Contacts of whites and Negroes in the North and South differ according to the institutions and traditions of the sections in which they have been reared. In the South relations are fixed and generally understood, although Negroes consider the institutions on which these relations are based oppressive and consistently oppose them. There the "color line" is drawn rigidly without reference to the desires or comfort of Negroes or the free expression of their citizenship privileges. Because it is nearer than the North to the institution of slavery, the South still maintains an almost patriarchal relationship with its Negro population. Small communities, the plantation system, and the great numbers of Negroes in domestic service hold the two races steadily in contacts so close that class as well as race lines are maintained with deliberateness and persistence. Even where there are no laws specifically regulating association of the races, the sentiment of the community is enforced, frequently in disregard of existing general laws. Thus Negroes may not eat in a restaurant with whites, sit in adjoining seats in a theater, live in the same neighborhoods, work together on the same jobs, or attend the same schools.
In northern communities the institutions are more liberal and with few exceptions there are no restrictive laws applying specifically to racial association. In fact, the trend of legislation and of court decisions is strongly toward adopting and enforcing general regulations without regard to race or color. Relations are less personal, contacts are wider and more frequent.
From a very simple organization of relations in the South, Negroes are transported to more complex relations based on more elaborate urban distribution of responsibilities. Thus it happens that whites and Negroes in Chicago may be found working together in industry, riding together on street cars, attending the same schools, sharing political activities, with an increasing number of Negroes holding public office, transacting business in banks, stores, and real estate, competing in athletics in public schools, colleges, and the Y.M.C.A., and conferring on social problems in civic and reform clubs.
The increasing number of these contacts cannot fail to influence the necessary adjustments. The general public seems to accept necessary contacts with a minimum of outward friction, as is shown by thousands of daily contacts. Each contact, however, where there is friction, is a focus of comment, antagonism, resentment, prejudice, or fear. But association in such places as hotels, restaurants, barber shops, dance halls, and theaters is often limited by tradition and custom in the North as strictly as by regulation in the South.
The legal status of Negroes in Illinois differs in no respect from that of white persons. The limitations which affect Negroes are established through rules imposed by persons who offer public services and accommodations. When these rules are unfair, evasive, or even illegal, they can be enforced only because of non-enforcement of existing laws. Federal and state courts are in accord in holding Negro men and women in Illinois to be citizens of the United States and of the commonwealth, protected by the laws against discrimination or oppression on account of their race or color.
There are two lines of decisions in Illinois relating to discriminations on account of color. One line of cases prohibits discrimination in certain public places and the other prohibits discrimination against school children. All but two of these cases were tried since the passage of the School Act and the Civil Rights Act, prohibiting such discrimination, enacted in 1874 and 1885, respectively. The civil-rights cases[28] are briefly reviewed below by a consideration of the school cases.
The Civil Rights Act, originally passed in 1885, was amended in 1903, and again in 1911. Section 1 of this act now provides:
That all persons within the jurisdiction of said State of Illinois shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodation, advantages, facilities and privileges of inns, restaurants, eating houses, hotels, soda-fountains, saloons, barber shops, bathrooms, theaters, skating rinks, concerts, cafés, bicycle rinks, elevators, ice-cream parlors or rooms, railroads, omnibuses, stages, street cars, boats, funeral hearses, and public conveyances on land and water, and all other places of public accommodation and amusement, subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law and applicable alike to all citizens; nor shall there be any discrimination on account of race or color in the price to be charged and paid for lots or graves in any cemetery or place for burying the dead, but the price to be charged and paid for lots in any cemetery or place for burying the dead shall be applicable alike to all citizens of every race and color.
Section 2 provides:
That any person who shall violate any of the provisions of the foregoing section by denying to any citizen, except for reasons applicable alike to all citizens of every race and color and regardless of color or race, the full enjoyment of any accommodations, advantages, facilities or privileges in said section enumerated or by aiding or inciting such denial, shall for every such offense forfeit and pay a sum not less than $25 nor more than $500 to the person aggrieved thereby, to be recovered in any court of competent jurisdiction in the county where said offense was committed, and shall also for every such offense be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not to exceed $500 or shall be imprisoned not more than one year or both; and provided further, that a judgment in favor of the party aggrieved, or punishment upon an indictment, shall be a bar to either prosecution respectively.
Anna William v. Chicago & Northwestern Railway Company (55 Ill. 185)—the first case of color discrimination which reached the supreme court of Illinois—was heard in 1870, before the passage of the Civil Rights Act. The court decided that a railroad company could not exclude a Negro woman on account of her color from a certain car reserved for the use of ladies. The evidence showed that the brakeman had refused to permit the Negro woman to enter the "ladies' car" and pushed her away. The jury awarded her $200 damages, which the court upheld as reasonable.
Before the Amendment of 1903, the Civil Rights Act of 1885 provided that all persons should be entitled
to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodation, advantages, facilities and privileges of inns, restaurants, eating houses, barber shops, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and all other places of public accommodation and amusement, subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law and applicable alike to all citizens.
