History of De Jure Segregation in Chicago and Beyond
The Great Migration
From 1910 - 1970, six million African Americans moved from the rural South to cities in the Northeast, Midwest and West.13 They migrated north in search of employment opportunities, and to escape racial violence and Jim Crow laws. Enacted when Reconstruction ended in 1877, Jim Crow laws enforced segregation and prevented Southern blacks from voting. These laws were in effect until 1964, when the Civil Rights Act was signed into law, followed by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Around 500,000 African Americans settled in Chicago during the Great Migration.14 Most settled in a chain of neighborhoods on the South Side known as the Black Belt. Before the Great Migration, blacks made up 2% of Chicago’s population. By 1970, they made up 33%, roughly one million.15 Southern blacks moved north to escape poor living conditions, low wages, and lack of job opportunities. Many were sharecroppers caught in a vicious cycle of debt and poverty. They saw the North as a place of refuge. They sought relief from rigid residential and school segregation, disenfranchisement, and racial violence. In their eyes, the North held great economic and social promise. And indeed, there were more employment opportunities for blacks in the North. When the U.S. entered World War I in 1917 and drafted millions of men to fight in Europe, factory jobs opened up across the North. Labor recruiters traveled throughout the South, enticing blacks to move north, promising higher wages and a better life. The Chicago Defender, the leading black newspaper in the country, encouraged blacks to move north by publishing stories of blacks who had “made it” in Chicago. They published lists of churches and other organizations that southern blacks could contact for help with travel, housing and jobs.16
Many blacks who moved to Chicago and other northern cities found better job opportunities and higher wages, especially in the early years of the Great Migration. But they also encountered intense racial hostility and segregationist attitudes strikingly similar to those they had left in the South. Many northern whites shared the racist views of their southern counterparts, and feared the changing demographics of their cities. Moreover, government entities at the federal, state and local level sought to maintain the status quo and capitalized on these racially-based fears by doubling down on efforts to maintain segregation. Exclusionary zoning, racially restrictive covenants and redlining led to overcrowded neighborhoods in the Black Belt where people lived in slum-like conditions, with little hope of moving to neighborhoods with more resources and opportunities.
Red Summer
On a sweltering July day in 1919, Chicago’s lakefront between 26th and 29th Streets was packed with beachgoers. 17-year-old Eugene Williams joined his friends at 26th Street, the beach designated for blacks. Just south of them was 29th Street, the beach tacitly reserved for whites. Eugene and his friends launched a makeshift raft into Lake Michigan. When the raft drifted into waters near 29th Street, a white beachgoer named George Stauber began throwing rocks at the black teenagers. Eugene was struck in the head and drowned. A black police officer moved to arrest Stauber, but was stopped by a white officer. Tensions grew when it became apparent no arrest would be made. Word spread, and a crowd of around 1,000 African Americans gathered on the beach. One man pulled out a gun and fired at police. The police shot him, and he later died. Over the next week, mobs of young white men and teenagers stormed black neighborhoods, attacking residents and burning down homes. Black residents banded together to defend themselves and their homes. The Illinois Reserve Militia was called to intervene. By the end of August 3rd, 38 people were dead, 537 were injured and more than 1,000 lost their homes to arson.17
Chicago was not the only city to erupt in violence in the summer of 1919. In what later became known as The Red Summer, anti-black riots broke out across the country. The Treaty of Versailles had just been signed, marking the end of World War I. Millions of soldiers returned home, including 350,000 African Americans.18 Prior to this influx of veterans, there had been fierce competition for jobs in northern cities, as newly-arrived southern blacks competed with working-class whites for jobs in factories, steel mills and stockyards. When the soldiers returned in 1919, jobs became even more scarce. In cities across the country, blacks were living in concentrated poverty, pushed into overcrowded, under-resourced neighborhoods by government policies designed to keep them isolated. Meanwhile, working-class whites, angered by diminishing job opportunities, and fueled by racist beliefs, lashed out at blacks. In the summer of 1919, hundreds of people were killed, most of them black, when racial violence erupted in cities across the country, including Washington, D.C.; Charleston, South Carolina; Omaha, Nebraska; Indianapolis, Indiana; Knoxville, Tennessee; Bisbee, Arizona and Elaine, Arkansas.19
Exclusionary Zoning
Exclusionary zoning, the use of government-sanctioned zoning ordinances to exclude certain groups from moving to a community, has a long history that continues to this day. An early iteration of exclusionary zoning came in the form of city zoning ordinances that codified segregation, barring African Americans from occupying blocks that were majority white. In 1916, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Buchanan v. Warley that racial zoning ordinances were unconstitutional as they violated the 14th Amendment’s protections for freedom of contract.20
After the Buchanan ruling, communities sought new ways to segregate. Zoning ordinances shifted from explicitly targeting African Americans to excluding low-income people. Zoning restrictions such as minimum lot size prevent low-income people from moving to areas with more opportunity. The Fair Housing Act, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968, does not protect against zoning that excluded low-income people. The law forbids discrimination on the basis of race, color, national orgin, religion, sex, ability and familial status. It doesn’t however forbid class-based discrimination. Zoning restrictions such as lot size limits and prohibition of multi-family buildings are common in urban and suburban communities. These zoning restrictions systematically exclude low-income people of color, despite the absence of explicit discriminatory language.
