Another school, 92 per cent Negro (Farren), has a special room for children from the South. "Our dull children are almost without exception those from the South who have never been to school," said the teacher. "Those children should not be classed as dull, either, for they learn remarkably fast and often catch up to grade."

A teacher of the ungraded room in a school 38 per cent Negro (Forrestville) said:

Capacity for advanced work.—Teachers in the seventh and eighth grades usually found Negro children equal to the work, though in some cases they felt that these children had been pushed out of the lower grade because of crowded conditions before they were ready for the more advanced work. An eighth-grade teacher gave the following statement:

Other teachers believed that there was nothing to keep the Negro children from making equal progress with the white, given similar opportunities. "The progress of the colored children in Drake school (30 per cent) cannot be compared with that of the white," said an upper-grade teacher, "because the colored are all from the South and have had the poorest opportunities. But comparing a Negro child and a white child who have had the same advantages in school and equal opportunities for observation and example in the home, the Negro makes the same progress."

"I say that under the same conditions a Negro child will do as well every time as a white," said the teacher of an ungraded room in a school 38 per cent Negro (Forrestville). "Many do as well as the white and live in very poor neglected homes. I think every person who is not prejudiced must admit that the colored do fully as well in school as the white."

An upper-grade teacher in the Felsenthal School (20 per cent) held a similar point of view: "The colored are making wonderful strides. They advance just as rapidly as the white, given equal opportunities. But their background is so slight and so short in years that one cannot fairly compare them. The southern colored child must be studied individually to get his point of view in the school or he gets nowhere in his work."

High-school work.—The principal of Wendell Phillips High School prepared tables showing the numbers of white and Negro children dropping out at the end of each school year. They show that the largest number of Negro children dropped out during the first year, and the largest number of white children during the first and second years, the number of drop-outs being the same for both years. Some children repeat the work so that all of them do not leave school.

One or two teachers in other schools stated concerning Negro children that a "very limited number go beyond the first year." "They cannot grasp the subject," said an English teacher; "they do not understand as the white child does. They lack the mentality."

In the same school the Latin teacher held quite the opposite opinion. "The colored children are in every way equal to the white children. They are just as well equipped mentally and make similar progress. My best student at present is a colored girl. Her choice of English and her vocabulary and construction are far ahead of that of any white student."

Several teachers and principals testified to the brilliancy of individual Negro students who not infrequently had the highest standing in the school. The principal of an elementary school (Crerar) who had formerly had experience in a school largely Negro felt that the junior high school would meet the needs of the Negro children to a large degree:

Academic v. other courses.—A preference of Negro children for academic work was reported by principals and teachers at two high schools. This may be due in part to the fact, testified to by many teachers, that Negro children excel in languages and music and find mathematics and sciences difficult. The usual implication was, however, that Negro children took academic work because they thought it gave them better social standing. A principal who said that "Negroes want to know nothing about industrial training" and that "the girls don't care for sewing and cooking," said on another occasion that the majority of children in auto-mechanics, printing, and household arts were Negroes. He also reported more Negro than white children in the normal course preparing themselves to be teachers, though this was the first year that this had been the case.

Comparative scholarship in elementary schools.—Negro children are reported to be slower than the Jews, less responsive than the Bohemians, and more ambitious than the Italians. A manual-training and domestic-arts teacher thought Negroes did as good work as the Jews, Bohemians, and white Americans whom he taught. A Latin teacher said that the Negroes were studious and ambitious, and that in every way she preferred them to the Jews.

Several teachers thought the Negroes were slow and lacked logic and "sticking qualities." An upper-grade teacher explained the slowness as partly due to the fact that they had been pushed out of the crowded lower grades before they were ready for more advanced work. A physics teacher who was convinced that Negro children had no ambition said it was his policy to promote a Negro child if the child had made the effort, because he appreciated that the child had come "to the limit of his mental ability."