In 1896, in Cecil v. Green (60 Ill. App., 61; affirmed, 161 Ill. 265), the court decided that the expression "all other places of public accommodation" embraced only places of the same general character as those enumerated, and therefore that soda fountains were not included within the general term.
The amendment of 1903 included soda fountains, saloons, bathrooms, skating rinks, concerts, bicycle rinks, elevators, and ice-cream parlors.
In Baylies v. Curry (30 Ill. App. 105; affirmed, 128 Ill. 36), decided in 1889, a Negro woman, after being refused tickets at the box-office of Curry's Theater, had a white woman purchase two tickets for her in the balcony. Upon attempting to use them, the Negro woman and her husband were referred back to the box-office and their money returned. The proprietor introduced evidence to show that his theater was in a bad neighborhood, and he had, therefore, adopted the rule of reserving certain rows for Negroes in each section of the house. The supreme court, in affirming judgment for $100 damages, said: "Beyond all question, the Civil Rights Act prohibits the denial of access to the theater and to the several circles or grades of seats therein, because of race or color."
In 1903, in Grace v. Moseley (112 Ill. App. 100), it was held that the statute imposes liability only where the defendant denies or incites a denial of service, not where he merely fails to provide service.
The amendment of 1911 provided that there should not be any discrimination on account of race or color in the price charged for lots or graves in any cemetery.
Relying upon this provision, Gaskill, a Negro, applied for a writ of mandamus to compel the Forest Home Cemetery Company to receive the body of his wife for burial (People ex rel. Gaskill v. Forest Home Cemetery Company, 258 Ill. 36, 1913). The cemetery company had passed a resolution in 1907 that thereafter the cemetery would be maintained for the burial of white persons only—except that colored persons owning lots in the cemetery, and their direct heirs, should be admitted for burial. Gaskill did not own a lot in the cemetery, but four of his children had been buried there fifteen to twenty years before in single graves separated from each other; and when he applied in 1912 for space for the burial of his wife, the company refused permission solely on account of her color.
The court held that the 1911 amendment did not prohibit a cemetery corporation, which did not have the power of eminent domain under its charter and which had no monopoly of the burial places in its vicinity, from making and enforcing a rule excluding colored persons from burial in its cemetery. The case was taken on writ of error to the Supreme Court of the United States (238 U.S. 606), but the writ was dismissed for want of jurisdiction without further comment.
In Dean v. Chicago & Northwestern Railway Company (183 Ill. App. 317; 1913), Dean, a Negro, recovered damages of $300 from the railway company for its refusal to allow him to ride in a station elevator because of his color.[29]
The first school case was decided in 1874, before there was any statute forbidding discrimination against Negro children in the public schools.[30] In Chase v. Stephenson (71 Ill. 383; 1874) a taxpayer filed a bill to enjoin the directors of a school district from maintaining a separate school for Negro children; and the court held that the directors had no authority to discriminate on account of color, and the separate school was enjoined.
In March, 1874, "An Act to Protect Colored Children in Their Rights to Attend Public Schools" was passed which provided:
That all directors of schools, boards of education, or other school officers, whose duty it now is or may be hereafter to provide in their respective jurisdictions schools for the education of all children between the ages of six and twenty-one years, are prohibited from excluding directly or indirectly any such child from such school on account of the color of such child.
Two school cases have since arisen at Quincy, Illinois. The first, decided in 1882 (People ex rel. Longress v. Board of Education of Quincy, 101 Ill. 308), was a quo warranto proceeding, attacking a regulation of the school board, requiring all Negro children to attend one school, and excluding them from all others. The court held that the laws of Illinois prohibited such discrimination and the board was without authority to make the regulation.
In the second Quincy case, decided in 1888 (People v. McFall and Board of Education of Quincy 26 Ill. App. 319; affirmed, 124 Ill. 642), the petition for quo warranto charged that the Board of Education had continued the illegal discrimination against Negro children ever since the decision in the first case. The petition was supported by a number of affidavits of Negroes. After a full hearing on affidavits and counter-affidavits the trial court denied the petition. The appellate court affirmed the judgment, characterizing the affidavits in support of the petition as "vague and unsatisfactory"; and the supreme court affirmed the judgment.
Quincy has fourteen schools, and the School Board has divided the city into four school districts. The Lincoln School is exclusively a Negro school and is the only school in the district in which most of the Negroes live. All white children in that district are transferred to other schools, and the few Negro children outside the Lincoln district are urged to attend the Lincoln School. The Negro teachers and Negro principal of the Lincoln School are paid higher salaries than other teachers in Quincy, and are told that if they wish to maintain themselves in the Quincy schools, they must persuade Negro children in other districts to attend the Lincoln School. In this way the board has succeeded in confining Negro children with few exceptions to the Lincoln School. Yet some Negroes are attending five other schools, including the high school.
There have also been two school cases from Alton, Illinois. The first case was People v. Board of Education of Upper Alton (127 Ill. 613), decided in 1889. This was a proceeding by mandamus, begun in the supreme court by John Peair, to compel the Board of Education to admit his two children to the high school of Upper Alton. Certain issues of fact were certified to the circuit court for trial by jury. The jury returned a general verdict in favor of the Board of Education, notwithstanding the following special findings in answer to questions asked by the relator, John Peair:
Q.: When application was made ... to the principal in charge of the said building on behalf of relator's two children for permission to attend school in said building, was such permission refused by said principal because said children were colored?
