Chapter IV: The Negro Population of Chicago (2)

On December 26 the home of J. H. Coleman, a white real estate man who had sold a house to a Negro, was bombed. The transaction was not public, and occupancy was not to take place for five months. On December 27 the home of Jesse Binga, a Negro real estate man, was bombed. One week later, on January 6, came the bombing of W. B. Austin, on the North Side.

During 1919 and 1920 committees and delegations of whites and Negroes appealed to the chief of police, the mayor, State's Attorney Hoyne, and the press, but nothing was done. The mayor referred these matters to his chief of police. The police were unable to discover the bombers or anyone directing them. The state's attorney, in response to appeals, emphatically defined his duty as a prosecuting rather than an apprehending agent. All the while, however, the bombings continued steadily; no arrests except the two mentioned were made; and the Negro population grew to trust less and less in the interest of the community and the public agencies of protection.

1. TYPICAL BOMBINGS

The circumstances of the bombings were investigated by the Commission, and details of what happened in several typical cases are here presented.

_Bombing of the Motley home._--In 1913 S. P. Motley, Negro,
and his wife purchased a building at 5230 Maryland Avenue
through a white agent, and on March 15, 1913, the family moved
in. For four years they lived there without molestation save
the silent resentment of neighbors and open objection to the
presence of Negro children in the streets. On July 1, 1917,
without warning or threat, a bomb was exploded in the vestibule
of the house, and the front of the building was blown away.
The damage amounted to $1,000. Police arrived from the station
at Fifty-second Street and Lake Park Avenue ten minutes after
the explosion. No clews were found and no arrests were made.
The original owner of the building was bitterly opposed to
Negroes and was a member of an organization which was seeking
to keep Negroes out of the district.

Some time after this incident it was rumored that Motley was
planning to purchase the building adjacent. At 4:00 A.M. June
4, 1919, a dynamite bomb was exploded under the front of the
house adjacent and tore up its stone front. The neighbors
were in the street immediately after the explosion. No clews
were found and no arrests were made. The Motley family on
this occasion was accused of inviting another Negro family
into the block. The new family in question negotiated for its
own property, and before an actual settlement had been made,
received numerous telephone messages and threats. It moved
in, but was not bombed.

_Bombing of Moses Fox's home._--Moses Fox, white, connected
with a "Loop" real estate firm, lived at 442 East Forty-fifth
Street. The house was too large, and he decided to move to
smaller quarters. The building was sold through a real estate
firm to persons whom he did not know. On March 10, 1920, a few
days after the sale, he received a telephone call informing
him that he must suffer the consequences of selling his home to
Negroes. At 7:30 that evening an automobile was seen to drive
slowly past his home three times, stopping each time just east
of the building. On the last trip a man alighted, and deposited
a long-fuse bomb in the vestibule. The fuse smoked for four
minutes. Attracted by the smoke, Fox ran toward the front of
the house. The bomb exploded before he reached the door. It was
loaded with dynamite and contained slugs which penetrated the
windows of buildings across the street. The evening selected
for the bombing was the one on which Patrolman Edward Owens,
Negro, was off duty and a white policeman was patrolling his
beat. The bombing was witnessed by Dan Jones, a Negro janitor,
and Mrs. Florence De Lavalade, a Negro tenant. The front of
the building was wrecked and all the windows shattered. Damage
amounting to $1,000 was done. No arrests were made.

_Bombing of Jesse Binga's properties._--Jesse Binga is a Negro
banker and real estate man. His bank is at 3633 State Street,
his real estate office at 4724 State Street, and his home at
5922 South Park Avenue. He controls more than $500,000 worth of
property and through his bank has made loans on Negro property
and taken over the mortgages of Negroes refused by other banks
and loan agencies.

On November 12, 1919, an automobile rolled by his realty office
and a bomb was tossed from it. It left the office in ruins.
The police were soon on the scene, but the car was well beyond
reach by the time of their arrival. No clews to the bombers
were found, and no arrests were made. It was the opinion of
the police that white residents of the Hyde Park district
resented Binga's handling of Negro property in that district.

Twenty-one days later an automobile drew up in front of Binga's
home at 5922 South Park Avenue, and its occupants put a bomb
under the front steps. It failed to explode. When the firemen
arrived they found it sizzling in the slush beneath the porch.
The police declared that this was an expression of racial
feeling.

