In July, 1919, a race riot involving whites and Negroes occurred in Chicago. For some time thoughtful citizens, white and Negro, had sensed increasing tension, but, having no local precedent of riot and wholesale bloodshed, had neither prepared themselves for it nor taken steps to prevent it. The collecting of arms by members of both races was known to the authorities, and it was evident that this was in preparation for aggression as well as for self-defense.
Several minor clashes preceded the riot. On July 3, 1917, a white saloon-keeper who, according to the coroner's physician, died of heart trouble, was incorrectly reported in the press to have been killed by a Negro. That evening a party of young white men riding in an automobile fired upon a group of Negroes at Fifty-third and Federal streets. In July and August of the same year recruits from the Great Lakes Naval Training Station clashed frequently with Negroes, each side accusing the other of being the aggressor.
Gangs of white "toughs," made up largely of the membership of so-called "athletic clubs" from the neighborhood between Roosevelt Road and Sixty-third Street, Wentworth Avenue and the city limits—a district contiguous to the neighborhood of the largest Negro settlement—were a constant menace to Negroes who traversed sections of the territory going to and returning from work. The activities of these gangs and "athletic clubs" became bolder in the spring of 1919, and on the night of June 21, five weeks before the riot, two wanton murders of Negroes occurred, those of Sanford Harris and Joseph Robinson. Harris returning to his home on Dearborn Street, about 11:30 at night, passed a group of young white men. They threatened him and he ran. He had gone but a short distance when one of the group shot him. He died soon afterward. Policemen who came on the scene made no arrests, even when the assailant was pointed out by a white woman witness of the murder. On the same evening Robinson, a Negro laborer, forty-seven years of age, was attacked while returning from work by a gang of white "roughs" at Fifty-fifth Street and Princeton Avenue, apparently without provocation, and stabbed to death.
Negroes were greatly incensed over these murders, but their leaders, joined by many friendly whites, tried to allay their fears and counseled patience.
After the killing of Harris and Robinson notices were conspicuously posted on the South Side that an effort would be made to "get all the niggers on July 4th." The notices called for help from sympathizers. Negroes in turn whispered around the warning to prepare for a riot; and they did prepare.
Since the riot in East St. Louis, July 4, 1917, there had been others in different parts of the country which evidenced a widespread lack of restraint in mutual antipathies and suggested further resorts to lawlessness. Riots and race clashes occurred in Chester, Pennsylvania; Longview, Texas; Coatesville, Pennsylvania; Washington, D.C.; and Norfolk, Virginia, before the Chicago riot.
Aside from general lawlessness and disastrous riots that preceded the riot here discussed, there were other factors which may be mentioned briefly here. In Chicago considerable unrest had been occasioned in industry by increasing competition between white and Negro laborers following a sudden increase in the Negro population due to the migration of Negroes from the South. This increase developed a housing crisis. The Negroes overran the hitherto recognized area of Negro residence, and when they took houses in adjoining neighborhoods friction ensued. In the two years just preceding the riot, twenty-seven Negro dwellings were wrecked by bombs thrown by unidentified persons.
Sunday afternoon, July 27, 1919, hundreds of white and Negro bathers crowded the lake-front beaches at Twenty-sixth and Twenty-ninth streets. This is the eastern boundary of the thickest Negro residence area. At Twenty-sixth Street Negroes were in great majority; at Twenty-ninth Street there were more whites. An imaginary line in the water separating the two beaches had been generally observed by the two races. Under the prevailing relations, aided by wild rumors and reports, this line served virtually as a challenge to either side to cross it. Four Negroes who attempted to enter the water from the "white" side were driven away by the whites. They returned with more Negroes, and there followed a series of attacks with stones, first one side gaining the advantage, then the other.
Eugene Williams, a Negro boy of seventeen, entered the water from the side used by Negroes and drifted across the line supported by a railroad tie. He was observed by the crowd on the beach and promptly became a target for stones. He suddenly released the tie, went down and was drowned. Guilt was immediately placed on Stauber, a young white man, by Negro witnesses who declared that he threw the fatal stone.[103]
White and Negro men dived for the boy without result. Negroes demanded that the policeman present arrest Stauber. He refused; and at this crucial moment arrested a Negro on a white man's complaint. Negroes then attacked the officer. These two facts, the drowning and the refusal of the policeman to arrest Stauber, together marked the beginning of the riot.
Two hours after the drowning, a Negro, James Crawford, fired into a group of officers summoned by the policeman at the beach and was killed by a Negro policeman. Reports and rumors circulated rapidly, and new crowds began to gather. Five white men were injured in clashes near the beach. As darkness came Negroes in white districts to the west suffered severely. Between 9:00 p.m. and 3:00 a.m. twenty-seven Negroes were beaten, seven stabbed, and four shot. Monday morning was quiet, and Negroes went to work as usual.
Returning from work in the afternoon many Negroes were attacked by white ruffians. Street-car routes, especially at transfer points, were the centers of lawlessness. Trolleys were pulled from the wires, and Negro passengers were dragged into the street, beaten, stabbed, and shot. The police were powerless to cope with these numerous assaults. During Monday, four Negro men and one white assailant were killed, and thirty Negroes were severely beaten in street-car clashes. Four white men were killed, six stabbed, five shot, and nine severely beaten. It was rumored that the white occupants of the Angelus Building at Thirty-fifth Street and Wabash Avenue had shot a Negro. Negroes gathered about the building. The white tenants sought police protection, and one hundred policemen, mounted and on foot, responded. In a clash with the mob the police killed four Negroes and injured many.
Raids into the Negro residence area then began. Automobiles sped through the streets, the occupants shooting at random. Negroes retaliated by "sniping" from ambush. At midnight surface and elevated car service was discontinued because of a strike for wage increases, and thousands of employees were cut off from work.
On Tuesday, July 29, Negro men en route on foot to their jobs through hostile territory were killed. White soldiers and sailors in uniform, aided by civilians, raided the "Loop" business section, killing two Negroes and beating and robbing several others. Negroes living among white, neighbors in Englewood, far to the south, were driven from their homes, their household goods were stolen, and their houses were burned or wrecked. On the West Side an Italian mob, excited by a false rumor that an Italian girl had been shot by a Negro, killed Joseph Lovings, a Negro.
Wednesday night at 10:30 Mayor Thompson yielded to pressure and asked the help of the three regiments of militia which had been stationed in nearby armories during the most severe rioting, awaiting the call. They immediately took up positions throughout the South Side. A rainfall Wednesday night and Thursday kept many people in their homes, and by Friday the rioting had abated. On Saturday incendiary fires burned forty-nine houses in the immigrant neighborhood west of the Stock Yards. Nine hundred and forty-eight people, mostly Lithuanians, were made homeless, and the property loss was about $250,000. Responsibility for the fires was never fixed.