A.: Yes.
Q.: Have not the children of relator, John Peair, been excluded from attending school in said high school building by the defendants on account of the color of said children?
A.: Yes.
The supreme court held that the general verdict in favor of the Board of Education was "so manifestly the result of misdirection by the court as to be entitled to no consideration," and a writ of mandamus was ordered.
The second school case from Alton, though begun in 1899, was not finally decided until 1908. This was a petition for mandamus filed in the supreme court by Scott Bibb to compel the mayor and city council of Alton to admit his children to the Washington School which they had been attending, and from which he alleged they were excluded on account of color and were transferred to a school attended only by Negro children. The supreme court certified the case to the circuit court of Madison County for the trial of certain issues of facts. Before the supreme court finally ordered the mandamus to issue in 1908 the case had been tried by a jury seven times, had been before the supreme court five times, and the Bibb children were grown up. It is interesting as a flagrant example of race prejudice in the trial judge and jury.
In this case (People ex rel. Scott Bibb v. Mayor and Common Council of Alton, 233 Ill. 542) the supreme court said:
The issues in this case have been tried seven times by juries in the circuit court, and in two of them the jury disagreed. Upon the first trial where there was a verdict it was in favor of the respondents, and it was certified to this court. That verdict was set aside for manifest error prejudicial to the relator in rulings of the court in the admission of evidence. (People ex rel. v. Mayor and Common Council of Alton, 179 Ill. 615.) There was another trial resulting in a verdict in favor of the respondents, which was set aside on account of a misdirection of the court in submitting to the jury a question of law. (People ex rel. v. Mayor and Common Council of Alton, 193 Ill. 309.) Upon another trial there was a third verdict in favor of the respondents, which this court set aside because clearly contrary to the facts proved and without any support in the evidence. It was proved at that trial, beyond dispute or controversy, that the respondents were guilty of the charge contained in the petition, and the evidence introduced by them had no tendency to prove that the intention clearly manifested by their acts did not exist. The verdict could only be accounted for as a product of passion, prejudice or hostility to the law. (People ex rel. v. Mayor and Common Council of Alton, 209 Ill. 461.) The attorney for relator then urged that a peremptory writ should be awarded on the ground that the evidence in the record clearly showed the relator to be entitled to it. The relator, however, had not requested the circuit court to direct a verdict in his favor, and it was said that if such a motion had been made the court would doubtless have granted it. The court said that the issues were sent to the circuit court for trial in conformity with the practice governing the trial of issues of fact in actions at law before a jury, and it was not deemed advisable, in the existing condition of the record, to set aside that order. The case was sent back for another trial, and upon the next trial the attorney for relator moved the court to direct a verdict in his favor, and this the court refused to do, assigning as a reason that this court had directed that the issues be submitted to another jury. The excuse was so shallow and baseless as to justify a conclusion that it was a mere pretext to evade a compliance with the law as declared by this court, and the verdict was set aside and the circuit court directed, in the trial of the questions of fact, to proceed in accordance with the opinion then filed and the earlier opinions in the case. (People ex rel. v. Mayor and Common Council of Alton, 221 Ill. 275.) The case has been again tried, and a verdict in favor of the respondents, unsupported by any evidence, has been returned to this court. The evidence was to all intents and purposes the same as upon the former trials, and demonstrated, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that the children of relator were excluded from the Washington School, which was the most convenient of the public schools of the city to which they had the right to be admitted, and that the exclusion was solely on account of their race and color, and for no other reason whatever. The evidence for the respondents that nothing was said about schools or colored children by the mayor and council in changing the ordinances for the purpose of excluding colored children from schools attended by white children; that the intention to exclude them was not declared, or that orders were never issued to the police, or that the mayor never intended the police force under his control to do what they did and what he knew they were doing, had no tendency whatever to prove that the children of the relator were not excluded by the respondents on account of their race or color. At the conclusion of the evidence the attorney for the relator moved the court to direct a verdict finding the issues in favor of the relator and presented to the court a written instruction for that purpose, but the court denied the motion and refused to give the instruction. In so doing the court erred, and the error was in a matter of law, and contrary to the law in this case as declared by this court in previous opinions filed in the case.