Twenty-five days later the bombers reappeared and left a third
bomb. It tore up the porch of Binga's home. Again the police
found that the explosion had been caused by "racial feeling,"
white men having said that "Binga rented too many flats to
Negroes in high-class residence districts." The house was
repaired and police provided to guard the house. At twelve
o'clock each night the guard changed watch. On the night of
February 28 the policeman on duty until twelve o'clock left
a few minutes early, and the policeman relieving him was just
a few minutes late. In this unguarded interval an automobile
swung around the corner, and as it passed the Binga home a man
leaned out and tossed a bomb into the yard. The bomb lit in a
puddle of water and the fuse went out. It was found that the
bomb had been made of black powder, manila paper, and cotton.
The explanation of the attempt was that "his $30,000 home is
in a white neighborhood."

A police guard was still watching the house on the night of
June 18, 1920 when the bombing car appeared again. On this
occasion neither policeman was in sight when the car drew up.
A man alighted this time and carefully placed the bomb. The
explosion that followed almost demolished the front of the house
and smashed windows throughout the block. This last explosion
damaged the home to the extent of $4,000. Binga offered a
reward of $1,000 for the apprehension of those guilty of these
repeated acts of lawlessness.

On November 23 Binga was bombed again. This time the bomb
damaged his neighbors more seriously than it did Binga's
property. No clews were found and no one was arrested.

_Bombing of R. W. Woodfolk's home._--R. W. Woodfolk, Negro
banker and real estate dealer, purchased a flat at 4722 Calumet
Avenue. It was an investment of the Merchants and Peoples'
Bank, 3201 South State Street, which he controlled. The
building was occupied by one white and four Negro families.
On the evening of February 1, 1920, a person with keys to the
building locked the tenants in their apartments, sprung the
locks of the doors leading to the street, and planted a bomb
in the hallway. The explosion ripped up the hall and stairway,
tore away the brick work around the entrance, and shattered
the windows of adjacent buildings. The damage was estimated
at $1,000. No arrests were made.

_Bombing of the Clarke home._--Mrs. Mary Byron Clarke, Negro,
purchased through W. B. Austin, a white banker and real estate
man, properties at 4404 and 4406 Grand Boulevard, vacant
for a year at the time of purchase, and previously used by
prostitutes. A real estate dealer herself, she had frequently
been assisted by Austin in financing her transactions, one
of which was the sale to Negroes of Isaiah Temple, a Jewish
synagogue at Forty-fifth Street and Vincennes Avenue.

The dwellings were renovated and she moved into one of them;
the other she rented. During the riot of July, 1919, her home
was attacked by a mob. When the police arrived in response to a
call by the Clarkes, they battered in the doors at the demand of
the mob and arrested Mr. and Mrs. Clarke. They were acquitted.
On January 5, 1920, the house was bombed. The explosion caused
$3,360 worth of damage. The building was again bombed February
12, 1920, this time with a dynamite bomb thrown through the
plate-glass door in the hallway from a passing automobile. The
stairway was knocked down and large holes blown in the wall.
The police came, found no clews, and made no arrests. At the
request of Mrs. Clarke a special policeman was detailed to
guard the property.

Numerous threatening letters and telephone calls followed,
all of which were reported to the police. There were threats
of another bombing if she did not sell, and there were visits
from representatives of real estate interests in Hyde Park
making offers.

Tuesday evening, April 13, 1920, a third bomb was exploded
in spite of the presence of the two special policemen. The
bomb was thrown from the premises of Frederick R. Barnheisel,
an immediate neighbor, a telephone wire deflected it, and it
landed near the Clarke garage.

Mrs. Clarke made a statement concerning this bombing before
the Commission in which she said:

"Wednesday [the day following the third bombing] we got a
letter saying 'move out or sell, there is nothing else for
you to do. We missed you last night but we will get you the
next time. We are determined.' A letter prior to that stated
if we did not get out they would 'get our hides.'

"There has been some sinister influence brought to bear on the
insurance company since the riot and since the first bombing.
We have had our house insured against bombing since the first
bombing. The first damage of about $500 they paid and canceled
the insurance on 4404 Grand Boulevard. The second bomb did
damage to the extent of $3,360. They wrote saying they would
cancel it, subject however to pending loss. There was a clause
calling for settlement within sixty days. After sixty days
we would have to enter suit to get it. The sixty days have
passed, and there has been no attempt to settle. Some of the
glass has been replaced. They have accepted it, and there has
been no disposition on their part to settle.

"Berry, Johnston, & Peters, the men with whom we have had the
most business dealings, have insisted that we sell the place.
Mr. Peters said last week he could get a buyer from the Hyde
Park-Kenwood Association people, also said if any indebtedness
remained on the contract or deeds, that the money must first
be paid to them, then to us. We have been careful not to let
any indebtedness, even for ten days, come against 4406."