The total casualties of this reign of terror were thirty-eight deaths—fifteen white, twenty-three Negro—and 537 people injured. Forty-one per cent of the reported clashes occurred in the white neighborhood near the Stock Yards between the south branch of the Chicago River and Fifty-fifth Street, Wentworth Avenue and the city limits, and 34 per cent in the "Black Belt" between Twenty-second and Thirty-ninth streets, Wentworth Avenue and Lake Michigan. Others were scattered.
Responsibility for many attacks was definitely placed by many witnesses upon the "athletic clubs," including "Ragen's Colts," the "Hamburgers," "Aylwards," "Our Flag," the "Standard," the "Sparklers," and several others. The mobs were made up for the most part of boys between fifteen and twenty-two. Older persons participated, but the youth of the rioters was conspicuous in every clash. Little children witnessed the brutalities and frequently pointed out the injured when the police arrived.
Wild rumors were in circulation by word of mouth and in the press throughout the riot and provoked many clashes. These included stories of atrocities committed by one race against the other. Reports of the numbers of white and Negro dead tended to produce a feeling that the score must be kept even. Newspaper reports, for example, showed 6 per cent more whites injured than Negroes. As a matter of fact there were 28 per cent more Negroes injured than whites. The Chicago Tribune on July 29 reported twenty persons killed, of whom thirteen were white and seven colored. The true figures were exactly the opposite.
Among the rumors provoking fear were numerous references to the arming of Negroes. In the Daily News of July 30, for example, appeared the subheadline: "Alderman Jos. McDonough tells how he was shot at on South Side visit. Says enough ammunition in section to last for years of guerrilla warfare." In the article following, the reference to ammunition was repeated but not elaborated or explained.
The alderman was quoted as saying that the mayor contemplated opening up Thirty-fifth and Forty-seventh streets in order that colored people might get to their work. He thought this would be most unwise for, he stated, "They are armed and white people are not. We must defend ourselves if the city authorities won't protect us." Continuing his story, he described bombs going off: "I saw white men and women running through the streets dragging children by the hands and carrying babies in their arms. Frightened white men told me the police captains had just rushed through the district crying, 'For God's sake, arm; they are coming; we cannot hold them.'"
Whether or not the alderman was correctly quoted, the effect of such statements on the public was the same. There is no record in any of the riot testimony in the coroner's office or state's attorney's office of any bombs going off during the riot, nor of police captains warning the white people to arm, nor of any fear by whites of a Negro invasion. In the Berger Odman case before a coroner's jury there was a statement to the effect that a sergeant of police warned the Negroes of Ogden Park to arm and to shoot at the feet of rioters if they attempted to invade the few blocks marked off for Negroes by the police. Negroes were warned, not whites.
Chief of Police John J. Garrity, in explaining the inability of the police to curb the rioters, said that there was not a sufficient force to police one-third of the city. Aside from this, Negroes distrusted the white police officers, and it was implied by the chief and stated by State's Attorney Hoyne, that many of the police were "grossly unfair in making arrests." There were instances of actual police participation in the rioting as well as neglect of duty. Of 229 persons arrested and accused of various criminal activities during the riot, 154 were Negroes and seventy-five were whites. Of those indicted, eighty-one were Negroes and forty-seven were whites. Although this, on its face, would indicate great riot activity on the part of Negroes, further reports of clashes show that of 520 persons injured, 342 were Negroes and 178 were whites. The fact that twice as many Negroes appeared as defendants and twice as many Negroes as whites were injured, leads to the conclusion that whites were not apprehended as readily as Negroes.
Many of the depredations outside the "Black Belt" were encouraged by the absence of policemen. Out of a force of 3,000 police, 2,800 were massed in the "Black Belt" during the height of the rioting. In the "Loop" district, where two Negroes were killed and several others wounded, there were only three policemen and one sergeant. The Stock Yards district, where the greatest number of injuries occurred, was also weakly protected.
Although Governor Lowden had ordered the militia into the city promptly and they were on hand on the second day of the rioting, their services were not requested by the mayor and chief of police until the evening of the fourth day. The reason expressed by the chief for this delay was a belief that inexperienced militiamen would add to the deaths and disorder. But the troops, when called, proved to be clearly of high character, and their discipline was good, not a case of breach of discipline being reported during their occupation. They were distributed more proportionately through all the riotous areas than the police and, although they reported some hostility from members of "athletic clubs," the rioting soon ceased.
Throughout the rioting various social organizations and many citizens were at work trying to hold hostilities in check and to restore order. The Chicago Urban League, Wabash Avenue Y.M.C.A., American Red Cross, and various other social organizations and the churches of the Negro community gave attention to caring for stranded Negroes, advising them of dangers, keeping them off the streets and, in such ways as were possible, co-operating with the police. The packing companies took their pay to Negro employees, and various banks made loans. Local newspapers in their editorial columns insistently condemned the disorder and counseled calmness.
Of the thirty-eight persons killed in the riot:
Fifteen met death at the hands of mobs. Coroner's juries recommended that the members of the unknown mobs be apprehended. They were never found.
Six were killed in circumstances fixing no criminal responsibility: three white men were killed by Negroes in self-defense, and three Negroes were shot by policemen in the discharge of their duty.
Four Negroes were killed in the Angelus riot. The coroner made no recommendations, and the cases were not carried farther.
Four cases, two Negro and two white, resulted in recommendations from coroner's juries for further investigation of certain persons. Sufficient evidence was lacking for indictments against them.
Nine cases led to indictments. Of this number four cases resulted in convictions.
Thus in only four cases of death was criminal responsibility fixed and punishment meted out.
Indictments and convictions, divided according to the race of the persons criminally involved, were as follows:
| Negro | White | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cases | Persons | Cases | Persons | |
| Indictments | 6 | 17 | 3 | 4 |
| Convictions | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
Despite the community's failure to deal firmly with those who disturbed its peace and contributed to the reign of lawlessness that shamed Chicago before the world, there is evidence that the riot aroused many citizens of both races to a quickened sense of the suffering and disgrace which had come and might again come to the city, and developed a determination to prevent a recurrence of so disastrous an outbreak of race hatred. This was manifest on at least three occasions in 1920 when, confronted suddenly with events out of which serious riots might easily have grown, people of both races acted with such courage and promptness as to end the trouble early. One of these was the murder of two innocent white men and the wounding of a Negro policeman by a band of Negro fanatics who styled themselves "Abyssinians"; another was the killing of a white man by a Negro whom he had attacked while returning from work; and still another was the riotous attacks of sailors from the Great Lakes Naval Training Station on Negroes in Waukegan, Illinois.