The attorney for respondents says that we ought to approve this verdict for the reason that the questions of fact have been tried seven times in the circuit court; that the juries have twice disagreed and five juries have decided in favor of the respondents, and all the trials have been presided over by learned judges. Great weight is justly given to the conclusion of a jury upon controverted questions of fact where the verdict appears to be the result of an honest exercise of judgment and the weighing, with fair deliberation, of the credibility of witnesses, but it is beyond dispute that this verdict, when viewed in the most favorable light for the respondents, does not represent any conclusion of the jury from the evidence, and that all of the verdicts represent nothing but a refusal by juries to enforce a law which they do not personally approve or which is distasteful to them. In the first opinion filed in this case it was said that it might be that the wisest of both races believe that the best interests of each would be promoted by voluntary separation in the public schools, but that it is no less the duty of courts to enforce the law as it stands, without respect to race or persons. We would be remiss in our duty to enforce the law and would forfeit the respect of all law-abiding citizens if we should approve this verdict for no other reason than because it is one of a series which represent, not the enforcement of law or the discharge of duty, but a deplorable disregard for the law and for the rights of citizens. The verdicts have all been more offensive and dangerous assaults upon the law, the government, and organized societies, than utterances of individuals or societies who are opposed to all law, and which are regarded only as the sentiments of the ignorant, depraved and vicious who are the enemies of a government of laws. These verdicts were pronounced, not by those who were avowed enemies of law and government, but by those who constituted a part of the governmental machinery for the enforcement of the law and who had been sworn to discharge their duty in that regard. Such verdicts not only denote opposition to the enforcement of the law, but they also jeopardize the highest interests of society and individuals. When the law, through the refusal of jurors to regard their oaths, becomes impotent to protect the rights of the humblest, the rights of no person are secure; and jurors may take heed that they obey and enforce the law, lest their refusal to enforce the law for the protection of others becomes effective to deprive them of their legal rights and substitute the beliefs of jurors and courts as to the wisdom of laws enacted for their protection. The error of the court in refusing to direct a verdict is not obviated by the fact that there have been so many verdicts contrary to the law and the evidence. The verdict must be set aside, and the next question is whether the issues shall be again sent to the circuit court for trial.
In this case the effort to obtain a fair trial of the issues of fact before a jury has proved utterly futile, and upon the trial now under review the court refused to direct a verdict in passing upon a question of law raised by the motion of the relator for such a direction. It is clear that after so many trials there can be no further evidence produced by either party but that all the evidence relating to the issues is before us. We are of the opinion that it would be a wrong to the relator to further delay him in establishing his rights and to compel him to add to the trouble and expense already incurred in an effort to compel obedience to the law. The verdict of the jury is set aside and the issues will not be again certified to the circuit court for trial but will now be finally disposed of. The averments of the petition have been fully proved upon repeated trials and the evidence is preserved in the record. The evidence produced by the respondents affords no support to their answer.
We therefore find that all the material facts alleged in the petition are true as therein stated and that the relator is entitled to a writ of mandamus as therein prayed, and it is therefore ordered that a peremptory writ of mandamus issue according to the prayer of the petition, that the respondents pay the costs, and that execution issue therefor.
The public schools furnish one of the most important points of contact between the white and Negro races, because of the actual number of contacts in the daily school life of thousands of Negro and white children, and also because the reactions of young children should indicate whether or not there is instinctive race prejudice.
The Chicago Board of Education makes no distinction between Negro and white children. There are no separate schools for Negroes. None of the records of any teacher or principal shows which children are Negroes and which white. The board does not know how many Negro children there are in any school or in the city at large, nor how many of the teachers are Negroes. It was impossible to obtain from the board, for example, a list of the schools having a large Negro enrolment with which to begin the investigation. An unfortunate but unavoidable incidental effect of the investigation was the focusing of attention of principals and teachers on the Negroes in their schools.
Frequently white teachers in charge of classes with Negro pupils are race conscious and accept the conduct of white children as normal and pay disproportionate attention to the conduct of Negro children as exceptional and distinctive. As a result of the focusing of attention on Negro children, the inquiry, which was intended to get balanced information, developed a disproportionate amount of information concerning their conduct as compared with that of whites. Teachers who considered both races were inclined to believe that Negro children as a group had no special weaknesses that white children as a group did not also exhibit; that some Negro children, like any other children, were good, some were bad, and some indifferent, and that no generalizations about the race could be made from the characteristics or attitude of a few.
It became evident as soon as the investigation started that it was necessary to distinguish between the northern and the southern Negro. The southern Negro is conspicuous the moment one enters the elementary schools. Over-age or retarded children are found in all the lower grades, special classes, and ungraded rooms, and are noticeable all the way to the eighth grade, where seventeen- and nineteen-year-old children are sometimes found. In some schools these children are found in the regular classes; in others there are special rooms for retarded children, and as these groups are often composed almost entirely of Negro children, there is an appearance of segregation which made necessary a study of these retarded children from the South.