_Bombing of Crede Hubbard's home._--Following is part of
Hubbard's statement to the police immediately after the bombing
of his home at 4331 Vincennes Avenue on the night of April
25, 1920:

"The day on which I had planned to move, a man who said he was
Mr. Day, of the Hyde Park and Kenwood Association, telephoned
me. He said: 'I hear you have acquired property and you are
dissatisfied with it; we can take it off your hands--relieve
you of it.' I replied that I didn't think I needed any help. He
asked, 'What do you expect to do?' I said, 'I expect to move
into it or sell it if I can get my price.' I moved on Tuesday
and Wednesday he called in person. He said, 'I called to find
out if you want us to sell or handle your property for you.'
I told him I thought I could handle it, and that I was not
anxious to sell but would consider selling if I could get an
offer of say $11,000. He replied that his buyers were not able
to go that far. He continued, 'The point is, I represent the
Hyde Park-Kenwood Association. We have spent a lot of money
and we want to keep this district white.' I asked him why they
had not thought of buying the property before and told him
that the house had been for sale for eight months. He replied
that it was a lamentable fact that they had overlooked it. I
told him that I heard the Hyde Park Association had a $100,000
slush fund out of which $100 was paid for each bombing. He
said he would have some of his buyers come in and look over the
property. Shortly afterward, Mr. Stephen D. Seman and another
man came and represented themselves as buyers. They looked
over the inside of the house. I only carried them through the
halls. Mr. Seman said, 'You only paid $8,500 for this property.'
I told him that he had been misinformed, I had paid $9,000.
He said, 'I will give you $9,500 for it.' I refused. As they
were leaving he added, 'You had better consider our offer.'
Soon after that a man named Casson, real estate man, called.
I would not let him in. When he asked me my price I told him
$11,500.

"A week later a delegation from the Hyde Park Association
called. The spokesman began: 'I am Mr. Austin. You understand
the nature of our business with you, I suppose.' ... I told
the chief clerk of the office of the Northwestern Railroad to
inform you that we were coming to see you. We are the Hyde
Park-Kenwood Association and you will understand that you
are not welcome in this district. We want to know what can be
done.' I replied that I didn't know what could be done unless
they wanted to buy; otherwise I expected to live there, and my
price was $11,500. They continued, 'Do you suppose if I moved
into a black district where I wasn't wanted, that I would want
to live there?' I said, 'If you had bought property there and
liked the property, I don't see why you should move.' They
said, 'Why do you persist in wanting to live here when you
know you are not wanted?' I said, 'I have bought property here
and I am expecting to live here.' Then they filed out of the
door, and one of the members stated, 'You had better consider
this proposition.'

"In the office of the Northwestern Railroad, Mr. Shirley called
me in and read a letter to me which he had received from Mr.
Austin. 'Murphy, his name is,' he said, 'I know him fairly
well, and I simply want to make an answer to the letter. Don't
think I am trying to influence you one way or the other. This
is the letter: it goes about like this: "Crede Hubbard has
purchased a three-flat building at 4332 Vincennes Avenue.
Property values are always shot to hell when Negroes move in.
Use whatever influence you have to induce him to sell and find
out for us his lowest figures."' He added, 'Don't think I am
trying to brow-beat you into selling this property.'"

"On the following Sunday night on my way back to Milwaukee, I
read in the paper that my house had been bombed. My family was
at home, my two boys sleeping about ten feet from the place
that was most seriously damaged. The bomb was placed inside
the vestibule. The girl there heard a taxicab drive up about
twenty-five minutes to twelve and stop for a few minutes and
start off again. About six minutes after the taxicab stopped,
the explosion came, and in about five minutes there were
not less than 300 people on the street in front of the place
asking questions. There were a number of plain-clothes men
in the crowd. I told my story to the chief of police and to a
sergeant of the police and they said it was evidence enough to
warrant the arrest of the officials of the Association named,
but they also thought that it would do no good.... 'The thing
we will have to do is to catch somebody in the act, sweat him
and make him tell who his backers are.'

"The police believe that the actual bombing is being done by
a gang of young rough-necks who will stop at nothing, and they
expect a pretty serious encounter if they are interfered with.
A big automobile is being shadowed now by the police. It is
used by this bunch of young fellows under suspicion, and it is
thought that they keep the car well loaded with ammunition,
and whoever attacks them must expect trouble. There are four
plain-clothes men on guard in this district now. The police
told me to get anything I want from a Mauser to a machine
gun and sit back in the dark, and when anybody comes up to my
hallway acting suspiciously to crack down on him and ask him
what he was there for afterwards."