Racially Restrictive Housing Covenants
Another way that communities adapted their discriminatory practices after the Buchanan ruling was through the use of racially restrictive covenants. Restrictive covenants, also known as deed restrictions, are contractual agreements within a home’s deed that prohibit non-whites from purchasing the home. These covenants were typically imposed by an organization or group that sought to maintain segregation, whether it be a real estate developer, a homeowners association, or an informal group of neighboring homeowners. In some neighborhoods, most or all of the homes had racially restrictive deeds. A typical covenant included language explicitly prohibiting non-whites from buying the home:
hereafter no part of said property or any portion thereof shall be…occupied by any person not of the Caucasian race, it being intended hereby to restrict the use of said property…against occupancy as owners or tenants of any portion of said property for resident or other purposes by people of the Negro or Mongolian race. 21
Restrictive covenants came into wide use after the Buchanan ruling barred racial zoning in 1916. They became even more prevalent in 1926 when the Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling in Corrigan v. Buckley, stating that federal courts had no jurisdiction to interfere with private covenants, even if they were discriminatory.22 After Corrigan, the use of restrictive covenants spread rapidly throughout the country. The Federal Housing Administration’s 1936 Underwriting Manual explicitly encouraged the use of covenants as a means to maintain segregation.
Deed restrictions are apt to prove more effective than a zoning ordinance in providing protection from adverse influences. Where the same deed restrictions apply over a broad area and where these restrictions relate to types of structures, use to which improvements may be put, and racial occupancy, a favorable condition is apt to exist.23
By 1940, 80% of property in Chicago contained covenants barring African Americans.24 That same year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Hansberry v. Lee. Carl Hansberry, an African American businessman, had purchased a home in 1937 in the white neighborhood of Woodlawn, just south of the University of Chicago. Anna Lee, a white resident in the neighborhood, filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Hyde Park-Woodlawn Improvement Society, charging that Hansberry had violated a restrictive covenant that forbade homeowners in the neighborhood from selling to blacks. The Illinois Supreme Court ruled in Lee’s favor, upholding the restrictive covenant. Hansberry brought his case to U.S. Supreme Court in 1940. The Court ruled in Hansberry’s favor, invalidating the restrictive covenant. But the ruling was based on a technicality. The restrictive covenant contained language stipulating that 95% of the neighborhood’s homeowners must sign the covenant in order to validate it. Since only 54% of the owners had signed, the covenant was invalid.25
The Hansberry ruling did not challenge the constitutionality of racially restrictive covenants, but it was a victory nonetheless. 500 homes in the Woodlawn neighborhood opened up to blacks. Many families looking to leave the crowded Black Belt seized on this opportunity. In a column in the Chicago Defender, Carl Hansberry reacted to the ruling: “I feel that the decision will be of tangible and practical value to both the white and colored citizens of Chicago.”26 Hansberry’s daughter Lorraine was 10 years old when the ruling came down. Lorraine Hansberry went on to become a celebrated playwright. Her semi-autobiographical play A Raisin in the Sun tells the story of the Youngers, an African American family on the South Side of Chicago who encounter hostile resistance when they attempt to buy a home in a white neighborhood.'27
In 1948, a more decisive ruling came down in regards to racially restrictive covenants. In Shelley v. Kraemer, The Supreme Court ruled that racially restrictive covenants are legally unenforceable because they violate the equal protection clause under the 14th Amendment.28 Shelley was a landmark decision, but the use of racially restrictive covenants did not cease after the ruling. Covenants are private contracts. Although the Court deemed them legally unenforceable, it is not illegal to enact and privately enforce them. Due to arcane rules, it’s difficult to remove covenants from deeds. So racially restrictive covenants enacted as much as 100 years ago can be found in deeds today. The tacit expectation is that these covenants will not be adhered to. Fair housing advocates argue that homeowners harboring racist views can use restrictive covenants to justify discrimination against prospective buyers, even when they know full well that the covenant is not legally enforceable.