The southern child is hampered first of all by lack of educational opportunity in the South. He is usually retarded by two or more years when he enters the northern school because he has never been able to attend school regularly, due to the short term in southern rural schools, distance from school, and inadequacy of teaching force and school equipment. According to a report by the United States Bureau of Education on Negro Education[31] 90 per cent of the Negro children between fifteen and twenty years of age attending school in the South are over-age. Says this report:
The inadequacy of the elementary school system for colored children is indicated both by the comparisons of public appropriations and by the fact that the attendance in both public and private schools is only 58.1 per cent of the children six to fourteen years of age. The average length of the public school term is less than five months in practically all of the states. Most of the school buildings, especially those in the rural districts, are in wretched condition. There is little supervision and little effort to improve the schools or adapt their efforts to the needs of the community. The reports of the state departments of Georgia and Alabama indicate that 70 per cent of the colored teachers have third grade or temporary certificates, representing a preparation less than that usually given in the first eight elementary grades. Investigations made by supervisors of colored schools in other states indicate that the percentage of poorly prepared colored teachers is almost as high in the other southern states.[32]
The inadequacy of Negro teachers' salaries is shown by the per capita expenditure in six southern states for each white and Negro child between six and fourteen years of age. The salary of the teacher, expressed in per capita for each child, ranges from $5.27 to $13.79 for white pupils and from $1.44 to $8.53 for Negro pupils. South Carolina pays its white teachers ten times as much as its Negro teachers. Alabama pays its white teachers about nine times as much. In Kentucky the per capita for white and colored is about the same.[33]
Distribution of school funds by counties indicated a decreasing per capita expenditure for the Negro as the proportion of Negroes in the county increased. A table from the Bulletin shows:[34]
| County Groups, Percentage of Negroes in the Population | White School Population | Negro School Population | Per Capita Expenditure, White | Per Capita Expenditure, Negro |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Counties under 10 per cent | 974,289 | 45,039 | $7.96 | $7.23 |
| Counties 10 to 25 per cent | 1,008,372 | 215,774 | 9.55 | 5.55 |
| Counties 25 to 50 per cent | 1,132,999 | 709,259 | 11.11 | 3.19 |
| Counties 50 to 75 per cent | 364,990 | 661,329 | 12.53 | 1.77 |
| Counties 75 to 100 per cent | 40,003 | 207,900 | 22.22 | 1.78 |
A southern state superintendent of education is quoted in the report, as follows:
There has never been any serious attempt in this state to offer adequate educational facilities for the colored race. The average length of the term for the state is only four months; practically all of the schools are taught in dilapidated churches, which, of course, are not equipped with suitable desks, blackboards, and the other essentials of a school; practically all of the teachers are incompetent, possessing little or no education and having had no professional training whatever, except a few weeks obtained in the summer schools; the schools are generally overcrowded, some of them having as many as 100 students to the teacher; no attempt is made to do more than teach the children to read, write, and figure, and these subjects are learned very imperfectly.[35]
Another difficulty was suggested by the principal of a Chicago school (Webster) where 30 per cent of the children are Negroes, who said: "We base our educational ideas on certain backgrounds. The curriculum in Chicago was planned for children who come from families who are educated. It doesn't take children coming from uneducated families into consideration. That isn't fair either to the white or colored children."
The problem of readjustment to life in a northern city also affects the child's school life, and he is self-conscious and inclined to be either too timid or too self-assertive. A Negro teacher in speaking of the difficulties confronting the southern Negro, as well as the whole Negro group, said:
The southern Negro has pushed the Chicago Negro out of his home, and the Chicago Negro in seeking a new home is opposed by the whites. What is to happen? The whites are prejudiced against the whole Negro group. The Chicago Negro is prejudiced against the southern Negro. Surely it makes a difficult situation for the southern Negro. No wonder he meets a word with a blow. And all this comes into the school more or less.
Another Negro teacher thus analyzes further the adjustment problems which tend to make the Negro newly come from the South unpopular with the Chicago Negro, as well as with the whites:
These families from the South usually come from the country where there are no close neighbors.... Then the family is transplanted to Chicago to an apartment house, and even in with another family. The whole environment is changed and the trouble begins. No sense of property rights, no idea of how to use conveniences, no idea of how to live in the new home, to keep it up, to live with everybody else so near. On top of that, the father does not fit into his work, and therefore cannot support the family; the mother goes out to work, and what is the result? Poorly kept houses and poorly kept children.... A normal home shows itself in the school, and poor home conditions show up still more.
The Negro child born in the North is not found to an unusual extent among the retarded children. He has been able to enter school on time and to attend the full term of nine months; his teachers compare favorably with those in white American and foreign neighborhoods, and his parents as a rule have a better background. Many teachers say that the progress of northern-born Negroes compares very favorably with that of whites.
Since the Board of Education keeps no record of Negro children as such, it could not furnish a list of the schools having a percentage of Negro children. Therefore a list was made up of all the schools in the Negro residential areas, the boundaries of these schools were obtained from the Board of Education, and the percentage of Negroes in each school district was worked out from the 1920 census figures. The schools listed in Table X were found to be situated in districts where the Negro population was 10 per cent or more. The figures at the right show the approximate percentage of Negro children in the school, as given by the principal of the school.