_Bombing of the Harrison home._--Mrs. Gertrude Harrison, Negro,
living alone with her children, contracted to buy a house
at 4708 Grand Boulevard. In March, 1919, she moved in. She
immediately received word that she had committed a grave error.
She and her children were constantly subjected to the insulting
remarks both of her immediate neighbors and passers-by.

On May 16, 1919, a Negro janitor informed her that neighbors
were planning to bomb her house. She called up the Forty-eighth
Street police station and told of the threatened danger. The
officer answering the telephone characterized her report as
"idle talk" and promised to send a man to investigate. The
regular patrolman came in and promised to "keep an eye on the
property," but there were ten blocks in his beat. A special
guard was secured and paid by Mrs. Harrison when it was learned
that one would not be furnished by the police.

The following night, May 17, her house was bombed while the
patrolman was "punching his box" two blocks away and the special
watchman was at the rear. A detail of police was then provided
both at the front and rear. The following night a bomb was
thrown on the roof of the house from the window of a vacant
flat in the adjoining apartment house. The flat from which
the bomb was thrown had been unlocked to admit the bombers and
locked again. The police failed to question either the persons
living in the apartment or those leaving it immediately after
the explosion.

The first explosion blew out the front door and shattered
the glass in the front of the house. The bomb was filled with
gravel and bits of lead. The second was of similar character,
but did not do as much damage. No arrests were made.

In all these fifty-eight bombings the police have been able to accomplish nothing definite. Practically every incident involved an automobile, descriptions of which were furnished by witnesses. The precautions taken to prevent bombings, even if they were well planned and systematically carried out, failed lamentably.

2. REACTION OF WHITES IN HYDE PARK

Increasing frequency of bombings, failure of the police to make arrests, and the apparent association of these acts of open violence with the white residents of Hyde Park drew out explanations.

Pastors of churches in the district who, it had been charged, helped to give circulation to printed sentiments of the organized opposition to the "invasion" were strong in their repudiation. The menace to law and order was definitely recognized and the public given to understand that neither the pastor nor his congregation had encouraged acts of lawlessness in any manner. In a statement to a Commission investigator, one of these pastors said, "I am not in sympathy with the methods and am very doubtful about the aims of the Property Owners' Association and have, therefore, been unable to join them or indorse their efforts."

A local paper, the _Real Estate News_, published a long article in February, 1920, on "Solving Chicago's Race Problem." It was directed at South Side property owners and carried a stern warning "against perils of boycott and terrorism being promoted by local protective associations." Referring to the bombing outrages, this paper, under the heading "Danger in Boycotts and Bombs," said:

In Kenwood and Hyde Park, particularly, a number of "protective
associations" have been formed. Property owners have been urged
to join these bodies, which, without attempt at concealment,
advocate a boycott against all persons of a certain race.
At meetings of these groups there has been open advocacy of
violence. There has been incendiary talk. Bombs and bullets
have been discussed, and speakers talking thus have been
applauded. There have been repeated acts of violence. Night
bombing of Negro homes and apartments has taken place. Bombing
and shooting is increasing in frequency.

The time has come, we believe, for a word of solemn warning
to all South Side property owners. It is: Keep out of those
associations. If you are now in, get out! For you are in great
danger of the penitentiary! You are in grave peril of losing
your property by damage suits!

Another excerpt, under the heading "Perils of 'Protective' Organizations," said:

No one can justly criticize men for forming organizations
to protect or advance their own interests lawfully. Property
owners ought to unite wherever practicable for proper and lawful
purposes beneficial to themselves. For such unions operate to
the welfare of all.

Recently, however, a number of men have joined in forming and
promoting organizations on the South Side which are perilous to
themselves and to every property owner who joins them. Owners
of real estate should be the last men in the world to get mixed
up in movements involving violence, threats, intimidations,
or boycotts. Because they are responsible. Their wealth cannot
be concealed. Judgments against them are collectible.

Under the heading "Drastic Laws Forbid Conspiracies":

The law of conspiracy is drastic. Conspiracy is an association
together of persons for the purpose of doing an unlawful thing
in an unlawful way, or a lawful thing in an unlawful way, or
an unlawful thing in a lawful way. Under the law, all persons
in a conspiracy are equally guilty. One need not throw a bomb,
or even know of the intent of throwing a bomb, to be found
guilty. The act of one, no matter how irresponsible, is the
act of all.