Redlining
Redlining, the process by which banks refused to offer mortgages, or offered worse rates to customers in African American neighborhoods, perpetuated segregation and prevented blacks from building credit and equity. Redlining was based on the belief that the presence of people of color in a neighborhood reduced property values. As Richard Rothstein points out in The Color of Law, this belief was unfounded and ran contrary to the realities of supply and demand in an era when blacks had fewer opportunities to become homeowners. When African Americans moved to a neighborhood and bought homes, the property values would often increase, not decrease. African Americans had fewer choices when it came to home buying, and were therefore willing to pay more for homes. So an influx of African American home buyers in a neighborhood would typically drive values up.29 But a widespread belief in white supremacy perpetuated the false notion that the presence of African Americans brought home values down.
The Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC), was a federal agency created in 1933 under the New Deal. The HOLC was established to refinance home mortgages that had defaulted during the Great Depression. The HOLC formalized redlining through the creation of residential security maps, which color-coded urban neighborhoods, dividing them into 4 categories based on the perceived risk of providing home loans in a given neighborhood.
- Green neighborhoods were considered the “best” areas
- Blue areas were “still desirable”
- Yellow areas were “definitely declining”
- Red areas were “hazardous”
The Federal Housing Administration (FHA), was established in 1934 under the New Deal’s National Housing Act. The FHA was created to stimulate the economy by encouraging banks to provide home loans. The FHA used the HOLC security maps to determine which neighborhoods qualified for federally-backed mortgages. In cities across the U.S., the vast majority of African Americans lived in neighborhoods coded red. The FHA refused to insure mortgages in these “hazardous” neighborhoods. Homes in nearby white neighborhoods would only receive FHA mortgage insurance if there was a physical barrier such as a river, highway or wall preventing what the 1935 FHA Underwriting Manual described as “infiltration by inharmonious racial or nationality groups.”30
In 1941, a developer in Detroit wanted to build a white development adjacent to Wyoming, a red-lined African American neighborhood. The FHA declined to insure the development due to its proximity to Wyoming. So the developer built a half-mile long wall, separating the red-lined neighborhood from the proposed development. The FHA then agreed to back the development. The wall is still standing today, running through a public park in Wyoming. It is often called the Eight Mile Wall, referring to a nearby highway that also serves as a symbol of Detroit’s racial divide. Over the years it has been painted with murals depicting civil rights leaders and colorful street scenes. Many see it as a powerful reminder of our nation’s recent past, and the work we must do to address segregation and inequity.31
The impacts of redlining reach far beyond city borders. The rapid rise of suburban development after World War II was orchestrated in large part by the FHA and the Veteran’s Administration (VA), who used redlining to issue federally-backed mortgage insurance to whites homebuyers, many of which were WWII veterans. The federal government encouraged white to buy homes in the suburbs, and sanctioned the use of racially restrictive covenants by large-scale developers like William Levitt. The rock bottom prices of suburban homes in developments like Levittown were very enticing to working and middle-class whites, who flocked to the suburbs in droves in the late 1940’s and 1950’s.
Redlining, and its underlying assumption of white supremacy, provided a justification for racially restrictive covenants, and helped popularize their use. The 1936 FHA Underwriting Manual explicitly encouraged the use of covenants as a means to maintain segregation. After the FHA began using the HOLC security maps in the 1930’s, redlining spread throughout the mortgage industry. Banks routinely used redlining to deny home loans to those living in neighborhoods deemed “hazardous”. Redlining was outlawed in 1968 by the Fair Housing Act, but its legacy can be seen today in the segregated, under-resourced neighborhoods of Detroit, Chicago and other cities across the U.S.