This study of the facts of the riot of 1919, the events as they happened hour by hour, the neighborhoods involved, the movements of mobs, the part played by rumors, and the handling of the emergency by the various authorities, shows certain outstanding features which may be listed as follows:
a) The riot violence was not continuous hour by hour, but was intermittent.
b) The greatest number of injuries occurred in the district west and inclusive of Wentworth Avenue, and south of the south branch of the Chicago River to Fifty-fifth Street, or in the Stock Yards district. The next greatest number occurred in the so-called "Black Belt": Twenty-second to Thirty-ninth streets, inclusive, and Wentworth Avenue to the lake, exclusive of Wentworth Avenue; Thirty-ninth to Fifty-fifth streets, inclusive, and Clark Street to Michigan Avenue, exclusive of Michigan Avenue.
c) Organized raids occurred only after a period of sporadic clashes and spontaneous mob outbreaks.
d) Main thoroughfares witnessed 76 per cent of the injuries on the South Side. The streets which suffered most severely were State, Halsted, Thirty-first, Thirty-fifth, and Forty-seventh. Transfer corners were always centers of disturbances.
e) Most of the rioting occurred after work hours among idle crowds on the streets. This was particularly true after the street-car strike began.
f) Gangs, particularly of young whites, formed definite nuclei for crowd and mob formation. "Athletic clubs" supplied the leaders of many gangs.
g) Crowds and mobs engaged in rioting were generally composed of a small nucleus of leaders and an acquiescing mass of spectators. The leaders were mostly young men, usually between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one. Dispersal was most effectively accomplished by sudden, unexpected gun fire.
h) Rumor kept the crowds in an excited, potential mob state. The press was responsible for giving wide dissemination to much of the inflammatory matter in spoken rumors, though editorials calculated to allay race hatred and help the forces of order were factors in the restoration of peace.
i) The police lacked sufficient forces for handling the riot; they were hampered by the Negroes' distrust of them; routing orders and records were not handled with proper care; certain officers were undoubtedly unsuited to police or riot duty.
j) The militiamen employed in this riot were of an unusually high type. This unquestionably accounts for the confidence placed in them by both races. Riot training, definite orders, and good staff work contributed to their efficiency.
k) There was a lack of energetic co-operation between the police department and the state's attorney's office in the discovery and conviction of rioters.
The riot was merely a symptom of serious and profound disorders lying beneath the surface of race relations in Chicago. The study of the riot, therefore, as to its interlocking provocations and causes, required a study of general race relations that made possible so serious and sudden an outbreak. Thus to understand the riot and guard against another, the Commission probed systematically into the principal phases of race contact and sought accurate information on matters which in the past have been influenced by dangerous speculation; and on the basis of its discoveries certain suggestions to the community are made.
During the period 1916-18 approximately 500,000 Negroes moved from southern to northern states. Some cities of the North received increases in Negro population of 10 per cent to 300 per cent. The Negro population of Gary, Indiana, increased from 383 in 1910 to 5,299 in 1920, an increase of 1,283 per cent.
Chicago was in direct line for migrants from the South, especially along the Mississippi Valley, and received approximately 65,000, who constituted a large proportion of the increase of 148.5 per cent in its Negro population in the last decade. These migrants definitely accentuated existing problems of race contact and brought new problems of adjustment and assimilation. Southern Negroes with southern manners, habits, and traditions, and mostly from rural districts, became part of a northern urban community. Knowledge of the causes of this movement of Negroes will make easier an understanding of the difficulties following it. These causes were economic as well as sentimental.
The South was paying to Negroes wages which varied from 75 cents a day on a farm to $1.75 a day in certain city jobs. For two seasons the boll weevil, a destructive pest, had been making heavy ravages upon the cotton crops, ruining thousands of farms and throwing out of employment many thousands of Negro workers. Lack of capital to carry labor through a period of poor crops and over the normal intervals between planting and harvesting largely increased Negro unemployment. Unsatisfactory living conditions, on plantations and in segregated quarters of southern cities, stimulated unrest. School facilities for Negro children, described as lamentably poor even by southerners, increased dissatisfaction with conditions in the South. The Negro illiteracy in fifteen southern states was 33.3 per cent as compared with 7.7 per cent for whites. The appropriations for teachers in the schools of these states on a per capita basis was $10.32 for each white child, and $2.89 for each Negro child.
On the other hand, the North was for the first time on a large scale opening up opportunities for Negroes to earn a livelihood. The cessation of immigration due to the war and the drawing of workers into military service created a great demand for labor; and the opening of new industries and the extension of old ones to meet the demands of the war provided still greater opportunities. At the same time, these industries were paying laborers from $3 to $8 per day, and offering shorter hours and the opportunity for overtime work and bonuses. The North also offered living accommodations which, although below standard for city dwellers, were a vast improvement over most of the plantation cabins and frail frame dwellings of the South. There are no segregated schools in the North, and Negro children are offered identical school privileges with white children.
Other causes of the migration, as stated by the migrants and otherwise confirmed, were: lack of protection from mob violence, injustice in the courts, inferior transportation facilities, deprivation of the right to vote, "rough-handed and unfair competition of 'poor whites,'" "persecution by petty officers of the law," and "persecution by the press."
Between 1895 and 1918, 2,881 Negroes were lynched in the United States, and more than 85 per cent of these lynchings occurred in the South. The Atlanta Constitution declared that the heaviest migration of Negroes was from those counties in which there had been the worst outbreaks against Negroes.
How the migration began.—The migration began early in 1916. Hard-pressed industries in the East, principally in Pennsylvania, imported Negroes from Georgia and Florida. During July of that year, 13,000 were carried to Pennsylvania by one railroad company alone.[104] They wrote back for their families and friends. Reports of high wages and good treatment, aided by the hysteria of a mass movement, accomplished the rest.
The migration was first noted in Chicago in 1917. It had been rumored in the South that the Stock Yards needed 50,000 men; the city had been regarded by Negroes as a future home since the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893; it was the great city of mail-order houses, the home of the Chicago Defender, a widely circulated Negro newspaper, the "end of the railroad line," and the "top of the world" for Negroes. Negro newspapers gave up their columns to migration news and urged southern Negroes to go North. The movement soon became a mass movement; with standards, songs, and watchwords the migrants began arriving in the city faster than they could be absorbed into the population.
The arrival in Chicago.—Prior to the migration, the majority of Negroes in Chicago lived in a fairly limited area on the South Side, principally between Twenty-second and Thirty-ninth streets, Wentworth Avenue and State Street, and in scattered groups east of State Street to Cottage Grove Avenue. This area adjoined the old vice area, and many houses of the vicinity had been abandoned by older Chicago Negroes. Shortly after the migrants began to arrive, practically all available houses had been taken and filled to overcrowding. On a single day the Chicago Urban League found 664 Negro applicants for houses with only fifty-five dwellings actually available for use by Negroes. At the same time rents for Negroes were increased by from 5 to 50 per cent.