Any association formed in Chicago for the purpose of, or having
among its aims, refusal to sell, lease or rent property to any
citizen of a certain race, is an unlawful association. Every
act of such an association for advancement of such an aim is
an act of conspiracy, punishable criminally and civilly in
the District Court of the United States. And every member of
such an association is equally guilty with every other member.
If one member hires a bomber, or a thug who commits murder in
pursuance of the aims of the association, all the organization
may be found guilty of conspiracy to destroy property or to
commit murder, as the case may be.

This entire article was widely circulated in the disturbed neighborhoods by the Protective Circle, an organization of Negroes, 25,000 copies being mailed to residents of Hyde Park.

Residents of the district, stirred by the succession of bombings, began to protest. The paper of the Kenwood and Hyde Park Property Owners' Association reflected this feeling in a statement declaring that the Association had no connection with the bombings, and that its president was considering the advisability of assisting the authorities in apprehending these lawless individuals. On another occasion, this paper took pains to explain that the bombing of George A. Hyers' property on March 5 was an outgrowth of labor troubles and not of a property owners' organization recently formed in this community. At a meeting of the General Committee of the Property Owners' Association the following 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 should be "the acquisition, management, improvement and disposition, including leasing, sub-leasing and sale of residential property to both white and colored people within the said district heretofore described." This district was to include the area from Thirty-fifth to Sixty-third streets, and from the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad tracks to Lake Michigan.

In August, 1920, the manager of the Association cited an instance in which it had functioned. On Vernon Avenue a white man had sold property direct to Negroes. The next-door neighbor had arranged a similar sale to potential Negro buyers. The neighbor next to him, a widow, loath to lose her home, appealed to the Association. After a conference with the possible Negro buyers, their money was returned to them, the Association purchased the house in question, and the whole matter was thus amicably arranged.

During April, 1920, inquiries were made by the Commission into the unrest caused by rumors that 800 Negro families intended to move into Hyde Park. It developed that May 1, the customary "moving day," was feared both by whites in Hyde Park and by Negroes in and out of Hyde Park. Negroes living there feared that an attempt would be made to oust them by canceling or refusing to renew their leases, and whites thought Negroes might get possession of some of the properties vacated on that date. The Commission found, however, only eighteen instances where leases were canceled on houses occupied by Negroes who were having difficulty in finding other places to live.

In the summer of 1920 the Kenwood and Hyde Park Property Owners' Association stated that sixty-eight Negro families had been moved through cancellation of leases and mortgage foreclosures.

Incidental to the general plan of opposition to the entrance of Negroes in Hyde Park was the sending of threatening letters. For example, in August, 1919, a leading Negro real estate agent and banker received this pen-printed notice by mail:

HEADQUARTERS OF THE WHITE HANDS
TERRITORY, MICHIGAN AVE. TO LAKE FRONT

You are the one who helped cause this riot by encouraging
Negroes to move into good white neighborhoods and you know
the results of your work. This trouble has only begun and we
advise you to use your influence to get Negroes to move out of
these neighborhoods to _Black Belt_ where they belong and in
conclusion we advise you to get off South Park Ave. yourself.
Just take this as a warning. You know what comes next.

Respect.

WARNING COM.

This man's home and office have been bombed a number of times. Efforts were made to buy out individual Negroes who had settled in the district, as well as to cause renters to move out. There are numerous incidents of this nature, with indications of many others. A Negro woman who was living in the district, told one of the Commission's investigators that she and her husband had formerly lived in the 3800 block of Lake Park Avenue. White neighbors caused them so much trouble that they had moved and bought the apartment house in which they are now living, renting out the second and third flats. Almost immediately white people began to call and inquire whether she was the janitress, or whether she was renting or buying the place. When she gave evasive answers, letters began to arrive by mail. One letter was slipped under the door at night. These letters informed her that she was preventing the sale of the adjoining house because she would not sell and no white person would live next door to her. She was advised that it would be best for her to answer and declare her intentions. Two white women called and offered her $1,500 more than she had paid for the property. She refused and a few days later she received a letter demanding an immediate answer, to the Kenwood and Hyde Park Property Owners' Association.

Later three white men in overseas uniforms inquired as to the ownership of the property, asking if she was the janitress and if she knew who the owner was. She answered in the negative. One of the men tore down a "For Sale" sign on the adjoining property, and another informed her that it was the intention to turn the neighborhood back to white people and that all Negroes must go.

This woman is the president of a neighborhood protective league, including the Negroes in several of the blocks thereabouts. She received a letter from the Kenwood and Hyde Park Property Owners' Association asking the purposes and intentions of this league.