Reverse Redlining
Discriminatory lending, when mortgage lenders target African Americans, charging them significantly higher fees and interest rates than they would charge a similarly-situated white homebuyer, is common practice. This is often referred to as “reverse redlining”. Subprime mortgage loans are an example of these high-interest loans, which are often marketed to African Americans. From 2004-2006, banks and mortgage brokers granted a large number of subprime loans with exorbitantly high fees and interest rates.32 In 2006, black and Latinx borrowers were 2.4 times more likely to receive a subprime loan than white applicants, according to a recent study,33 In Baltimore, Wells Fargo instructed their marketing staff to visit black churches to market subprime loans. The bank had no comparable practice of marketing these loans in white churches.34 When homeowners started defaulting in large numbers, a financial crisis was triggered that spread throughout the globe from 2007-2008.
Discriminatory Real Estate Practices
Racial Steering
Real estate associations have long endorsed discriminatory practices designed to increase profitability while perpetuating segregation. One such practice, racial steering, was widespread throughout the 20th century, and is still is use today. Real estate brokers “steer” prospective home buyers toward or away from certain neighborhoods based on the buyer’s race. Racial steering was codified in the 1920’s, shortly after the Buchanan ruling struck down exclusionary zoning ordinances. Any real estate broker who wanted to join the National Association of Real Estate Boards and receive the coveted title of “realtor” was required to abide by the Realtor Code of Ethics. From the 1924-50, the Code of Ethics required that realtors practice racial steering.
A realtor should never be instrumental in introducing into a neighborhood a character of property or occupancy, members of any race or nationality, or any individuals whose presence will clearly be detrimental to property values in that neighborhood.35
Blockbusting
Blockbusting became widespread after the 1948 Shelly decision deemed restrictive covenants unenforceable, and African Americans began to have access to neighborhoods previously restricted to whites. Realtors would persuade white property owners to sell their homes at low prices by sparking fears that African Americans will soon be moving into the neighborhood. Realtors used various tactics to scare whites into selling their homes. These included hiring black women to push baby carriages through white neighborhoods, selling a home to a black family and then placing realtor business cards in the neighbors’ mailboxes, and hiring black teenagers to stage street fights in front of white-owned homes. Panicked whites would sell their homes at well below market value. The homes would then be sold to African American buyers at inflated prices.36
Contract Selling
Homes that had been vacated through blockbusting were often sold to African Americans through a predatory practice known as contract selling. Blacks were severely limited in their home-buying options due to the prevalence of racially restrictive covenants and redlining. This made them prime targets for contract selling. African Americans seeking home ownership were offered an alternative to bank loans. They would make monthly payments directly to the seller. The deed would be transferred to the buyer once the property was entirely paid off in 15 or 20 years. Often the buyer did not realize their payments were going directly to the home’s owner. Sellers would depict themselves as brokers, when in fact they owned the homes.37
The contract buyer would have all the responsibilities of a typical homeowner without the protections, and without accumulating equity. These contract-for-deed homes were sold at markups of 70 percent or more, with steep interest rates. Contract buyers often had difficulty keeping up with the high monthly payments. If a single payment was missed, the family was evicted. The seller kept the down payment and previous monthly payments and moved on to their next target.38
Contract-for-deed schemes targeting African American home buyers were in cities across the U.S. in the mid 20th century, and were particularly prevalent in Chicago. Mark J. Satter, a Chicago lawyer who worked on behalf of contract buyers in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, estimated that 85 percent of the properties purchased by blacks at that time were sold on contract.39 According to Satter’s daughter, historian Beryl Satter, “these sales stripped black migrants of their savings at a time when whites of similar class background were getting an immense economic boost through FHA-backed mortgages that enabled them to purchase new homes for little money down.” 40
Contract sellers pulled an enormous profit. In Beryl Satter’s 2009 memoir, Family Properties, she quotes a contract seller who bragged in a 1962 newspaper interview, “If anyone who is well-established in this business in Chicago doesn’t earn $100,000 a year, he is loafing.”
These predatory real estate practices are not a relic of the past. Contract selling has experienced a resurgence in recent years. Racial steering of home buyers and renters, refusal of landlords to rent to non-whites, and over-charging people of color are all prohibited under the Fair Housing Act of 1968, but remain common practice across the country despite efforts by fair housing advocates to curtail them.