Meeting actual conditions of life in Chicago brought both exaltation and disillusionment to the migrants. These were reflected in the schools, in public amusement places, in industry, and in the street cars. The Chicago Urban League and the various Negro churches and newspapers assumed the task of making the newcomers "city folk." The difficulty of adjustment showed itself in the great differences in habits of life and employment. Craftsmen had to relearn their trades when thrown amid the highly specialized processes of northern industries; domestic servants went into industry; professional men had to re-establish themselves in a new community.
Many Negroes sold their homes in the South and brought their furniture with them. Reinvesting in property frequently meant a loss; the furniture brought was often found to be unsuited to the tiny apartments or the large abandoned dwellings that they were able to rent or buy.
Change of residence carried with it in many cases change of status. The "leader" in a small southern community when he came to Chicago was immediately absorbed into the great, struggling mass of unnoticed workers. School teachers, male and female, whose positions in the South held commendable prestige, had to go to work in factories and plants because the disparity in educational standards would not permit a continuation of their profession in Chicago.
The migrants visited by the Commission investigators, however, for the most part gave evidence of satisfaction with their change of home, and were pleased with the opportunity of voting, of sending their children to schools, and of higher wages, and with the privilege of participation in community life. Others felt the pressure of high rents and bad living accommodations and complained against certain discriminations.
The fact is, however, that few Negroes have returned to the South, even in response to insistent invitations and offers of free transportation and better home conditions made by southern states that were left badly in need of laborers as a result of the migration.
The Negro population of Chicago, as reported by the Federal Bureau of the Census, was 44,103 in 1910, and 109,594 in 1920. The increase during the decade was, therefore, 65,491, or 148.5 per cent. Negroes constituted 2 per cent of the city's total population in 1910 and 4.1 per cent in 1920. The increase in the white population during the decade was 450,047, or 21 per cent, bringing the number up to 2,589,104 in 1920. Counting 3,007 Chinese, Japanese, and Indians of whom there were 2,123 in 1910, Chicago's total population in 1920 was 2,701,705.
This growth of the Negro population did not bring into existence any new large colonies of Negroes, but merely expanded and increased the density of areas in which they already lived. The areas of Negro residence are listed under designations arbitrarily given for convenient reference.[105]
| 1920 |
| SOUTH SIDE |
| Roosevelt Road—Fifty-fifth St.; Wentworth Ave.—Cottage Grove Ave. |
| Population: total, 376,171; Negro, 92,901. |
| Woodlawn |
| Sixty-first St.—Sixty-seventh St.; Eberhart Ave.—Grand Blvd. |
| Population: total, 8,861; Negro, 1,235. |
| Lake Park Avenue Area |
| Fifty-third St.—Fifty-seventh St.; Harper Ave.—Lake Park Ave. |
| Population: Negro, 238. |
| Ogden Park Area |
| Fifty-ninth St.—Sixty-third St.; Halsted St.—Loomis Blvd. |
| Population: total, 38,893; Negro, 1,859. |
| NORTH SIDE |
| North Ave.—Chicago Ave.; State St.—Larrabee St. |
| Population: Negro, 1,050. |
| Ravenswood |
| Lawrence Ave.—Montrose Ave.; Sheridan Road—Ashland Ave. |
| Population: Negro, 175. |
| WEST SIDE |
| Austin Ave.—Washington Ave.; Morgan St.—California Ave. |
| Population: Negro, 8,363. |
| MORGAN PARK AREA |
| 107th St.—115th St.; Loomis St.—Vincennes Ave. |
| Population: Negro, 695. |
The South Side.—While the main colony of Chicago's Negro population is located in a central part of the South Side, Negroes are to be found in several parts of the city, ranging from less than 1 per cent to more than 95 per cent in proportion to the total population. In some of these neighborhoods whites and Negroes have become adjusted to one another; in others they have not. One of these adjusted areas is the so-called "Black Belt." Because 90 per cent of the Negroes of Chicago live there, it is usually assumed that the area is 90 per cent Negro. The fact is very different. The most densely populated section of the South Side area, between Roosevelt Road and Thirty-ninth Street, Wentworth Avenue and Lake Michigan, has a population of 54,906 Negroes and 42,797 whites. There has been no noticeable friction in this area; and even during the riot few whites living or engaged in business there were molested by Negroes. Most of the whites killed or injured there came from other sections of the city. The many large apartment houses and family hotels occupied by whites are apparently little affected by the presence about them of many Negroes. Relations in Woodlawn, where the Negro increase has been relatively large, are for the most part friendly. No clashes have been reported except in the one instance of a group of white boys who threw stones at a building in which they saw Negroes. When they were arrested it developed that they had come from another neighborhood. Following the stirring up and organization of anti-Negro sentiment in Hyde Park, an attempt was made to organize white Woodlawn property owners against the "invasion" of the district by Negroes. This organization was not a very great success. There have been no bombings in this district, and no concerted opposition to the presence of Negroes as neighbors. Long, amicable residence together and the good character of the Negroes as well as the whites are probably important reasons for the absence of friction. And it also should be said that in the Woodlawn district the proportion of Negroes is so small that there has been no occasion for much controversy over an alleged depreciation of property values on account of Negro occupancy.
The West Side.—On the West Side there has been a settlement of Negroes for many years. Houses are cheaper there than on the South Side; and although the general level of ordinary workingmen's homes compares favorably with that on the South Side, there are few abandoned residences formerly occupied by wealthy persons now available for Negroes. There has been little friction within this area, in which 9,221 whites and 6,520 Negroes live. West Side Negroes, laborers for the most part, are generally home-loving, hard-working people, desirous of improving conditions for their children. Older settlers among them have been able to make their adjustments without great difficulty, meeting with no serious antagonism from white neighbors.
The North Side.—On the North Side, Negroes live among foreign whites and near a residential area of wealthy Chicagoans. The appearance of the first Negro residents there occasioned little notice or objection. They were for the most part house servants living near their work.
This neighborhood has experienced several complete changes in population. It was first occupied by Irish, then by Swedes, then by Italians, who are the present neighbors of Negroes. Friendly relations exist between the Sicilians, who predominate, and their Negro neighbors. Some Negroes live harmoniously in the same tenements with Sicilians. Their children play together, and some of the Negro children have learned Sicilian phrases so that they are able to deal with the Sicilian shopkeepers. Elsewhere on the North Side the feeling between Italians and Negroes is not so cordial.