This woman also reported that a man had been going about the neighborhood under the pretext of making calling cards, advising Negroes to sell out and leave the neighborhood, as it was better not to stay where they were not wanted. Another white man who had been about the neighborhood selling wearing apparel, told her that two Negro families in the neighborhood would be bombed. She inquired how he knew this and was told to wait and see. Within two weeks these bombings had taken place.

IV. TREND OF THE NEGRO POPULATION

In considering the expansion of Negro residential areas, the most important is the main South Side section where more of the Negro population lives. This group is hemmed in on the north by the business district and on the west by overcrowded areas west of Wentworth Avenue, called in this report "hostile." During the ten years 1910-20 business houses and light manufacturing plants were moving south from the downtown district, pushing ahead of them the Negro population between Twelfth and Thirty-first streets. At the same time the Negro population was expanding into the streets east of Wabash Avenue. This extension was stopped by Lake Michigan, about eight blocks east. Negro families then began filtering into Hyde Park, immediately to the south.

In 1917 the Chicago Urban League found that Negroes were then living on Wabash Avenue as far south as Fifty-fifth street east of State Street, where they had moved from the district west of State Street. From Thirty-first to Thirty-ninth streets, on Wabash Avenue, Negroes had been living from nine to eleven years, and the approximate percentage of Negroes by blocks ranged from 95 to 100; from Thirty-ninth Street to Forty-seventh Street they had been living from one to five years and averaged 50 per cent. The movement had been almost entirely from the west and north.

On Indiana Avenue, from Thirty-first to Forty-second streets, a similar trend was revealed. In the 3100 block, Negroes had been living for eight years, in the 3200 block for fourteen years; in the more southerly blocks their occupancy had been much briefer, ranging down to five months. In the most northerly of these blocks Negroes numbered 90 per cent and in the most southerly only 2 per cent.

On Prairie Avenue, farther east, two Negro families bought homes in the 3100 block in 1911, but the majority of the Negroes had come in since 1916. The percentage of Negroes in that block was 50. From Thirty-second to Thirty-ninth Street the blocks were found to have more than 90 per cent Negroes. One family had been there five years and the average residence was one and one-half years. No Negroes were found from Fortieth to Forty-fourth Street on Prairie Avenue. There were two families in the 4500 block, and none south of that.

On Forest Avenue, from Thirty-first to Thirty-ninth Street, 75 per cent of the families were Negroes and had lived there less than six years.

On Calumet Avenue, the next street east of Prairie, Negroes had begun to live within four years. The population was 75 per cent Negro from Thirty-first to Thirty-ninth Street. None live south of Thirty-ninth Street, except at the corner, where they had been living for five months.

A similar situation was found on Rhodes Avenue, still farther east, from Thirty-first to Thirty-ninth Street. Negroes had lived in Vincennes Avenue, the next street east, less than two years, and in Cottage Grove Avenue, still farther east less than one year.

South Park Avenue and its continuation, Grand Boulevard (south of Thirty-fifth Street) was the most recent street into which Negroes had moved in large numbers. This had occurred within the years 1915-17. The first Negro families had moved into the 3400 block less than four years previously. The percentage of Negroes between Thirty-first and Thirty-fifth streets was less than 50. Within five months two Negro families had moved into the hitherto exclusively white 3500 block.

Few Negroes had moved from east of State Street to west of that street.

V. OUTLYING NEIGHBORHOODS

The Commission's investigation being confined to the city of Chicago, the growing Negro colonies in such suburbs as Evanston and Glencoe were not studied, but attention was given to two southwestern outlying neighborhoods in the east part of Morgan Park, just inside the city limits, and the village of Robbins, wholly Negro, just outside.

1. MORGAN PARK

In 1910, 126 Negroes lived in Morgan Park, with a total population of 5,269. In 1920 the area had been incorporated in the city of Chicago, and there were 695 Negroes in a total population of 7,780 occupying approximately the same area.

In its early days Morgan Park was the site of a theological seminary, which in 1892 became part of the University of Chicago. The first Negroes there were servants, mostly from the South, working in the households of the professors. The colony remained, and its more recent increase was due in considerable measure to the influx of well-to-do Negroes from farther north in Chicago, many of whom bought houses. In some cases Negroes in congested Negro residential areas sold out to Negroes arriving in the migration and re-established themselves in much better dwellings and surroundings in Morgan Park.

Less prosperous Negroes also came, despite the feeling of some home owners that too great an influx of that type would injure property values and render the neighborhood less desirable. Many of these work in the South Chicago steel mills and the shops at Pullman. Some work in the Stock Yards.