Anti-Integration Riots
In the 1940’s and 50’s, decades after the Red Summer of 1919, Chicago saw a resurgence in white attacks on blacks. This time it was in direct response to housing tensions. Southern blacks had been moving to Chicago at a steady rate since the Great Migration began in 1916. Their numbers surged in the 1940’s when millions of troops were deployed overseas to fight in World War II, prompting northern factory owners to recruit southern laborers. In redlined areas on the South Side of Chicago, already crowded neighborhoods began to burst at the seams. After 1948’s Shelley ruling deemed racially restrictive covenants unenforceable, an increasing number of African Americans sought housing opportunities beyond the slum-like conditions of the Black Belt. When they moved into working-class white neighborhoods on the South and Southwest Sides, they were met with bombings, arson and angry mobs often numbering in the thousands.41
These attacks received minimal media coverage, until July 1951, when an eruption of anti-black violence in Cicero, an industrial suburb west of Chicago, was captured by news cameras and broadcast on local television. A month earlier, Harvey E. Clark, Jr., an African American World War II veteran, had attempted to move into an apartment in an all-white neighborhood in Cicero. His moving van was stopped by police. Officers ordered the rental agent out of the van at gunpoint, as a crowd of jeering young whites gathered. The Cicero Chief of Police told Clark, “Get out of here fast. There will be no moving into this building.” He hit Clark multiple times and shoved him into his car, which was parked across the street. The chief told Clark, “Get out of Cicero and don’t come back in town or you’ll get a bullet through you.” The NAACP filed a suit against the Cicero Police Department. Clark, his wife and their two children moved into the apartment soon after.42
On the evening of July 11th, 1951, a crowd of 4,000 whites, most of them teenagers, descended on the apartment building. Clark had been warned of the impending violence. He and his family, along with 20 other families living in the building, left before the violence began. 60 police officers were present, but did little to quell the mob. Rioters threw stones from a nearby rock pile. Firebrands were tossed into shattered windows and hurled onto the building’s roof. Firefighters who arrived to put out the blaze were bombarded with stones and bricks. Doors were broken down, and bathtubs, sinks, toilets, radiators and woodwork were ripped out and destroyed. The violence lasted several nights, until the Illinois National Guard was called in. A Cook County grand jury convened, but none of the rioters were charged. Instead the grand jury indicted Clark’s NAACP attorney, the apartment’s white owner, and her attorney and rental agent, charging them with conspiring to incite a riot and damage property. The charges were dropped after widespread criticism. The Cicero police chief and two officers received fines for violating Clark’s civil rights.43
A few years later, in 1953, anti-integration violence broke out in South Deering, a white neighborhood on the Far South Side of Chicago. Betty Howard, a light-skinned black woman, applied for a spot in the Trumbull Park Homes, an all-white public housing project. Assuming Howard was white, the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) accidentally integrated Trumbull. Shortly after Howard arrived with her husband and children, whites began setting off homemade bombs and lighting fires in and around the Trumbull Homes. South Deering leaders pressured the CHA to remove the Howards. Progressive housing reformers called for further integration. After much debate, CHA’s Executive Director, Elizabeth Wood, a progressive who had previously championed integration, decided to move 10 additional African American families into the Trumbull Homes. The police presence at Trumbull increased as violence intensified. Wood was fired, and eruptions of anti-black violence continued in South Deering for much of the 1950’s44
Public Housing
Public housing projects, which today are heavily associated with concentrated poverty and urban ghettoization, began during World War I. Federally-funded housing projects were built for white defense workers and their families. Blacks were excluded, despite the fact that large numbers of African Americans were employed in the defense industry during the war. After the war, the government sold off its existing projects to private real estate firms, and canceled those that were not complete.45
During the Great Depression, the federal government began building urban public housing to address severe housing shortages. The Public Works Association (PWA) was established in 1933 as part of the New Deal. The PWA oversaw large-scale construction projects. One of their key projects was the construction of low-cost public housing. Harold Ickes, director of the PWA, established the “neighborhood composition rule” which dictated that public housing could not alter the racial composition of a neighborhood where it was placed.46
The Housing Act of 1937 established public housing agencies in cities across the U.S., including Chicago. They were tasked with providing affordable housing to low-income Americans and demolishing urban slums. Adhering to the neighborhood composition rule, these local agencies built all-black projects in predominantly black neighborhoods, and all-white projects in predominantly white neighborhoods.