Non-adjusted neighborhoods.—In other sections the failure of Negro and white neighbors to adjust themselves mutually has produced the most serious phases of the Negro housing problem. A general housing shortage may be relieved by the opening of new neighborhoods or the availability of houses in various parts of the city, but for Negroes there is less opportunity for thus relieving the housing shortage because of the hostility of many white neighborhoods to the presence of Negroes.
White residents immediately south of the old West Side Negro residence area objected to the moving in of Negroes, sending numerous threatening letters to the newcomers and otherwise annoying them. In certain sections of the North Side, Negro residents have been molested. On one occasion shots were fired at their homes, and at other times warning signs with pictures of skulls, crossbones, and coffins were posted. In the Lake Park Avenue area on the South Side, Negroes are limited to a few blocks, are not permitted to buy, and are discriminated against in practically all restaurants and amusement places.
West of Wentworth Avenue, adjoining the South Side Negro residence area, few Negroes live. The residents here are largely Irish working people and distinctly hostile to Negroes, even to those merely passing through the neighborhood. This area has many organized gangs and "athletic clubs," and its racial antagonisms appear to be traditional.
In Park Manor and Wakeford, between Sixty-ninth and Seventy-ninth streets, Cottage Grove and Indiana avenues, excitement was created in a new white settlement by an advertisement in a local paper addressed to Negroes offering them houses there. The name of a white real estate dealer living there was given. A demonstration followed, meetings were held, and the real estate man was asked to explain. He asserted, and it seems to have been the case, that the advertisement was the "spite work" of an enemy.
Kenwood and Hyde Park: The neighborhood between Thirty-ninth and Fifty-ninth streets, State Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, just south of the Negro residence area, has been termed a "contested neighborhood," because of the recent influx of Negroes. The "Black Belt" was already overcrowded, and its occupants were seeking relief from deteriorated and insufficient housing. The coming of thousands of Negroes from the South made it overflow. With Lake Michigan flanking the east, encroaching industry the north, and overcrowded, hostile neighborhoods the west, the overflow inevitably went south into the west portion of Hyde Park and Kenwood. Scattered through the South Side were numerous houses and apartments that had been vacant for many years; and sales were gladly made to the Negroes, many of the recent southern migrants having considerable funds. In 1919, of the 3,300 owners of property in the region embracing parts of Kenwood and Hyde Park and adjacent territory, 1,000 were Negroes. Already a popular agitation against the Negroes had been begun by real estate men who formed the Kenwood and Hyde Park Property Owners' Association. They increased and organized the prejudice against the Negroes in a campaign "to make Hyde Park white." They held meetings, published a weekly newspaper, and called upon property owners and other real estate dealers to pledge themselves against renting or selling to Negroes. In carrying out their program, they resorted to vilification, ridicule, and disparagement of Negroes, accusing them of destroying property values and robbing white people of their homes.
Outlying neighborhoods.—Few outlying places welcome Negroes as residents. Morgan Park, however, has offered homes for Negroes, and the Negro population there has increased from 126 in 1910 to 695 in 1920. They live for the most part on one side of the town near their own churches; they own their homes and keep them attractive. School accommodations are poor, many children leaving school early for that reason.
Robbins, another suburb, is entirely Negro, having a Negro mayor. The town is difficult to reach, unattractive, and uninviting. About 400 hard-working Negroes occupying seventy houses are trying to develop a town against the handicaps of lack of capital, swampy lands, and inaccessibility.
Depreciation of property.—One of the strongest influences in creating and fostering race antagonism in Chicago is the general belief among whites that the presence of Negroes in a neighborhood inevitably and alone depreciates the market value of real estate, and this belief is commonly accepted as a valid reason for unfriendliness toward Negroes as individuals and as a race. Therefore the Commission felt that it was important to learn what basis there is for this belief.
The principal influence of Negroes upon property values in a neighborhood is psychological, due to the deep-seated and general prejudice of whites against Negroes, which begets and sustains the belief that Negroes destroy property values wherever they go. The facts as ascertained by the Commission show that Negro occupancy in a neighborhood is more often due to a prior depreciation of the property there than the depreciation is due to Negro occupancy; and that it is unfair to place the entire responsibility for loss of property values in a neighborhood upon Negro occupancy. In other sections of the city, where there are no Negroes, depreciation of property values has been produced by contacts between populations differing in race, religion, or social standards. Race prejudice produces the present conditions of social injustice toward the Negro, and uses the depreciation of property which it causes, as a new ground for such racial prejudice.
In virtually every neighborhood in Chicago where Negroes now live they were preceded by two or more distinct groups of occupants, and an earlier and often long-continued depreciation of property values is one of the explanations of their presence. This depreciation of values has come from several causes, such as natural physical deterioration, vacation of old and large houses through the death of their original occupants or their removal to new neighborhoods, or the encroachments of vice, or business, or factories, and the like. In this way Negroes have found an opportunity to rent or buy at figures that were comparatively low and within their limited means.
The extension of Negro occupancy into the district between State Street and Lake Michigan and Thirty-first and Thirty-ninth streets followed such an earlier depreciation; and later, similar conditions had similar consequences in the district between State Street and Cottage Grove Avenue and Thirty-ninth and Sixty-third streets, where there has been the most active opposition to the Negro influx.
In the first named of these two districts there are now about 20 per cent more Negroes than whites. During the eighties and nineties this area embraced the most fashionable residence district in Chicago, and almost the entire Negro population lived in the adjoining area on the west—from State Street to Wentworth Avenue and north of Thirty-fifth Street. When the fashionable people of this district began to move to the North Side, the deserted section began to depreciate, and costly houses recently occupied by wealthy owners were thrown upon the market and began to pass through the hands of real estate dealers and into the possession of people belonging to a different social class. Physical deterioration also played its part. Between 1900 and 1910, when the first Negroes moved into Wabash Avenue—one street nearer to the old fashionable district—the houses were at least twenty years old and many of them much older. Real estate men estimate the natural depreciation of such buildings at from 2 to 2½ per cent per year; so that in many cases property once exclusive and of a high class had depreciated at least 50 per cent before there was any prospect of Negro occupancy.
In 1912 the old vice area west of State Street and northwest of this exclusive area was broken up. The inmates, numbering at that time more than 2,000, moved into the nearest large houses available where they could ply their trade clandestinely. They could afford high rents, and owners and agents profited accordingly. Cabarets, cafés, and saloons sought the side streets, and buffet flats were opened. Raids and prosecutions called attention to the changed character of the neighborhood, and property values sank still lower. Many buildings affected by this decline were bought up by real estate speculators and sold to Negroes who were eager for housing. One speculator bought more than 1,400 such houses.