A number of Negroes of Morgan Park are employed at the Chicago City Hall. Some are porters on Pullman cars. Only a small number are laborers. Many of the women sew or work as car cleaners and seem reluctant to do housework even at day wages.

Physically Morgan Park is attractive with comfortable homes and large grounds. Several churches, a number of schools, and an attractive park all add to the desirability of the place as a "home town." The lots are deep, affording plenty of space for gardens, and many vacant lots are cultivated. The opportunity for garden patches is an attraction for many Negroes. There are two Negro churches, Methodist and Baptist, and a Colored Men's Improvement Association which has provided a social hall for the Negro population.

School facilities are inadequate, and the buildings are old and overcrowded. Because of this congestion, it becomes necessary for children in the sixth and higher grades to go three miles to a school on Western Avenue. About twenty Negroes attend the high school. In the Esmond Street school approximately 25 per cent of the children are Negroes. The Negroes have repeatedly requested enlarged school facilities. They want a new building conveniently situated for their children.

The white people of Morgan Park are not unfriendly toward their Negro neighbors, though there seems to be a common understanding that Negroes must not live west of Vincennes Road, which bisects the town from northeast to southwest. A Negro once bought a house across the line but found he was so unwelcome that he promptly sold again. More recently the owner of a three-story brick flat building rented to Negroes the twenty flats above his stores. A protest was made by both white and Negro house owners, so that he was forced to eject the Negro tenants.

The demand for homes is shown in the numbers of Negroes who go to Morgan Park on Sundays by automobile, street car, and train. In the spring of 1920 a number of houses were being erected for Negro occupancy in what is known in Morgan Park as "No Man's Land," east of Vincennes Road from 109th to 112th streets. This swampy tract of land was being reclaimed. Streets had been surveyed and laid out, though with little paving. Water, light, and gas were available, and some efforts at drainage had been made, leaving some stagnant pools. Other plans involved the building of eighty five-room bungalows by a Chicago contractor. Six of these were under construction at the time of the investigator's visit, and five had been sold, corner-lot houses at $4,550, houses on inside lots at $4,330.

Morgan Park Negroes appear to be progressing financially. An officer of a local trust and savings bank said that they met their obligations promptly, only occasionally defaulting or suffering foreclosure and then only because of illness, death, or loss of employment. The same officer said savings accounts of Negroes were increasing in number, though small in amount.

Whites and Negroes maintain a friendly attitude. During the 1919 riots a number of conferences took place between Negroes and white people of Morgan Park. The Negroes kept rather close to their own neighborhood, and the only difficulty the police had was in controlling rowdy white boys.

Younger children of the two races play together in the school yards. A teacher in the Esmond Street school declared that no distinction was made between Negroes and whites in that school. It was noted, however, that when games were played, this teacher directed the little Negroes to take little Negro girls as partners. Some prejudice is discernible among whites in the community, but there is an evident desire to be fair and to give the Negroes every reasonable opportunity to exemplify good citizenship so long as they do not move from their own into the white neighborhoods.

Those familiar with the Morgan Park settlement believe that it offers unusual inducements as a home community for Negroes. The contractor who is already building for Negroes there has confidence in the venture. He has dealt before with Negroes and found them satisfactory clients.

2. ROBBINS

This village is the only exclusively Negro community near Chicago with Negroes in all village offices.

Robbins is not attractive physically. It is not on a car line and there is no pretense of paved streets, or even sidewalks. The houses are homemade, in most cases by labor mornings, nights, and holidays, after or before the day's wage-earning. Tar paper, roofing paper, homemade tiles, hardly seem sufficient to shut out the weather; older houses, complete with windows, doors, porches, fences, and gardens, indicate that some day these shelters will become real houses. In 1920 the village took out its incorporation papers, and while there are some who regret this independence and talk of asking Blue Island to annex it, in the main the citizens are proud of their village and certain of its future. There are 380 people all told, men, women, and children, living in something more than seventy houses. It is a long mile down the road to the street car, but daily men and women trudge away to their work, taking with them the feeling of home ownership, of a place for the children to play unmolested, of friends and neighbors.

These men and women find many kinds of work in the neighboring towns--at the mills, on the railroads, in the factories. Many of the women work in the factory of Libby, McNeil & Libby. Their wages go into payments for their homes. Men and women together are living as pioneer families lived--working and sacrificing to feel the independence of owning a bit of ground and their own house.

C. THE NEGRO COMMUNITY

I. THE BEGINNING OF THE NEGRO COMMUNITY

Negroes have been living in Chicago since it was founded. In fact, Jean Baptiste Point de Saible, a San Domingan Negro, was the first settler and in 1790 built the first house, a rude hut on the north bank of the Chicago River near what is now the Michigan Boulevard Bridge.