The Chicago Housing Authority began constructing public housing in 1938. The Julia C. Lathrop Homes on the North Side were built exclusively for low-income white families, reflecting the racial makeup of the surrounding neighborhood. The Trumbull Park Homes, the all-white projects that would later erupt in anti-integration violence, were constructed in the predominantly white neighborhood of South Deering. The Jane Addams Homes on the Near West Side were about 97% white. The few black residents were housed in a corner of the complex with its own separate stairwell. A year later, the Ida B. Wells Homes were constructed in Bronzeville, the South Side neighborhood once referred to as the Black Belt. The Wells Homes were much larger than the previous projects, and the first of many all-black housing projects built in Bronzeville.47
During World War II, the federal government built public housing for workers in the defense industry. Unlike during World War I, African American defense workers were provided housing. Segregated housing that is. Some local agencies proposed integrated housing for defense workers, but the federal government overruled them.48
After the war, President Truman expanded the Housing Act to address housing shortages. The Housing Act of 1949 authorized the construction of 810,000 units of public housing.49 This ushered in a new era of public housing, with new projects erected in urban centers throughout the country, many of which were massive high-rise buildings that isolated low-income African Americans and failed to provide adequate maintenance and city services.
In 1949, the Chicago Housing Authority was under the leadership of social reformer Elizabeth Wood and African American architect Robert Rochon Taylor. Wood and Taylor saw increased federal funding as an opportunity to build integrated public housing. They created a map of proposed housing sites on vacant land throughout the city. At the time, Chicago’s city council had veto power over the CHA. Some of the proposed sites were adjacent to white neighborhoods, and aldermen presiding over those wards balked at the prospect of public housing on their turf. The city council rejected CHA’s proposal. A new proposal was eventually passed, restricting public housing construction to African American neighborhoods and areas adjacent to existing projects. Robert Taylor resigned in frustration. A few years later, Elizabeth Wood was fired over the anti-integration violence at the Trumbull Homes. Subsequent CHA directors avoided any further integration. Thus began CHA’s long-standing policy of isolating low-income African Americans in massive housing projects, concentrating poverty in already segregated neighborhoods on the South Side.50
Robert Taylor passed away in 1957. Two years after his death, construction began on the Robert R. Taylor Homes in Bronzeville. Mayor Richard J. Daley spoke at the groundbreaking, declaring, “This project represents the future of a great city. It represents vision. It represents what all of us feel America should be, and that is: a decent home for every family.”51
The Taylor Homes consisted of 28 identical buildings, with a total of 4,349 units. It housed 27,000 residents at its peak in 1965, making it the largest housing project in the world. Within several years of its opening, it became glaringly apparent that living conditions at the Taylor Homes were far from adequate. The gallery design of the homes left elevator shafts partially exposed to the elements, and breakdowns were common. The volatile hot water heating system failed frequently, leaving many residents without heat during the winter months. But most problematic was the sheer size and scope of the densely-populated complex. The Taylor Homes stretched for 2 miles along State Street. Each of the 28 buildings was 16 stories high. The Taylor Homes were packed with children. In 1965, more than 20,000 of its 27,000 residents were under the age of 18. Playgrounds overflowed. Children stood in long lines, waiting for their chance to play on swings and slides. Other areas of the complex became play spaces. Children rode up and down elevators, pushing multiple buttons at once, leading to more breakdowns. Lack of adequate maintenance and basic services in the overcrowded towers led to rapid deterioration. Ongoing issues with safety, sanitation, gang activity and gun violence plagued the homes for decades.52
The Taylor Homes were demolished in 2007. Their namesake, Robert Taylor, had hoped to integrate Chicago’s housing projects. He wanted housing to be dispersed throughout the city, and was a proponent of low-rise buildings and townhouses. Were he alive today, Taylor would undoubtedly be deeply saddened by CHA’s failures, as exemplified by the Robert Taylor Homes.