Then came the automobile industries with their showrooms, gas stations, manufacturing plants, and accessory shops, even invading the boulevards, and the desirability of adjacent residence property still further declined.
After the coming of the Negroes the depreciation continued. It was clear that the character of the neighborhood had definitely changed. Negroes were frequently unable to make the needed extensive repairs while they were paying for their property. There are other instances in this area where property not owned by Negroes declined in value chiefly because of its neglect by landlords.
In the district west of Cottage Grove Avenue, adjacent to Hyde Park proper, depreciation had proceeded in much the same manner. This neighborhood was temporarily congested in the period of the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, and hotels and apartment houses were built far in excess of normal needs. Real estate men of that district have made much of this point, stating that many of the houses there had been vacant as long as fifteen years. The first "undesirables" were not Negroes, but other national or racial groups of whites who were objectionable to the original residents. Several factors have combined to make this section less and less desirable for residence purposes. It is close to the Stock Yards, with their offensive odors; and railroads flank it on both sides, with their smoke and noise. The coming of the automobile industries, the opening of boarding-houses, the southward movement of the vice element, all had their adverse effect on property values before Negroes moved east of State Street.
The widespread and deep-seated racial prejudice among whites against Negroes, heretofore mentioned as a psychological basis for the belief that the presence of Negroes is disastrous to property values, is directly reflected in the unwillingness of whites to buy property close to that occupied by Negroes and in their desire to sell, even at a sacrifice, when Negroes move into the immediate neighborhood. While frequently the demand for property among Negroes financially able to buy has not been large enough to absorb realty offered for sale because of the reasons given here, there are, on the other hand, some neighborhoods where the Negro demand has provided a market for property that had long been unmarketable, and in these neighborhoods there has been some increase in the value of such property. It should be noted that the understandable bitterness of feeling on this question of Negro entrance into white residence districts has been intensified in some cases through exploitation, by both white and Negro real estate operators, of anti-Negro prejudice and fear of loss on account of Negro occupancy.
In brief, Negro occupancy depreciates the value of residence property in Chicago because of the social prejudice of white people against Negroes, and because white people will not, and Negroes are financially unable to buy at fair market prices property thrown upon the market when a neighborhood begins to change from white to Negro occupancy; nevertheless, a large part of the depreciation of residence property often charged to Negro occupancy comes from entirely different causes.
Financial aspects of Negro housing.—One difficulty of Negroes in handling their own housing problem is the attitude of real estate mortgage and loan concerns with respect to property tenanted or likely to be tenanted by Negroes. Such property is assumed to be a bad risk, and, as a consequence, Negroes are charged more than whites and find it difficult to secure mortgages to assist in purchasing and are greatly handicapped in their efforts to improve property. This situation has its basis in various beliefs concerning Negroes that are often unwarranted. It developed from the inquiries of the Commission that mortgage brokers were influenced to a large degree by opinions of prospective buyers of Negro mortgages, and these prospective buyers in turn were influenced by beliefs for which there was little basis. It was assumed, for example, that Negroes were unreliable in business dealings. Conferences were held by the Commission with the real estate men who handled the greatest portion of Negro property, and many other real estate men were interviewed by the Commission's investigators. Their testimony indicated a buying capacity far beyond what was expected and showed that Negroes had a good record for meeting their obligations. One real estate man who has made a large number of sales to Negroes, stated that in the whole of his experience there had been but two forfeitures, and neither of these was due to negligence or carelessness. An increasing tendency to buy was noted. This was easily explained by other facts gathered by the Commission which indicated that it was easier for Negroes to buy than to rent property, that during the period of the migration hundreds of dwellings were offered for sale to Negroes on long-term payment plans, and that many migrants who had sold their homes, farms, and belongings in the South came to the city prepared to make substantial payments on property. Many Negroes now own houses valued at from $10,000 to $20,000, and in one instance $30,000.
Regarding Negro habits of saving, inquiries were made at all the principal banks of the city's business section and of the neighborhood where Negroes live. Those who were able to check up on Negro depositors reported large sums deposited and invested. One trust and savings bank had Negro deposits of $1,500,000 and another of $1,000,000; one state bank had $650,000 and another $150,000. A large banking institution in the "Loop" district had 4,000 Negro depositors.
Opportunities for using their own capital to relieve their housing problems were limited by lack of opportunities for obtaining business experience. All the concerns questioned regarding the practicability of employing Negroes in such institutions were of the opinion that it would not meet with the favor of the other employees and patrons.
Bombings.—The antagonistic sentiment attributable to the Negro housing situation both incited and condoned the fifty-eight bombings of homes committed between July 1, 1917, and March 1, 1921. In these bombings two persons, a Negro girl and an infant, were killed, many whites and Negroes were injured, and damage done to property amounted to more than $100,000. Negroes who purchased or rented property and whites who sold or leased it were bombed. Thirty-two bombs were exploded within the area bounded by Forty-first and Sixtieth streets, Cottage Grove Avenue and State Street. Although Negroes in some cases were warned of the exact dates on which they were to be bombed, and policemen were sometimes on duty at the places where bombs were exploded, only two arrests were made. One of those arrested was immediately released and the other was never brought to trial. Protests to the authorities from Negroes have been without effect, and a strong feeling of insecurity and resentment has developed among them. It appears from evidence presented to the Commission that bombings have been systematically planned. Many white residents, objecting to the violence suggested and used to keep out Negroes, withdrew from the neighborhood protective organizations, fearing that they might be held responsible for the resulting lawlessness.
These protective associations have denied responsibility and declared that they used only legitimate methods, such as foreclosure of mortgages and refusal to deal with Negroes. During the summer of 1920, they stated, sixty-eight foreclosures were effected.
The Negro community in Chicago is virtually a city within a city. It affords opportunity to observe how it is accomplishing its own adjustment to the larger community, and how it attempts to function in its own behalf and for the betterment of the community at large.
Negroes have lived in Chicago since its founding. In fact, the first settler, in 1778, was a Negro, Jean Baptiste Point de Saible. There were Negro property owners at the time of the city's incorporation in 1837. Before the Chicago fire in 1871 they lived near what is now the "Loop" business district, north of Harrison Street on Clark and Dearborn streets and on Lake Street on the West Side. Their homes were burned in 1873, and after that they settled in the territory adjoining what later became the "red light" district near Roosevelt Road.
Organization of the Negro community.—Partly from necessity and partly from choice, Negroes have established their own churches, business enterprises, amusement places, social agencies, and newspapers. The number of their business places increased from about 1,200 in 1919 to about 1,500 in 1920. There are 651 places of business operated by Negroes on South State Street, and 549 on the principal cross streets. The majority of these places are those rendering personal service—barber shops, restaurants, hair-dressing parlors, and undertaking establishments. There are also two banks.
