The Negro in Chicago - A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot. Chicago Commission on Race Relations
resolution was unanimously adopted:
Whereas, Our attention has been called to various explosions of bombs in our neighborhood at the houses of colored people living in this vicinity, and
Whereas, While we are anxious to persuade these people to move from this locality, we are opposed to violence of every description, therefore, be it
Resolved, That we condemn the action of anyone resorting to throwing of bombs or other methods not in accordance with reason, law or justice.
The attention of the city was directed to these unlawful happenings and protests from both white and Negro individuals made themselves heard. The bombings, however, did not abate in frequency. Neither were the police any more successful in locating their sources.
3. REACTION OF NEGROES
From the beginning Negroes were outspoken in their indignation over the bombings, but their protests had no apparent effect in checking the outrages.
The attacks, however, have made the Negroes firm in their stand. Mrs. Clarke was bombed four times; she still lives in the property and declares that she will not be driven out. Jesse Binga has been bombed six times but states he will not move. Only two of the forty Negro families bombed have moved; the others have made repairs, secured private watchmen or themselves kept vigil for night bombers, and still occupy the properties.
Following the bombing of Jesse Binga on June 18, 1920, the Chicago Daily News quoted him as saying to a policeman, "This is the limit; I'm going." When his attention was called to the statement he promptly replied:
Statements relative to my moving are all false. My idea of this bombing of my house is that it is an effort to retard the Binga State Bank which will take over the mortgages of colored people now buying property against which effort is being made to foreclose. I will not run. The race is at stake and not myself. If they can make me move they will have accomplished much of their aim because they can say, "We made Jesse Binga move; certainly you'll have to move," to all of the rest. If they can make the leaders move, what show will the smaller buyers have? Such headlines are efforts to intimidate Negroes not to purchase property and to scare some of them back South.
In February a group of Negroes formed themselves into a body known as the Protective Circle of Chicago, the purpose of which, as stated in its constitution, was "to combat, through legal means, the lawlessness of the Kenwood and Hyde Park Property Owners' Association and by organized effort to bring pressure to bear on city authorities to force them to apprehend those persons who have bombed the homes of twenty-one Negroes."
A mass meeting was held February 29, 1920, with 3,000 Negroes present. A popular appeal for funds for the purposes of this organization raised $1,000. Attacks were directed against the Kenwood and Hyde Park Property Owners' Association. A representative of the Protective Circle said in part:
The Hyde Park Property Owners' Association is not a new thing. It is more than eighteen years old. Eighteen years ago they proposed fourteen points as a platform for their Association. The thirteenth point was that they would keep out undesirables. All Negroes were classed as undesirables. Ten years ago Dr. Jenifer, a Negro minister, appeared before the Association and severely criticized the organization for its un-American policies. It is just recently that this organization has shown its hand openly, and the things that they have said and done are dangerously near to illegality. I have in my files this statement taken from a stenographic report of one of their meetings, made by the president of the Association: "If Negroes do not get out of Hyde Park, we will get Bolsheviks to bomb them out." The bombers of the homes of Negroes have been allowed to get away unpunished. Judge Gary hanged numbers of anarchists in the Haymarket riot for very much less complicity in bomb outrages than these men are guilty of. Hatred can never be counteracted by hatred. We cannot put any stop to the bombings of Negro homes by going out and bombing homes of white persons.
The Negro press severely condemned the bombings, and the Negro population in general felt that the apathy of city authorities and even the influential public was responsible for continuance of the outrages. Protests were sent to the governor of the state. The mayor, chief of police, and state's attorney were persistently importuned to stop the destruction of Negroes' property and remove the menace to their lives. Negroes pointed out, for example, that the authorities had shown ability to apprehend criminals, even those suspected of bomb-throwing. They cited the bombing of the home of a professional white "gunman," when eleven suspected bombers were caught in the dragnet of the state's attorney within thirty hours. Yet in fifty-eight bombings of Negro homes only two suspects were ever arrested.
In March, 1920, a Commission from the Chicago Church Federation Council sent a delegation to Mayor Thompson, Chief of Police Garrity, and State's Attorney Hoyne, to demand action on the bombing of Negroes' homes. Prominent white and colored men comprised this delegation. A prominent Negro, testifying before the Commission, said that he, with other Negroes, both from the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and from other organizations, had carried their grievances to city officials. He said:
We have been to the mayor's office, we have been to the state's attorney's office, we have sent representatives to both these offices, and nothing has been done—possibly something is being done, but nothing of great moment. I think that the colored people feel that they are so insecure in their physical rights that rather than take any chance they're going out and paying whatever the charge is for insurance against bombing.
Another delegation of Negroes in June, 1919, twice attempted to register a complaint with the mayor against bomb outrages. The mayor's secretary, however, refused them an audience with the mayor.
The editors of local daily papers have also been visited by mixed white and Negro delegations in an endeavor to arouse public opinion.
The effect of these delegations and protests has been small. One joint conference with the mayor, chief of police, and state's attorney brought out the information that it was beyond the state's attorney's province to make arrests. The mayor, after some discussion, instructed Chief of Police Garrity to do what he could toward putting a stop to the bombing of Negroes' homes. The chief of police, after explaining the shortage of patrolmen, said he would do so.
The bombing question began to figure in local politics. Charges were made before the primary election of September, 1920, that the city administration had not given Negroes the protection it had promised. The matter of apprehending the "nefarious bomb plotters" was included in the platforms of Negroes running for office, and in those of white candidates seeking Negro votes.
The Commission had neither authority nor facilities for accomplishing what all public agencies had signally failed to do. It could, however, and did, go over the trail of the bombers and collect information which shows that the sentiment aroused in the contested neighborhoods was a factor in encouraging actual violence. Whatever antagonisms there were before the agitation were held in restraint, even though Negroes were already neighbors. Other districts, like Woodlawn and sections of the North Side, undergoing almost identical experiences as those of Hyde Park, have had no violence; the absence of stimulated sentiment is as conspicuous as the absence of violence. In the Hyde Park district, between Thirty-ninth and Forty-seventh streets and State Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, four-fifths of the bombings occurred. All but three of those happening outside the district were against real estate men accused of activities affecting the Hyde Park District. It seemed, especially in the first bombings, that the bombers had information about business transactions which the general public could not ordinarily get. Houses were bombed in numbers of cases long before their occupancy by Negroes. Each of the bombings was apparently planned, and the opportune moment came after long vigil and, as it would seem, after deliberately setting the stage. The first bombing of Binga does not appear to have been the result of resentment of neighbors in the vicinity of his home, for it was his office on State Street that was bombed. His office is in a neighborhood around which there is no contest.
4. OTHER MEANS EMPLOYED TO KEEP OUT NEGROES
The Grand Boulevard Property Owners' Association officially decided that its object