The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot. Chicago Commission on Race Relations
of white men not long ago were told as soon as they got into the meeting place that the Committee was ready to hear what Negroes wanted, but that the question of the Negro's right to exercise the right of voting would not be allowed to be discussed at all, and that that must be agreed to before any discussion whatever would be entertained, and that the Negroes left the meeting place without a chance to demand the one thing they wished to enjoy?
Some deceitful, lying Negro may say that times are better, but he would, at the same time, know that he was not telling the truth. Haven't you been hearing more reports of lynching of Negroes than you ever did in your life, since the war? Where, then, is there any improvement? Ain't all the judges, all the police and constables, all the juries as white man as ever? Does the word of a Negro count for more now than it did before the war? Don't white men insult our wives and daughters and sisters and get off at it, unless we take the law into our own hand and punish them for it ourselves, and get lynched for protecting our own, just as often as ever? How much more schooling from public funds do our children get now than they got before the war? How much more do we have to say now than we had to say before the war about the way the taxes we pay shall be spent for schools, or for salaries, or for anything connected with administration and government? Why, even the colored man in Caddo parish who subscribed for $100,000 in Liberty bonds and bought lots of War Savings stamps, and others who bought less, but in the hundreds, and thousands of the bonds and War Saving stamps, have no more to say about affairs now than they ever had. Where is the improvement?
The Urban League also made an inquiry into the numbers of Negroes leaving and arriving in the week following the riot, and when the strongest efforts were being made to induce a return of migrants. During this period 261 Negroes came to Chicago and 219 left the city. Of the 219 leaving, eighty-three gave some southern state as their destination. For the most part, they were persons returning from vacations in the North, and Chicago Negroes going South to visit or on business. Some were rejoining their families. Fourteen were leaving because of the riot. None, however, indicated any intention of going South to work.
It is clear that migrant Negroes are not returning South. On the contrary, there is a small but continuous stream of migration to the industrial centers of the North. No great number of Negroes returned to the South even during the trying unemployment period in the early part of 1921. Census figures for Chicago for 1920 show a number much smaller than the usual estimates of the size of the Negro population during the period of the heaviest migration. This may be accounted for by the fact that Chicago has been used as a re-routing point to other northern cities. The decrease from 1918 undoubtedly means that some returned to the South, but it is apparent that the great majority of the migrants remain, despite the hardships attending shortage of work.
CHAPTER IV
THE NEGRO POPULATION OF CHICAGO
A. DISTRIBUTION AND DENSITY
The Negro population of Chicago, as reported by the Federal Bureau of the Census, was 44,103 in 1910 and 109,594 in 1920. The increase during the decade was therefore 65,491, or 148.5 per cent. Negroes constituted 2 per cent of the city's total population in 1910 and 4.1 per cent in 1920. The increase in the white population during the decade was 450,047, or 21 per cent, bringing the white population up to 2,589,104 in 1920. The remainder of the population consisted of 3,007 Chinese, Japanese, and Indians, of whom there were 2,123 in 1910. Chicago's total population in 1920 was 2,701,705.
In order to indicate where the Negro population of the city lived in 1910 and in 1920, the Commission sought the co-operation of the Census Bureau. On the basis of a rough preliminary survey, certain areas in which it was evident that the main groups of Negroes lived were delimited, and liberal margins allowed to include scattered residents living near the main areas. For these areas the Census Bureau supplied figures showing the total and Negro population by census-enumeration districts. Since each enumeration district embraced from one or two to six city blocks in the more crowded portions of the city, the data thus made available enabled the Commission to prepare maps showing with a fair degree of accuracy where Negroes in Chicago lived in 1910 and in 1920, and also their proportion to the total population in these units of area.
The 510 enumeration districts covered for 1910 included 40,739, or 92.3 per cent of the 44,103 Negroes reported by the Census Bureau for that year; and the 730 enumeration districts covered for 1920 included 106,089, or 96.8 per cent of the 109,594 Negroes reported for that year. The small remaining number of Negroes scattered throughout the parts of the city not embraced in these areas in 1910 and 1920 included many janitors living in the buildings where they worked, and others employed in private homes and living on the premises, thus making their presence inconspicuous among white residents. The areas in which 40,739 Negroes were living in 1910 contained a total population of 657,044, the Negroes thus constituting 6.2 per cent of the total. The areas in which 106,089 Negroes lived in 1920 contained a total population of 779,279, the Negroes thus constituting about 13 per cent of the total.
The outstanding fact concerning these data for 1910 and 1920 is that the large increase in Negro population did not bring into existence any new large colonies but resulted in the expansion and increased density of areas in which groups of Negroes already lived in 1910.
DISTRIBUTION OF NEGRO POPULATION 1910
DATA OBTAINED FROM FEDERAL CENSUS
By far the largest number of Negroes in 1910 and 1920 lived in what may be termed the old "South Side," which includes the original "Black Belt" embracing the area from Twelfth to Thirty-first streets and from Wentworth to Wabash avenues. This and other areas of Negro residence in various parts of the city, with their approximate boundaries in 1910 and 1920 and their Negro population for both years, are listed here under designations which are arbitrarily given for convenient reference; they do not embrace the whole of each area commonly included under such designations.
SOUTH SIDE
1910 boundaries: On the north, Twelfth Street; on the west, Wentworth Avenue; on the south, Fifty-fifth Street; and on the east, Indiana Avenue. Negro population, 34,335, or 11 per cent of the total population of 311,049.
1920 boundaries: The same as in 1910. Negro population, 92,501, or 24.6 per cent of the total population of 376,171.
WOODLAWN
1910 boundaries: On the north, Sixty-third Street; on the west, Eberhart Avenue; on the south, Sixty-seventh Street; and on the east, Grand Avenue. Negro population, 319; total population, 4,783.
1920 boundaries: On the north, Sixty-first Street; on the west, South Park Avenue; on the south, Sixty-seventh Street; and on the east, Cottage Grove Avenue. Negro population, 1,235; total population, 8,861.
LAKE PARK AVENUE AREA
1910 boundaries: On the north, Fifty-third Street; on the west, Harper Avenue; on the south, Fifty-seventh Street; and on the east, Lake Park Avenue. Negro population, 438.
1920 boundaries the same as in 1910. Negro population, 238.
OGDEN PARK AREA
(Vicinity of Ogden Park in Englewood)
1910 boundaries: On the north, Fifty-ninth Street; on the west, Loomis Street; on the south, Sixty-third Street; and on the east, Halsted Street. Negro population, 1,403; total population, 25,880.
1920 boundaries the same as in 1910. Negro population, 1,859; total population, 38,893.
MORGAN PARK AREA
1910 boundaries: On the north, 107th Street: on the west, Vincennes Avenue; on the south, 111th Street; and on