. CHURCH
The congregation moved from a store-front church to this edifice at Thirty-second Street and
South Park Avenue in less than three years after the church was established.
PILGRIM BAPTIST CHURCH
Located at Thirty-third Street and Indiana Avenue. Formerly a Jewish synagogue, purchased
recently by Negroes.
Chicago Urban League.—This organization is one of the thirty-two branches of the National Urban League whose headquarters are in New York City. It was established in Chicago in 1917 during the period of heaviest migration of Negroes to the city. The numerous problems consequent upon this influx guided the development of the League's activities. Its executive board and officers are whites and Negroes of high standing and influence in both the white and Negro groups, and it is supported by voluntary subscriptions. Within four years this organization has taken the leading place among all the social agencies working especially among Negroes. It has a well-trained staff of twelve paid workers, and its work is carried out along the lines accepted in modern social work. The League has organized its activities as follows: Administration Department, Industrial Department, Research and Records Department, Children's Department, settlement work.
The work of the Administration Department involves, in addition to general management, co-operation with other agencies and co-ordination of their efforts for community improvement through interracial meetings, conferences, and joint undertakings.
The Industrial Department during 1920 placed more than 15,000 Negroes in positions, made industrial investigations in sixteen plants, provided lectures for workingmen in plants and for foremen over Negro workers. It also investigates complaints of workers, selects and fits men for positions, secures positions for Negroes where Negroes have never worked before, and assists in other ways the adjustment of Negroes in industry. More than 25,000 persons passed through the department during 1920.
The Department of Research and Records makes the investigations on the basis of which the programs of the League are carried out. Its information is a permanent and growing body of material useful to all agencies and persons interested in obtaining reliable information concerning Negroes in Chicago.
The Children's Department handles cases of boys and girls and co-operates with the schools, juvenile protective organizations, the juvenile court and probation department, and various other child-helping institutions. A total of 540 such cases were adjusted during 1920.
During 1919 a total of $28,659 was raised and used in the support of the Chicago Urban League.
The Wendell Phillips Settlement on the West Side is under the supervision of the League. The settlement has a day nursery and provides a center and leadership for twenty-five groups in the West Side community.
Wabash Avenue Y.M.C.A.—This organization is a branch of the local Young Men's Christian Association, but because of its location and the peculiar social problems of its membership and vicinity, it has become one of the strongest agencies of the community. Its work is among boys and young men, many of whom are industrial workers in various plants. Community work is vigorously promoted. In 1920 an enthusiastic group of 1,137 boys was enlisted in a neighborhood clean-up campaign, and 100 community gardens were put in operation. Moving pictures and community singing were provided during the summer months. The following list gives some statistics of activities for the first nine months of 1920.
| SOCIAL ACTIVITIES | |
|---|---|
| Attendance at building | 140,740 |
| Attendance at reading-room | 19,402 |
| Attendance at Bible classes | 1,514 |
| Attendance at industrial clubs | 5,394 |
| Attendance at entertainments | 6,542 |
| Meals served | 100,610 |
| Dormitory attendance | 71,396 |
| Persons directed to rooms | 614 |
| Persons assisted | 1,526 |
| Persons reached through community work | 10,406 |
| Personal religious interviews | 396 |
| Men referred to churches | 196 |
| PHYSICAL WORK | |
| Men used swimming-pool | 3,604 |
| Boys used swimming-pool | 14,096 |
| Men and boys used shower baths | 24,332 |
| Participated in leagues and tournament | 3,906 |
| Spectators | 44,742 |
| Men attended gymnasium classes | 5,622 |
| Boys attended gymnasium classes | 17,106 |
In addition to the foregoing work this institution has promoted efficiency and industrial clubs among Negro workers in industrial plants, three glee clubs, noonday recreational programs, and nine baseball teams.
During 1919 the total contributions for support were $15,353, of which $3,100 came from Negroes. The membership dues of the latter, however, totaled $16,000 and receipts from operation amounted to $143,747.
Chicago Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.—This organization aims to carry out the general policies of the National Association as far as they apply to Chicago. The national purpose is to combat injustice against Negroes, stamp out race discriminations, prevent lynchings, burnings, and torturings of Negroes, and, when they do occur, to demand the prosecution of those responsible, to assure to every citizen of color the common rights of an American citizen, and secure for colored children equal opportunity in public-school education.
In Chicago, the principal efforts of this organization have been in the line of securing justice for Negroes in the courts and opposing race discriminations in public accommodations. Its most active period followed the riots of 1919. With a number of competent attorneys, white and Negro, it gave legal support to Negro riot victims and followed through the courts the cases of many Negroes accused of participation in rioting.