The principal who said that Negroes had no "sticking qualities" gave a single instance of a boy who wanted to become a mechanical engineer but gave up the course after five months, because he said he did not care enough about the course to work at it for several years. In endeavoring to prove that Negro children are not successful in completing high-school work, this principal emphasized the fact that in the 3-B class 20 per cent of the Negroes dropped out as compared with 6 per cent of the whites. In actual numbers three Negroes and two whites dropped out. He did not mention that in the 2-A class 12 per cent of the whites (sixteen children) as compared with 3 per cent of the Negroes (three children) dropped out. In the 4-B grade 21 per cent of the whites (three children) and none of the Negroes dropped out. The fact that 21 per cent of the whites dropped out was explained by the principal to be due to the fact that the white children wished to graduate from a high school wholly white. However, only three children were involved.

Attendance and failures.—Table XVI shows the record for attendance and failures in three groups of schools attended mainly by Negroes, by children of immigrants and by white Americans. It will be noticed that the best attendance records are found in Douglas and Farren schools, both mainly attended by Negroes. The other schools, attended mainly by Negroes, compare favorably with those attended by whites.

The smallest percentage of failures is at Colman (92 per cent), while the next to the largest percentage is also at a school attended mainly by Negroes (Raymond, 93 per cent). This may be explained to a certain extent by the fact that there is a higher economic class of Negroes in the neighborhood of the Colman School. In the other schools the percentage of failures compares very favorably with that of whites.

C. CONTACTS IN RECREATION

In studying contacts between the races at places of recreation a survey was made of the various recreational facilities maintained by the Municipal Bureau of Parks, Playgrounds, and Bathing Beaches, the South Park Commission, the West Chicago Park Commission, and the Lincoln Park Commission. Recreational facilities maintained by twelve park boards which control smaller areas in outlying parts of the city were not included in the survey unless they were in or near Negro areas. Visits were made by the Commission's investigator to places in or bordering on the Negro areas at a time of day when the use of the park would be greatest; the director or one of his assistants was interviewed and observations were made as to the relations between Negroes and whites.

The information thus gathered was supplemented by a conference held by the Commission, at which representatives of the various park boards discussed policies and experiences with reference to race relations in the various recreation places under their charge.

I. CLASSIFICATION OF FACILITIES

Although there is no definite city-wide classification, the publicly maintained recreation facilities of the city may, for the purpose of this study, be grouped by types and defined as follows:

II. DISTRIBUTION OF FACILITIES IN RELATION TO NEGRO AREAS

Of a total of 127 public places of recreation excluding the large parks, thirty-seven are in or near Negro areas. Of the eighty-two playgrounds, fourteen are in the Negro areas and nine are adjacent. Of the twenty-nine recreation centers, none is located within the Negro areas, but seven are adjacent.

Though these figures seem to indicate that the Negro areas are fairly well supplied with recreation facilities, it should be borne in mind that their use by the Negroes in their vicinity is by no means free and undisputed. The reasons for this are shown in the next section on "Use of Facilities," but the following summary of use will aid in considering the distribution of recreation facilities in relation to the Negro areas:

The type of recreation facility most commonly found in the Negro areas is the playground. The lack of recreation centers within the Negro areas is conspicuous, as is also the fact that six of the seven recreation centers accessible to Negroes are not used as much as 10 per cent by them. The playground is intended for the use of young children and has practically nothing to attract older children and adults, except sometimes a baseball or athletic field. Indoor facilities are not a part of the equipment of a playground, so that the average maintenance cost of a playground is not more than $2,000 to $5,000 a year.[41]

The recreation center is the most unusual and notable feature of Chicago's recreation system but one from which the Negro gets little benefit. It is a complete community center, with both indoor and outdoor facilities. It represents an investment of from $200,000 to $800,000, according to the amount of ground, the location, and the extent of its facilities. The yearly expenditure necessary to maintain such a recreation center where older children and adults can hold meetings, dances, and entertainments, and where there are concerts, indoor games, swimming-pools, showers, etc., is shown by the reports of the park boards to be from $30,000 to $50,000. Though the argument that wholesome recreation makes for better citizenship applies to Negroes as well as to whites, no recreation center has been located within the Negro areas and only seven near them.[42]

The director of Armour Square, a recreation center which is just beyond the edge of the main Negro area, but which the Negroes do not feel free to use for reasons discussed later, was asked what places of recreation for adult Negroes existed in that neighborhood. She instanced a social settlement that had been out of existence for more than six years, an infant-welfare station and a commercial amusement park known to be in bad repute.