There are records of Negroes owning property in Chicago as early as 1837, the year of its incorporation as a city. In 1844 there were at least five Negro property owners and in 1847 at least ten. Their property was in the original first and second wards of the city, one on Lake Street, others on Madison, Clark, and Harrison, and Fifth Avenue. In 1848 the first Negro church property was purchased at the corner of Jackson and Buffalo streets, indicating the presence of the first colony of Negroes. In 1850 the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law caused many to flee for safety to Canada, many of the property owners disposing of their holdings at a great loss. In 1854 Negroes held two pieces of church property in the same general locality. Although the great majority lived on Clark and Dearborn streets north of Harrison Street, there was a tendency among the property-owning class to invest in outlying property. Some of them bought property as far south as what is now Thirty-third Street.

The year of the Great Fire, 1871, Negroes owned four pieces of church property. That fire stopped at Harrison Street and did not consume all of the Negro settlement. A second large fire in 1874 spread northeast and burned 812 buildings over an area of forty-seven acres. With the rebuilding of the city they were pushed southward to make room for the business district.

In 1900 the most congested area of Negro residence, called the "Black Belt," was a district thirty-one blocks long and four blocks wide, extending from Harrison Street on the north to Thirty-ninth Street on the south, between Wabash and Wentworth avenues. Although other colonies had been started in other parts of the city, notably the West Side, at least 50 per cent of the 1900 Negro population of 30,150 lived in this area. As this main area of Negro residence grew, the proportion of Negroes to the total Negro population living in it increased until in 1920 it contained 90 per cent of the Negroes of the city.

II. THE ORGANIZATION OF THE NEGRO COMMUNITY

In the discussion of race contacts attention is called to the peculiar conditions which compel Negroes of the city to develop many of their own institutions and agencies. Partly from necessity and partly from choice, they have established their own churches, business enterprises, amusement places, and newspapers. Living and associating for the most part together, meeting in the same centers for face-to-face relations, trusting to their own physicians, lawyers, and ministers, a compact community with its own fairly definite interests and sentiments has grown up.

The institutions within the Negro community that have been developed to aid it in maintaining itself and promoting its own welfare, are of four general types: (1) commercial and industrial enterprises; (2) organizations for social intercourse; (3) religious organizations; (4) agencies for civic and social betterment.

1. COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL ENTERPRISES

Commercial and industrial establishments conducted by Negroes are listed by Ford S. Black in his yearly _Blue Book_, which serves as a directory of Negro activities. They increased from 1,200 in 1919 to 1,500 in 1920. The compilation lists 651 on State Street, the main thoroughfare, 549 on principal cross streets, and more than 300 on other streets. The increase is strikingly shown in the following figures: In 1918 Negro business places on Thirty-first Street numbered nine and seventy-one in 1920; on Thirty-fifth Street there were forty-seven in 1918 and seventy-seven in 1920. On Cottage Grove Avenue, Negroes have only recently established themselves in large numbers, yet between Twenty-eighth and Forty-fifth streets there are fifty-seven Negro business places, including nine groceries, three drug-stores, and two undertaking establishments.

A partial list of business places as listed in Black's _Blue Book_ is given:

Art stores 14
Automobile schools and repair shops 10
Bakeries, wholesale and retail 13
Banks 2
Barbershops 211
Baths 2
Blacksmith shops 6
Book and stationery stores 6
Chiropodist 29
Cleaning, dyeing, and repairing establishments 68
Clothing stores 8
Decorators 12
Dressmaking shops 32
Drug-stores 31
Electricians and locksmiths 9
Employment agencies 15
Express and storage offices 71
Fish markets 7
Florists 5
Furnace and stove repairing 6
Groceries and delicatessens 119
Hairdressing parlors 108
Hotels 11
Ice-cream and confectionery stores 7
Insurance companies 3
Jewelers 5
Laundries 2
Medicine specialists 9
Millinery shops 15
Music and musical instruments 16
Newspapers and magazines 13
Musicians and music teachers 66
Notions 25
Optometrists 4
Orchestras 1
Photographers 4
Plumbers 4
Printers 20
Public stenographers 6
Real estate offices 52
Restaurants 87
Schools 4
Shoemaking and repairing shops 33
Shoe-shining parlors 26
Sign painters 4
Soft-drink parlors 11
Tailors 62
Toilet articles 10
Undertaking establishments 21
Vending machines 2

2. ORGANIZATIONS FOR SOCIAL INTERCOURSE