Chicago Public Schools: Separate and Unequal
In 1960, the CHA notified Chicago Public Schools (CPS) that they should expect 10,583 new students in the Bronzeville area in 1962, when the Robert Taylor Homes were slated to open. Benjamin Willis, the superintendent of CPS, announced the construction of three new schools. The schools would be located in already-segregated Bronzeville. Through a CHA whistleblower, it was revealed that Willis’ plan would only accommodate 7,765 students.53 When confronted, Willis replied that CHA’s estimate of 10,583 students was overblown.54 He explained that the planned schools could accommodate as many as forty students in each classroom. Additional students would attend class in auxiliary trailers, and in ground-floor units at the Robert Taylor Homes which would be converted into classrooms.55
As it was, existing schools for black students were severely overcrowded and under-resourced. They received lower allocations for maintenance and operations, and less funding per student than white schools.56 In 1961, the Chicago Urban League published a report stating that per pupil expenditures for black schools were only two-thirds of those for white schools. They also reported that there were 382 vacant classrooms in CPS.57 Meanwhile, African American schools were bursting at the seams. As some schools, students attended in double shifts. At other schools, trailers were installed on playgrounds and in parking lots to accommodate for overflowing classrooms.58 In 1961, parents of 160 black students at overcrowded schools requested transfers to nearby white schools that had vacant classrooms. Their requests were denied.59 By 1963, CPS had installed 150 mobile classrooms at overcrowded schools, despite the fact that nearby white schools had open seats.60 Angry parents began to refer to these trailers as “Willis wagons” after the district’s superintendent, who continued to deny any difference in quality between African American schools and their white counterparts.
In 1963, 50.8 percent of CPS students were black, 46.2 percent were white, and 3 percent were other races.61 At the time, CPS was not required to track racial demographics. Willis claimed that he didn’t know the racial composition of his district, and didn’t feel it was relevant. He espoused the sanctity of neighborhood schools. According to Willis, schools should reflect the demographics of their surrounding neighborhoods, and that was that. Some compared Willis to Alabama’s segregationist governor George Wallace. He was, The Chicago Defender declared,"the Gov. Wallace of Chicago standing in the doorway of an equal education for all Negro kids in this city."62
In January of 1963, in response to overcrowded schools in the African American neighborhood of Englewood, CPS began converting a nearby warehouse into a school. The warehouse was located next to busy, unguarded railroad tracks. Students were sent to the warehouse before construction was finished. Angry parents formed the 71st and Stewart Parent Council, named after the location of the unnamed warehouse school they pledged to shut down. Willis met with the parent council and agreed to abandon the warehouse plan. Shortly after, he announced that CPS would be installing 25 trailers just a few blocks away, in a vacant area between an alley and a railroad embankment. Enraged parents and activists held protests along the embankment where wagon were being installed. Protestors chained themselves together and stood in front of construction trucks to block workers from installing trailers. Willis tendered his resignation that fall, but the Chicago Board of Education rejected it.63
On October 22, 1963, civil rights groups staged a massive school walk-out to protest Willis’ segregationist policies. 224,770 students boycotted, about 48 percent of the total district.64 Instead of attending school that day, students took to the streets, carrying signs and singing protest songs. They were joined by parents, community members and civil rights leaders. Freedom Day received national press coverage, and students in New York City, Boston, Cleveland, Milwaukee and Seattle were inspired to hold boycotts of their own, shining a spotlight on school segregation in Northern cities.65 But in Chicago, little changed for African American students. Willis remained in his position, the use of mobile classrooms at overcrowded African American schools continued, and no significant efforts were made to integrate CPS.
In 1980, the U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit against the Chicago Board of Education, alleging that CPS was illegally segregating students through practices that included drawing/altering attendance boundary areas that created segregation, failure to relieve student overcrowding that maintained segregation, permitting white students to transfer easily to avoid their assigned schools in favor of majority-white schools, and allowing the association of segregated schools with segregated housing projects. The Justice Department issued a consent decree, stating that CPS must strive for the “greatest practicable number of stably desegregated schools, considering all circumstances in Chicago.” By this time, CPS’ white population had greatly diminished, and CPS officials declared that little could be done to integrate a district that was majority non-white.66
Today the vast majority of students in Chicago Public Schools are African American and Latinx. White students make up 10% of the district.67 Most white students attend schools on the predominantly white North Side. These schools have robust funding thanks to the fundraising efforts of well-connected parent associations. Meanwhile, African American and Latinx students attend segregated schools on the South and West Sides. These schools are woefully under-resourced, poorly maintained, and lacking in crucial staff like social workers, counselors, and reading specialists.