Although in recent years the Negro population has been increasing in density in the neighborhood directly east of Wentworth Avenue along which Hardin, Armour, and Fuller recreation centers are located, this has not increased the use of these centers by Negroes. It has tended, rather, to increase the antagonism of the whites in the vicinity to the use of the centers by Negroes. In this neighborhood the hostility toward Negroes of whites, especially gangs of hoodlums, is shown by the many attacks upon Negroes in this area as discussed in the sections on the "Riot of 1919" and "Antecedent Clashes."

Several representatives of the park boards strongly deprecated the lack of recreation centers within the Negro area and said that such facilities should be provided. The South Park representative recommended the area east of Wentworth Avenue between Thirtieth and Forty-seventh streets as one needing additional facilities. The West Park representative said: "A complete all-year-round recreation center for the colored people should be established at Ashland and Lake streets. We need greater facilities, or equal facilities, for the colored people. There isn't any place on the West Side that I know of, but yet we have many of these complete recreation centers there for the whites." Although the Negroes on the West Side had never asked for additional facilities, the white people in that neighborhood had frequently asked the West Park Commission to provide greater facilities for the Negroes. The Negroes in the district were not organized, according to the West Park official, but the white people realized that something ought to be done for the Negroes and made the request.

The director of Seward Park said the maintenance cost was the chief obstacle to additional recreational facilities. "The law permits acquisition of property for small parks by request of citizens and bond issues for the purchase of the property and its development," he said. "When it comes to maintenance the question of taxes comes in, and unless people are willing to be taxed in excess of what they are taxed now, there won't be any possibility of maintaining more parks."

Though there are three public bathing-beaches near the main Negro area, the whites seem to expect Negroes to confine themselves to the Twenty-sixth Street Beach. It is quite limited and unattractive in approach and surroundings. The approach is over a rough road through a much-neglected neighborhood, and then up a long flight of stairs to a four-foot viaduct over the railroad tracks, and a roundhouse and switch yards are near by. The beach is a strip of sand about fifty feet wide and a short block in length; it narrows at one end to the tracks and at the other end is walled by a high embankment. While it offers a chance to get into the lake, the atmosphere of wholesome, recreative outdoor life is entirely lacking.

In the Morgan Park region there is a large Negro population but no park or playground within its Negro area. Barnard Playground and Ridge Park are the nearest facilities, a mile or more distant. Negro children said they did not go there because "those are in Beverley Hills and only rich folks go there—no colored people." The directors of these parks said there was no discrimination against Negroes but that they did not come because they felt that these parks were "for white folks only."

III. USE OF FACILITIES

Table XVII gives estimates by the officers in charge of the Negro attendance at the places of recreation in or near the Negro areas.

Maximum attendance, 100,400. Negroes approximately, 19,000.[43]

Factors influencing attendance.—Out of the thirty-five playgrounds, recreation centers, and bathing-beaches in or near the Negro areas for which attendance figures were secured, at fifteen Negro attendance never amounted to more than 10 per cent, and usually was less. In several cases distance or such barriers as railroad tracks seemed to explain the small percentage of Negro patrons. In other cases it seemed due to the existence of other facilities nearer the center of the Negro area which were more largely patronized by the Negroes; an example is Stanton, which though not far from the Negro area is farther than Seward Park. The small number of Negroes at other places often could not be explained by the director. At Gladstone Playground, for example, in a neighborhood where the Negro population was increasing rapidly, practically no Negro children were found, though the white children said there were plenty of Negro children in the school. "They don't stick around after school hours or in the summer," said the children, but no one appeared to know why this was the case, as there had never been any difficulty at this playground. Negro children used Drake and Sherwood playgrounds much less, or not at all, after school hours and in summer. At Drake, though the two races mingled in games in the daytime and no disorders had occurred, the Negro boys took no part in the games in the evening when the older white boys were home. This, the director said, was due not to timidity or fear of aggression, but rather to "lack of ambition." At Sherwood Playground, west of Wentworth Avenue, where 50 per cent of the children using the playground during school hours were Negroes, there were no Negroes on the playground in the afternoon and evening and all summer. This was said to be due to the fact that the Negro children in the school, especially the girls, were larger than the white children and during the school session were the dominating group. After school, however, the older white children got home from other schools or from work and assumed control, allowing no Negroes in the playground. The Negroes then went to Carter Playground, which is east of Wentworth Avenue, in the main Negro settlement. This separation, the attendant stated, was due entirely to action on the part of the children, as the officials did not discriminate in any way. This neighborhood has been much disturbed and is discussed in more detail under "Contacts."