Fuller School is a branch of Felsenthal and has the same principal; it is in a neighborhood where the percentage of Negroes is practically the same as in the neighborhoods around Felsenthal, but there is a very great difference in the percentage of Negro children in the two schools, according to figures given by the principal. It appears from this that the principal, who is a believer in separate schools, places the large majority of the Negro children in Fuller School. Negroes in the vicinity say that Fuller School is run down and neglected, that the staff of teachers is below the average, that the school has no playground of its own but must use the one at Felsenthal, and that all the unmanageable children are sent there from Felsenthal. It is also believed by these Negroes that Fuller is used as a feeder for the other schools in the neighborhoods where there are fewer Negro children.
| School | Percentage of Negroes in District | Percentage of Negro Children in School |
|---|---|---|
| Colman | 81 | 92 |
| Copernicus | 18 | 23 |
| Doolittle | 65 | 85 |
| Douglas | 72 | 93 |
| Drake | 28 | 24 |
| Emerson (branch of Hayes) | 70 | 75 |
| Farren | 69 | 92 |
| Felsenthal | 38 | 20 |
| Forrestville | 20 | 38 |
| Fuller (branch of Felsenthal) | 42 | 90 |
| Haven | 24 | 20 |
| Hayes | 70 | 80 |
| Keith | 89 | 90 |
| McCosh | 13 | 15 |
| Mann (branch of Raymond) | 39 | 25 |
| Moseley | 46 | 70 |
| Oakland | 17 | 26 |
| Raymond | 85 | 93 |
| Sherwood | 20 | 25 |
| Tennyson | 14 | 28 |
| Webster | 50 | 30 |
| Willard | 15 | 13 |
The points in regard to physical equipment stressed by a district superintendent in the area containing the largest number of schools attended mainly by Negroes were: date of erection, an assembly hall located on the main floor, gymnasium, and, in the congested districts, bathroom and lunchroom. Table XI shows such facts concerning these schools.
It will be noted that only five of these schools, or 23 per cent, were built since 1900, and four of these five are in sections where the Negro population is less than 25 per cent. The ten schools serving the largest percentage of Negroes were built, one in 1856, one in 1867, seven between 1880 and 1889, and one between 1890 and 1899. Of the 235 white schools 133, or 56 per cent, were built after 1899.
| School | Date of Erection | Location of Assembly Hall | Separate Gymnasium | Bathroom | Lunchroom |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Colman | 1887 | None | None | Yes | Yes |
| Copernicus | 1907 | First floor | Yes | None | None |
| Doolittle | 1885 | Third floor | Combined | None | None |
| Douglas | 1889 | Third floor | Combined | None | None |
| Drake | 1900 | None | None | None | None |
| Emerson | 1884 | None | None | None | None |
| Farren | 1898 | Third floor | Combined | Yes | Yes |
| Felsenthal | 1901 | Third floor | Combined | None | None |
| Forrestville | 1896 | First floor | Yes | None | None |
| Fuller | 1890 | None | None | None | None |
| Haven | 1885 | Fourth floor | Combined | Yes | None |
| Hayes | 1867 | Fourth floor | Combined | Yes | Yes |
| Keith | 1883 | None | None | Yes | Yes |
| McCosh | 1895 | None | None | None | None |
| Mann | 1890 | Third floor | Combined | None | None |
| Moseley | 1856 | None | None | Yes | None |
| Oakland | 1903 | First floor | Combined | None | None |
| Raymond | 1886 | Third floor | Combined | Yes | None |
| Sherwood | 1892 | Third floor | Combined | None | None |
| Tennyson | 1895 | First floor | Combined | None | None |
| Webster | 1883 | None | None | None | None |
| Willard | 1915 | Basement | Yes | None | None |
Assembly halls and gymnasiums were totally lacking in seven of the twenty-two schools, and in the remaining fifteen the assembly hall was on the third or fourth floor, where, according to the district superintendent, it cannot have maximum use for community purposes. A really useful assembly hall, he stated, should be on the ground floor, opening directly on the school yard, and capable of being shut off entirely from the rest of the building so that it could be lighted and heated separately for evening gatherings. Only three of these fifteen schools had separate gymnasiums. In the others the gymnasium was combined with the assembly hall. There was little in the way of apparatus; what there was consisted mainly of hand apparatus, including clubs, dumbbells and basket-balls, that could be used in the assembly hall or the corridors. The district superintendent emphasized the need for gymnasiums in Negro residential areas because the children were weak physically and needed special exercises.
Playground space for schools attended largely by Negroes compares favorably with that for schools attended largely by whites, though Douglas School (92 per cent Negro), with 1,513 pupils, has only one playground 96×125 feet. Most schools have two playgrounds, one for boys and one for girls. The only other school having such limited play space as Douglas is a foreign school, Von Humboldt, where there are 2,500 pupils and the playground is 50×100 feet. Like Douglas, this is a double school with inadequate space for the children inside the school and outside. Sometimes there is a public playground near by which relieves the congestion on the school playground except in the case of Keith School (90 per cent Negro), the principal of which emphasized the need for a playground near her school.
In a group of twenty-four schools, six of which are attended mainly by Negroes, six mainly by white Americans, and twelve mainly by children of immigrants, it was found that there was no unusual crowding of classrooms in those attended mainly by Negroes except in the case of Douglas School. Conditions were practically the same in the three groups of schools.