Organizations for social intercourse are numerous, consisting principally of churches, fraternal societies, and social clubs. There are 170 congregations holding services in church edifices and in "store-front" churches. Olivet Baptist Church has more than 10,000 members, the largest Negro church membership in the world. It employs sixteen paid workers, and during the last five years has raised more than $200,000. These churches are the principal center for "face-to-face" relations and aid greatly in the process of adjusting Negroes to civic responsibilities. Forty-nine of these congregations own property valued at fully a million and a half dollars.
The social and civic agencies are expressions of the group effort to adjust itself to the community. There are in the Negro community distinct organizations of this kind designed especially for Negroes, and branches of general agencies located conveniently for use by Negroes. Of the former type the Chicago Urban League is the most notable example. This organization is a clearing-house for social work among Negroes, and its activities include social investigations, an industrial bureau, and child welfare. It has an executive board and officers composed of both whites and Negroes, and a highly efficient staff of Negro workers. During 1920 more than 25,000 Negroes were assisted through this organization. Provident Hospital is another example of this type.
Of the latter type the Wabash Avenue Y.M.C.A. is an example. It is a branch of the city Y.M.C.A., and has adjusted itself to the peculiar social problems of its membership and community. Other agencies are the Community Service, Wendell Phillips Settlement on the West Side, Butler Community Center on the North Side, Phyllis Wheatley Home for Girls, Home for the Aged and Infirm, Indiana Avenue Y.W.C.A., Elaine Home Club, Julia Johnson Home for Girls, Hartzell Center, and Illinois Technical School for Colored Girls (a Roman Catholic institution).
Of the general social agencies with branches convenient for Negroes are the American Red Cross, United Charities, Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium, Abraham Lincoln Center. Although some of these branches are poorly supported and undermanned, they represent efforts of the community to care for itself. During 1920 six social agencies and twenty-seven churches raised among Negroes $445,000 for social-welfare work.
The problems arising out of various occasions, both voluntary and enforced, for race association in Chicago, have, for convenience, been included in this report under the general classification of "racial contacts." Attention is given to contacts in the public schools, in public recreation places, on transportation lines, and in other relations exclusive of industry and housing which require special treatment. Negroes in Illinois are legally entitled to all the rights and privileges of other citizens. Actually, however, their participation in public benefits in practically every field is limited by some circumvention of the law.
The public schools furnish one of the most important points of contact between the white and Negro races because of the daily association of thousands of Negro and white children at an impressionable age. The Chicago Board of Education makes no distinction between the races and keeps no separate records. Certain schools, therefore, with white American, Negro, and white foreign-born preponderances, were selected for special study.
Physical equipment of schools.—Twenty-two schools located in and near areas of Negro residence were selected and visited. Of these only five, or 23 per cent, have been built since 1900, and four of these five schools are in regions where the Negro population is smallest. The ten schools serving the largest percentage of Negroes were built, one in 1856, one in 1867, seven between 1880 and 1889, and only one after 1890. Of the 235 schools attended almost wholly by whites, 133, or 56 per cent, were built after 1899. The old buildings will not accommodate modern equipment and cannot be enlarged. The absence of modern buildings is in part due to the old residence areas in which Negroes must live. The gymnasiums in fifteen of these twenty-two schools of predominant Negro attendance are poorly equipped, and in the other seven schools there are none. Playground space is about the same in all the schools, and there was no exceptional overcrowding in schools attended largely by Negroes except in one case where by the "shift" system a double attendance was made possible. In the schools of mixed attendance one instance was conspicuous: Fuller School—a branch of Felsenthal which is well equipped, and under the same principal, who is an advocate of segregation—is in a neighborhood where the percentage of Negroes is the same as that around Felsenthal, but it has no playground, is run down, and neglected. Yet it has 90 per cent Negroes, while Felsenthal has 38 per cent. Unmanageable white children are sent to Fuller.
Retardation.—The question of retardation[106] of Negro children is of serious concern in race relations, since this fact is urged by advocates of separate schools as an unnecessary handicap for white children and a reason for segregation. Twenty-four schools were selected, with the aid of the Board of Education: six attended mainly by Negroes, six mainly by white Americans, and twelve mainly by children of immigrants. Of a total of 34,593 children there were 18,230, or 53 per cent, retarded—the same percentage as in the entire city; 10,250, or 30 per cent, normal; and 5,910, or 17 per cent, accelerated. In the schools attended mainly by white Americans, 49 per cent were retarded; in those attended mainly by children of immigrants 49 per cent; and in those attended mainly by Negroes 74 per cent. The percentage of retardation in schools attended mainly by Negroes ranges from 57 to 80 per cent; in schools attended mainly by children of immigrants from 32 to 71 per cent; and in schools attended mainly by white Americans from 40 to 62 per cent.
Predominating causes of this retardation of Negro children, according to the Board of Education's classification, are: "late entrance to school," "family difficulties," "fathers or mothers working," "lack of education in parents." The majority of retarded Negro children are southerners, and their retardation can be readily understood when the gross inadequacies of southern schools for Negroes are considered.
Among the whites, late entrance, inability to speak English, ill health, backwardness, and low mentality are the various causes. It is interesting to note that while it is often maintained that Negroes are mentally weak and incapable, classification of retardation figures according to causes does not bear out that theory. Negro children retarded from "late entrance" have made excellent records in attaining a normal rating, some completing three grades in a year.
One hundred and sixteen Negro children were picked at random for an intensive inquiry by the Commission into causes of retardation. Of these, 101 had been in school before coming to Chicago; and of the 101 children, eighty had lived in the South and had gone to southern schools; those born and educated in the North showed no greater rate of retardation than the whites. For much of the retardation the school facilities for Negroes in the South appear to be responsible. In Mississippi, for example, only eighty days' schooling is required in counties that do not absolutely reject the compulsory-education law. Other causes found were inadequate care and instruction at home due to the ignorance of parents, mothers working out, poor parental discipline, and the physical condition of homes.
Contact problems.—A wide variety of opinions was found among principals and teachers concerning the relations of white and Negro children. Several principals were distinctly antagonistic to Negroes, and in their schools the race relations of the pupils were not cordial. The most important factor in determining the attitude of teachers as well as of pupils was the attitude of principals. Kindergarten teachers found a natural, pleasant relationship existing between the young white and Negro children. As children grew older they became more race conscious, and in the high schools friction frequently arose from race groupings in class and social organizations. Negro teachers are assigned to schools attended by both Negroes and immigrants, and apparently have no difficulties with pupils or parents. Difficulties and bad feeling have been provoked by the disposition of certain white teachers to adapt their instruction in accordance with their assumptions concerning Negroes' mental and emotional characteristics, putting stress on singing and handicraft instead of on basic studies in arithmetic and grammar.