Chicago Freedom Movement
In the summer of 1965, activist groups in Chicago, led by CPS high school teacher Al Raby, invited Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) to join their fight for integrated schools. In the two years following the 1963 school boycott, activists had continued to push for the ouster of CPS Superintendent Willis. They had staged a second boycott, held numerous marches and rallies, and met with Mayor Daly and the Board of Education on several occasions. But Willis had remained, and the Board had made no effort to integrate schools or improve conditions at overcrowded, under-resourced African American schools. Local activists hoped that the involvement of the SCLC would bring more national attention to their fight and put pressure on Mayor Daley and the Board of Education to fire Willis.68
King and the SCLC had been looking to mount a campaign to address institutional racism in northern cities. They were inspired by the work of local groups such as the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and CPS teacher Al Raby’s group, the Coordinating Council of Community Organizations (CCCO) in the fight for integrated schools. King came to Chicago in July 1965 for a march on City Hall, and in January of 1966 he moved his family to Chicago to join what local organizers had begun calling the Freedom Movement.69
In an effort to illustrate the impacts of segregation and get to know black Chicagoans on a grassroots level, King moved his family into a dilapidated apartment on the West Side. King and the SCLC joined forces with local activists to mount a campaign for open housing. “Open housing” refers to a housing market in which a person’s race does restrict access. They also sought to end the slum-like conditions so prevalent in African American neighborhoods on the South and West Sides. Meanwhile, the fight against Superintendent Willis and school segregation continued, and King lent his support to those efforts, speaking at rallies and joining marches. In May of 1966, Superintendent Willis resigned, and this time, the Board of Education accepted his resignation.
King, Al Raby and other activists began to focus their full attention on open housing. They organized marches through white neighborhoods they were looking to integrate. They were met with hostility and violence. At a march in Marquette Park on August 5, 1966, demonstrators were swarmed by hundreds of whites who hurled rocks, bricks and bottles. A rock struck King in the head. After regaining his composure, he addressed news cameras, noting, “I’ve been in many demonstrations all across the south, but I can say that I have never seen, even in Mississippi and Alabama, mobs as hostile and hate-filled as I’ve seen in Chicago.70
In late August of 1966, King and Al Raby met with Mayor Daley and various housing boards. At this summit meeting, a non-binding agreement was reached in which the Chicago Housing Authority promised to build public housing with limited height requirements, and the Mortgage Bankers Association agreed to make mortgages available regardless of race. King left Chicago in January 1966. Mayor Daley and city officials failed to take concrete steps to address housing issues despite the summit agreement.71
Housing Act of 1968
Though many saw the Chicago Freedom Movement as a failure, it did shed light on discriminatory housing practices. Fair housing bills began to make the rounds in Congress. They didn’t make much headway until 1968. The Kerner Commission, formed by President Johnson to investigate the cause of riots that had erupted across the country, issued their findings in early 1968. The commission found that our nation’s cities were deeply segregated, and cited discrimination in housing and education as key causes. According to the report, “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white - separate and unequal.” The Kerner Commission recommended that Congress enact a fair housing law.
On April 4, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. Riots broke out in cities across the country, including Chicago, where fires broke out on the South and West Sides, more than 200 buildings were destroyed, and at least nine people were killed. The day after King’s death, Johnson pushed Congress to pass a fair housing bill. Four days later, on April 11, the Fair Housing Act of 1968 was passed. 72
The law is designed to promote integration and outlaw housing discrimination. Unfortunately, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) rarely enforces the law. In 2015, the Obama administration adopted the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule that would require local governments to take active steps to undo racial segregation, implementing a provision of the 1968 bill that has never been adequately addressed. Under the AFFH rule, local governments would need to complete a comprehensive Assessment of Fair Housing, and take active steps to end discrimination before receiving federal funding from HUD. In January of 2018 the Trump administration delayed implementation of the rule, and housing advocates worry that it will not be implemented during this administration.73
Two Societies
We are far from King’s goal of open housing. Little has changed since the Kerner Report was released in 1968. Most of our nation’s cities are deeply segregated. We have vast racial inequity in terms of wealth, resources, access and opportunities. According to the Federal Reserve, the 2016 median household income was $171,000 for white families and $17,600 for black families. 74 It’s not difficult to see the correlation between housing access and the wealth gap. Limited access to home ownership opportunities means less accumulation of home equity and therefore wealth. Children who live in segregated neighborhoods attend segregated, underfunded schools.
We must demand that our government takes affirmative steps to end housing discrimination and integrate our cities, suburbs and schools. We must build a modern movement that addresses the goals laid out by King and the Chicago activists, white tackling issues like gentrification and mixed-income development. But first we must educate one another. By exploring our country’s long history of de jure segregation, we will gain a deeper understanding of how we got to where we are today. Only then will we be ready to take action and bring about lasting change.
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