Indications of overcrowding are the average number of seats in a classroom, the average number of pupils per teacher, and the double-school or shift system. There is little variation among the three groups of schools in the number of seats in the classroom and the number of pupils to each teacher, except that the school having the largest number of pupils to each teacher (57) is Colman, 92 per cent Negro. Although there are no double schools in the group attended mainly by white Americans, one of the six schools attended mainly by Negroes and five of the schools attended mainly by children of immigrants are double schools. Under this system, which is a makeshift in a neighborhood where another school is needed to take care of the children, the children go to school in two shifts, one shift an hour later than the other, and leave correspondingly later in the afternoon. Under this arrangement more children are at the school during the major part of the day than can be seated in the classroom and the full school curriculum can be carried on only under pressure, as one group of children must always be hurried on before the next group appears.
Information as to problems of contact in the schools was gathered from conferences to which the principals of high and elementary schools were invited, and by personal visits to the schools. Thirteen elementary schools were visited, seven of which had an enrolment of less than 50 per cent Negro, and six of which had an enrolment of more than 50 per cent Negro. The schools with the smaller percentage were: Drake (30),[37] Felsenthal (20), Forrestville (38), Haven (20), Oakland (26), Webster (30), and Kenwood (a very small number of Negroes). The schools having a majority Negro were Colman (92), Doolittle (85), Douglas (93), Farren (92), Keith (90), and Moseley (70).
The high schools visited were Englewood, Hyde Park, and Wendell Phillips. In Englewood and Hyde Park the percentage of Negroes was very small, while in Wendell Phillips the Negro children were about 56 per cent of the enrolment.
The opinions of principals and teachers about Negro children are a cross-section of public opinion on the race question with all its contradictions and irritations. It must therefore be borne in mind in reading this section on school contacts that whether Negro children are reported good or bad, bright or dull, quarrelsome or amiable, whether antagonism and voluntary grouping or their lack are reported, there is an inevitable tendency for the teacher to see the facts in the light of any prejudice or general views she may have on race relations.
It was thought, for example, that for the purposes of this discussion the schools could be put in two general groups: those with less than 50 per cent Negroes and those with more than 50 per cent Negroes. But it was immediately apparent that no generalizations could be made on the basis of the percentage of Negro children in the schools, because sometimes two principals of schools having the same proportion of Negro pupils reported widely different experience with reference to friction; and in some cases principals of schools with a small percentage of Negroes reported friction, while other principals of schools with a larger percentage reported harmonious relations. The most important factor determining the attitude of the teachers in a school was invariably the attitude of the principal. Though there were many cases where individual teachers held views entirely different from those of the principal, yet the attitude of the principal was usually reflected in the expressed opinion of the teachers and in the atmosphere of the school.
But there is no explanation for total disagreement between two teachers in the same school as to whether or not there is race friction in the school except difference in points of view on the race problem. This factor is to be taken into consideration in weighing the testimony of teachers regarding school contacts of the races.
The attitude of some of the principals and teachers was revealed in their fear that their schools, with 20 per cent or 30 per cent Negro children, would be regarded as largely Negro schools. The principal of a school with 30 per cent Negro children considered it an insult to be asked to have his school take part in a song festival with schools largely attended by Negroes. A teacher in a school 26 per cent Negro was much incensed because the Board of Education had sent Negroes to the school to talk to the children on cleaning up the neighborhood. She said that the white children did not seem to mind and listened interestedly; it was the teachers who considered it an outrage that Negroes should come to "tell a community seven-eighths white to clean up."
Since the elementary schools and high schools present rather different problems, due to the greater number of social activities in the latter, it was decided to consider the two groups separately.
The contacts in the elementary schools fall naturally under three heads: classroom contacts, building and playground contacts, and social contacts.
Classroom contacts.—There was much less variety of opinion in regard to classroom contacts than the other two. Most teachers agreed that there was little friction so far as school work was concerned, even when it meant sitting next to one another or in the same seats. Most kindergarten teachers found the most natural relationship existing between the young Negro and white children. "Neither colored nor whites have any feeling in our kindergarten," said one principal in a school 30 per cent Negro (Webster); "they don't understand the difference between colored and white children." In visiting one school the investigator noticed that the white children who objected to holding hands with the Negro children in the kindergarten and first and second grades were the better-dressed children who undoubtedly reflected the economic class and race consciousness of their parents. The Armour Mission near the school had excluded Negroes from its kindergarten, thereby fostering this spirit among the whites. A teacher in Doolittle (85 per cent) told of a little white girl in another school who cried because she was afraid the color from the Negro children's hands would rub off on hers; in her present school she has known no such instances in the kindergarten. This conduct is paralleled in instances in which Negro children who have never had any contact with white children in the South are afraid of them when they first come North.
Most of the teachers in the higher grades reported that there were no signs of race prejudice in the room. A teacher at Oakland (26 per cent) said that white girls sometimes asked to be moved to another seat when near a very dirty Negro child, but that this often happened when the dirty child was white. This teacher said it was the white mothers from the South, not the children, who wanted their children to be kept away from the Negroes. "The white children don't seem to mind the colored," she said. "I have had three or four mothers come in and ask that their children be kept away from the colored, but they were women from the South and felt race prejudice strongly. But they are the only ones who have complained."