Representatives of each park commission said that they had no rules or regulations of any kind discriminating against Negroes, and that all races were treated in exactly the same way. The only case in which this rule appeared to be violated was in connection with Negro golf players at Jackson Park. Two Negroes participated in the Amateur Golf Tournament at Jackson Park in the summer of 1918 and made good records. The only requirement for entrance into the tournament at that time was residence in the city for one year. In 1919 the requirements were increased, entries being limited to the lowest sixty-four scores, and membership in a "regularly organized golf club" being required. Since Negroes are not accepted in established golf clubs, the Negro golf players met this qualification by organizing a new club, "The Windy City Golf Association." In 1920 the restriction was added that contestants must belong to a regularly organized golf club affiliated with the Western Golf Association. As it was impossible for Negro clubs to secure such affiliation, it is impossible for Negroes to compete in the tournament.

Unofficial discrimination, however, frequently creeps in. According to the representative of the Municipal Bureau, "the person in charge of the park is largely influenced by the attitude of the people outside the park. We had trouble at Beutner Playground because of the tendency on the part of the director, who was a white man, to be influenced by the attitude of the white people in the neighborhood, and either consciously or unconsciously showed by his actions to the colored people that they were not fully accepted." Beutner Playground later became an example of unofficial discrimination in favor of the Negroes, for the Municipal Bureau decided to "turn over the playground particularly to Negroes" and instructed the director "to give them more use of the facilities than the whites." But this was found to be impossible as long as a white director was employed, because he was influenced by the feeling of the whites in the neighborhood who did not want the playground turned over to the Negroes. The desired result was finally obtained by employing a Negro director. "Then the switch suddenly came," said the park representative, "and the playground was turned over to the Negroes almost exclusively."

A similar method was employed with reference to the Twenty-sixth Street Beach, according to the head of the Municipal Bureau, who said: "As the colored population gradually got heavier and more demand came for the use of that beach it gradually developed into a beach that was used almost exclusively by Negroes. And we did as we did in the Beutner case: we employed a Negro director when the preponderance was Negro."

This beach has since been transferred to the South Park Commission, and there is no longer a Negro director there, though most of the attendants are Negroes.

Park policemen will not let Negroes go in swimming at the Thirty-eighth Street Beach, according to a Negro playground director. "The park policemen tell you, 'You can't go in, you better not go in, I'd advise you not to go in,'" said the director. "If you try to go in he keeps you out."

The Negro director of Beutner Playground reported an unpleasant personal encounter with the policeman of Armour Square. "Last summer I had occasion to go over there with my assistant who is colored. We went to the library and the park police officer we met said, 'niggers ought to stay in Beutner Park.'" Policemen in Armour Square also had helped to drive out Negro boys who had gone over there to use the showers, according to this director. In addition he said that Negro boys had been refused permits to play baseball at Armour Square. The director of the park said, in answer to these statements, that there was no discrimination on the part of the management and if such things had occurred it was without the knowledge of the management and due to the fact that the applicants did not see anyone in authority. "The only applicants I have had for a colored baseball team this year was for an outside industrial team, and they were given permission," said the director. "Whether the police officer followed them up and told them they shouldn't come back, I don't know, but they didn't come back. I gave them the permit to come."