In its investigation of recreation places, the Commission listed 127 parks, playgrounds, recreation centers, and beaches under the supervision of the Municipal Bureau of Parks, Playgrounds, and Bathing Beaches, and of the South Park, West Park, and Lincoln Park commissions. Of these, thirty-seven are in or near Negro areas. Though this figure represents a fairly adequate distribution, it is not an accurate picture. Twenty-three of these places are playgrounds attached to schools, fourteen being in, and nine near, Negro areas; and only thirteen have more than 10 per cent use by Negroes. Three bathing-beaches are within, and two near, Negro areas, while only one has more than 10 per cent use by Negroes. There are seven recreation centers near Negro areas, none within, and only one with more than 10 per cent use by Negroes. Armour Square, for example, is a recreation center bordering on the area of the largest Negro population; but the hostility of whites, especially gangs of hoodlums, attacks on Negro children, and the indifferent attitude of the director render attendance by Negroes extremely hazardous. Of a daily attendance of 1,500, less than 1 per cent are Negroes, despite the fact that over 50 per cent of the immediately surrounding population is Negro. Natural barriers of distance, unofficial discrimination of officials, and the hostility of neighborhood groups are largely responsible for the lack of participation.
The beaches have presented the most difficult problems of race control. The riot of 1919 began at the Twenty-ninth Street Beach, and since the riot numerous smaller clashes have occurred there. At Thirty-eighth Street, also on the edge of the largest area of Negro residence, Negroes are entirely excluded, the policeman on duty and the attendant in charge assisting in this exclusion to prevent clashes. In neighborhoods with a small Negro population, attendance at the recreation places is always much below the percentage of Negroes to the total population in such neighborhoods, this being due to the hostility shown by whites, especially of the hoodlum element, and also to the reluctance of Negroes to go where they feel unwelcome.
Contacts.—Most difficulties in parks and playgrounds have not been caused by the behavior of Negroes there. Such complaints against Negroes as have come from these contacts have concerned groups of rough or domineering children at the playgrounds rather than adults. Two playgrounds on the South Side make such complaints.
Race relations of the children.—Lack of racial antagonism was reported at a large number of playgrounds. Apparatus was used by both groups without friction. Negro and white children mingled freely in their games and in the swimming-pools, and both Negroes and whites played on baseball and athletic teams. The occasional playground fights usually lack any element of racial antipathy. "There might be personal misunderstandings and disagreements between a white and a black just the same as between two whites," said the director of Union Park, "but I wouldn't lay it to race prejudice. They work together and play together and seem to harmonize in most instances." When this director came to Union Park a year ago he found a tendency among Negroes and whites to separate into race groups, but steps were taken to bring them together in games of various kinds, and toward the end of the season the director felt that they "harmonized better and worked together more cordially than they did before." When the Commission's investigator visited Union Park Playground he saw small children of both races playing together on the same pieces of apparatus—a Negro child on one end of a teeter ladder and a white child on the other. Occasionally there is a disturbance, usually starting from a dispute over the apparatus; but on the whole the children play together peacefully.
Voluntary racial grouping.—Voluntary racial grouping appears to be more characteristic of the large parks and beaches which adults frequent than of the playgrounds, which are used mainly by children. One instance of voluntary grouping among children was found at Copernicus Playground. The playing space is in the shape of an "L," one end intended for boys and the other for girls, but by common consent the children divide along race lines rather than sex.
In the general use of Lincoln and Washington parks the Negroes and whites stay in separate groups. There has never been any difficulty, according to the Lincoln Park representative, arising from the fact that Negroes have taken possession of a spot desired by whites for a picnic or other amusement. No part of either park is especially set aside for the use of one race, and groups of both Negroes and whites are seen everywhere in the parks, but they do not mingle.
Some directors attempt to regulate these contacts to avoid any mingling of groups. At the Municipal Pier, for example, an investigator learned that when Negro couples went on the dancing-pavilion floor the floor manager informed them that they were not dancing properly and took them to one side to acquaint them with the approved style of dancing; no matter how well they danced, they were to be prevented from going on the floor by the manager's judgment of their dancing. More recently, however, Negroes have reported that they have been able freely to use this dance floor.
Clashes in the various recreation places as early as 1913 were found to have been started mostly by gangs of white "roughs." On one occasion, for example, the secretary of boys' work of the Wabash Avenue department Y.M.C.A. (for Negroes) conducted a party of nineteen Negro boys to Armour Square. They had no difficulty in entering the park, but on leaving they were assailed by crowds of white boys. Some of them were tripped, trodden upon, and badly bruised. They took refuge in a neighboring saloon, where they remained for a half-hour, when a detachment of police scattered the white gang. On another occasion a group of boys from the same institution were driven from the lake at Thirty-first Street. In 1915 Father Bishop, of St. Thomas Episcopal Church, took a group of Negro boys to Armour Square to play basket-ball. The entire party, including Father Bishop, were beaten by white boys and their sweaters taken from them. In the same year an attempt was made by a Negro boys' club director to take seventy-five Negro boys through the Stock Yards. They had received tickets of admission to the stock show. In spite of the presence and efforts of four adult leaders, these boys were struck by sticks and other missiles while passing from one section of the show to another. Police assistance was required to get them from the pavilion to the street cars.
Gangs of white boys, sixteen and seventeen years of age, from the neighborhood of Fifty-ninth Street and Wentworth Avenue frequently interfered with Negro participants in baseball games in Washington Park, especially during the spring and summer of 1918 and 1919. They also annoyed Negro couples on the park benches. Where the Negro showed fight, minor clashes resulted. Park officials have not been able to restrain the ill feeling which these conflicts engender.
Clashes were noted in Ogden Park as early as 1914 and frequently since that time. A Negro playground director testified that he and other Negroes had been slugged while attending band concerts or attempting to use shower baths after a game in the park. At the boathouse in Washington Park, in the early summer of 1920, there were numerous clashes between Negroes and whites. In the following year, however, considerably fewer instances of friction were reported. Playground directors are of the opinion that friction is likely to occur where groups of Negro children for the first time come into parks theretofore exclusively used by whites. Adjustment is likely to follow after this period. In some cases, however, when the proportion of Negroes has grown larger than that of whites, a Negro director has been placed in charge of the park with the unofficial understanding that it should be turned over to Negroes.
The two causes of neighborhood antagonism back of the friction in the parks most commonly cited are the housing and sex problems. The playgrounds and parks usually share in a general way the sentiments of the mixed neighborhoods in or near which they are located.