A teacher in a school 90 per cent Negro said that when doubling up in the seats was necessary whites and Negroes frequently chose each other. A teacher at Moseley (70 per cent), when the investigator was present, called upon a white girl to act as hostess to a Negro girl who had just come from the South, and the request was met with pride and pleasure by the white girl. On the same occasion a white boy was asked to help a Negro boy with his arithmetic, and the two doubled up and worked together quite naturally.
"Race makes no difference," declared the principal of a school 92 per cent Negro (Colman). "The other day I had them all digging in the garden, and when they were all ready to go in I kept out one colored boy to help me plant seeds. We could use another boy, so I told Henry to choose anyone out of two rooms and he returned with an Italian. The color makes no difference."
A few instances of jealousy are cited. In one of them resentment ran high because when a loving cup was presented in McKinley (70 per cent) for the best composition, it was awarded by a neutral outside jury to a white girl. The principal of this 70 per cent Negro school, in addition to finding the Negro children jealous, considered their parents insolent and resentful. On the investigator's first visit she said that military discipline was the only kind for children, and that absolute segregation was necessary. At the next interview she said she preferred her school to any other; that there was never any disciplinary difficulty, and that white children who had moved from the district were paying car fare to finish their course at her school.
Discipline.—There was considerable variety of opinion among the teachers as to whether Negro children presented any special problems of discipline. The principal of a school 20 per cent Negro (Felsenthal), for example, said that discipline was more difficult in this school than in the branch where 90 per cent were Negroes (Fuller). This principal is an advocate of separate schools. She was contradicted by a teacher in her school who said she had never used different discipline for the Negroes. In schools where the principals were sympathetic and the interracial spirit good the teachers reported that Negro children were much like other children and could be disciplined in the same way. One or two teachers reported that Negro children could not be scolded but must be "jollied along" and the work presented as play. This is interesting in view of the frequent complaint of the children from the South that the teachers in Chicago played with them all the time and did not teach them anything.
Attitude toward Negro teachers.—Few Negro teachers were found in the schools investigated.
At Doolittle (85 per cent) there were thirty-three teachers, of whom two were Negroes. There was also a Negro cadet. At Raymond (93 per cent) there were six Negro teachers and a Negro cadet in a staff of forty. At Keith (90 per cent) there were six Negro teachers in a staff of twelve. Two of these principals said that their Negro teachers compared favorably with their white teachers and that some of them were excellent. Asked whether there was much antagonism if a Negro teacher was assigned where all the children were white, the principal of a 93 per cent school (Raymond) said there had been one or two such cases. "They are most successful in the foreign districts on the West Side. The European people do not seem to resent the presence of a colored teacher."
Another principal said that this was especially true where the foreign element was Jewish. A Negro teacher in a West Side school, largely Italian, is considered one of the ablest teachers in the school and proved herself highly competent during the war, when she assisted with the work of the draft board in the district.
One or two principals said that they would not have Negro teachers in their schools because the white teachers "could not be intimate with colored teachers," or because Negro teachers were "cocky," or because "the Defender preaches propaganda for colored teachers to seek positions in white schools." Sometimes an effort was made to explain the principal's objection to Negro teachers by saying that Negro children had no respect for Negro teachers. One principal whose white teachers were rather below the accepted standard said that the one colored teacher who had been there was obliged to leave because of the children's protest against her. A Negro teacher in a 20 per cent school (Haven) was valued highly by the principal, who advised with her as to what measures could be taken to prevent the appearance of race feeling. This teacher formerly taught in a school where there were no Negro children and had experienced no difficulty in either type of school. "The children just seem to forget I am colored," she said.
In Farren School (92 per cent) a teacher of a special room for children recently arrived from the South expressed the belief that these children "have a distinct and decided fear of the white teacher and it's up to the teacher to change this fear into respect." They were very timid at first, she said, due to the new environment and the contact with so many more people, especially white. This timidity lasted for about a year and then these children became more like Chicago children.
Building and playground contacts.—At six out of the thirteen elementary schools some friction about the buildings and on the playgrounds was reported, and none at the other seven schools. On further analysis it appeared that the friction reported was general at only two of the six schools. At the other four the instances cited seemed either to involve a few troublesome individuals or to be quarrels among Negro children rather than between Negroes and whites. The two schools reporting general antagonism between Negro and white children had about 30 per cent Negro children. The principals of these schools said that the white children were dominated by the Negroes and did not dare stand up for their rights. The testimony of the principal of one of these schools showed a disposition to regard many acts as characteristically racial. For example, she needed no further evidence that a Negro boy had cut up a white boy's cap than the fact that it was cut with a safety-razor blade. Although both white and Negro boys commonly carry safety-razor blades to sharpen their pencils, she thought of razors only in connection with Negroes. She also believed that "Negro children of kindergarten age are unusually cruel," and that "Negroes need a curriculum especially adapted to their emotional natures." Again she said that a Negro boy who asked to be put back from the third to the first grade, because the third-grade work was too hard for him, was typical of Negro children, who "shut down on their intellectual processes when they are about twelve or fourteen years of age." In view of the numbers of Negro children in the higher grades who are advancing normally, this is obviously an unwarranted generalization.