At one or two parks definite efforts had been made to encourage larger numbers of Negroes to make use of the facilities, but at Armour Square the director did not believe this to be advisable. "I have never gone out to do any promotional work to bring them in," she said, "because I would not choose personally to be responsible for the things that would happen outside my gates if I were responsible for bringing large groups into Armour Square. If such groups come to me for reservations I give them, but they don't come." This director also said that she would feel it necessary to warn any Negro group that might come to her park that she could not be responsible for their protection outside the park.

At Union Park, which has a playground and swimming-pool and is situated on the edge of the densest Negro residential area on the West Side, every effort has been made to encourage the Negroes of the neighborhood to make use of the limited facilities, according to the representative of the West Chicago Park Commission, who said:

The director of Fuller Park told of a special effort he had made, with the assistance of a Y.M.C.A. physical instructor, a Negro, to increase the use of the park by Negroes living east of Wentworth Avenue. The Y.M.C.A. instructor guaranteed to get the people, and 400 application blanks were distributed among Negro children in the Sunday schools of the neighborhood. All the blanks were signed with the names of Negro children between eight and sixteen and returned to the office. When the classes started a few weeks later, no Negro children appeared. The distributor of the blanks tried for three or four weeks to find out why the Negro children did not come but failed to discover any reason. Then the director sent a notice to the Defender, a widely circulated Negro newspaper, saying that the children who had signed application blanks for classes at Fuller Park were requested to come at any time and were just as welcome as white children. Thereupon a few children came—two or three out of a class of thirty. Additional notices were put in the Defender, and an effort was made to interest the Negro pastors, but the attendance did not increase, and finally the attempt was given up for that year. The next year a similar effort was made but with only slightly better results. At the band concerts and moving pictures the Negro attendance is fairly good, and a large number of Negroes use the library, but the gymnasium and the children's playground are used very little by the Negroes, and the swimming-pool practically not at all.

The reasons advanced by the park officials for the non-use of convenient recreation facilities are that the Negro is timid and reluctant to go where he feels he is not wanted, or that he fears attack in the park or near it. At a conference the West Park representative said:

At Sherwood Playground, Armour Square, and Fuller Square, all west of Wentworth Avenue, which is considered the dividing line between the white and Negro areas, fear is probably a large factor in the small Negro attendance, as the feeling in the neighborhood is bitter and fights have been frequent. At Sherwood Negro children use the playground during school hours when they feel that they have the protection of the school, but not after school when they feel that protection is lacking. Webster School at Wentworth Avenue and Thirty-third Street, which is 30 per cent Negro, has its graduation exercises in Armour Square, but the Negro children do not go to Armour Square at any other time, and they did not go over at night for an entertainment which the principal of Webster School arranged at Armour Square. Negro children use the Armour Square library freely, according to the director, but there has never been an application for the use of a clubroom, and no Negroes come to the outdoor moving pictures which are given one night a week. "There's absolutely nothing to prevent them coming," said the director. "Why don't they come? There is nothing within the park they need to be afraid of. There has been absolutely no distinction made in the handling of colored children or colored men or colored women coming to Armour Square, but they do not come." The director was positive that the failure to come to the park was due to the attitude toward Negroes outside the park. She explained that although she could guarantee safety and police protection inside the park, she could do nothing to protect Negroes outside the park gates. The park policemen are employees of the park boards and not of the city and have no jurisdiction outside the parks. This is true of the police at all parks and beaches maintained by the park boards, but the police at the playgrounds and beaches maintained by the Municipal Bureau of Parks, Playgrounds, and Bathing Beaches are members of the regular city police force.

Continuing, the Armour Square director said:

The testimony of the Negro director of the Beutner Playground seemed to indicate that Negroes were kept out of Armour Square in ways that its director did not know about.

IV. CONTACTS

Behavior.—The behavior of Negroes at the parks apparently has not been the major cause of the difficulties that have arisen in the past. Such complaints as were made by park officials in regard to the behavior of Negroes at the parks concerned groups of rough or domineering children at the playgrounds rather than adults.