The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot

CHAPTER VI

Chapter 1749,571 wordsPublic domain

RACIAL CONTACTS

INTRODUCTION

Contacts of whites and Negroes in the North and South differ according to the institutions and traditions of the sections in which they have been reared. In the South relations are fixed and generally understood, although Negroes consider the institutions on which these relations are based oppressive and consistently oppose them. There the "color line" is drawn rigidly without reference to the desires or comfort of Negroes or the free expression of their citizenship privileges. Because it is nearer than the North to the institution of slavery, the South still maintains an almost patriarchal relationship with its Negro population. Small communities, the plantation system, and the great numbers of Negroes in domestic service hold the two races steadily in contacts so close that class as well as race lines are maintained with deliberateness and persistence. Even where there are no laws specifically regulating association of the races, the sentiment of the community is enforced, frequently in disregard of existing general laws. Thus Negroes may not eat in a restaurant with whites, sit in adjoining seats in a theater, live in the same neighborhoods, work together on the same jobs, or attend the same schools.

In northern communities the institutions are more liberal and with few exceptions there are no restrictive laws applying specifically to racial association. In fact, the trend of legislation and of court decisions is strongly toward adopting and enforcing general regulations without regard to race or color. Relations are less personal, contacts are wider and more frequent.

From a very simple organization of relations in the South, Negroes are transported to more complex relations based on more elaborate urban distribution of responsibilities. Thus it happens that whites and Negroes in Chicago may be found working together in industry, riding together on street cars, attending the same schools, sharing political activities, with an increasing number of Negroes holding public office, transacting business in banks, stores, and real estate, competing in athletics in public schools, colleges, and the Y.M.C.A., and conferring on social problems in civic and reform clubs.

The increasing number of these contacts cannot fail to influence the necessary adjustments. The general public seems to accept necessary contacts with a minimum of outward friction, as is shown by thousands of daily contacts. Each contact, however, where there is friction, is a focus of comment, antagonism, resentment, prejudice, or fear. But association in such places as hotels, restaurants, barber shops, dance halls, and theaters is often limited by tradition and custom in the North as strictly as by regulation in the South.

A. LEGAL STATUS OF NEGROES IN ILLINOIS

The legal status of Negroes in Illinois differs in no respect from that of white persons. The limitations which affect Negroes are established through rules imposed by persons who offer public services and accommodations. When these rules are unfair, evasive, or even illegal, they can be enforced only because of non-enforcement of existing laws. Federal and state courts are in accord in holding Negro men and women in Illinois to be citizens of the United States and of the commonwealth, protected by the laws against discrimination or oppression on account of their race or color.

There are two lines of decisions in Illinois relating to discriminations on account of color. One line of cases prohibits discrimination in certain public places and the other prohibits discrimination against school children. All but two of these cases were tried since the passage of the School Act and the Civil Rights Act, prohibiting such discrimination, enacted in 1874 and 1885, respectively. The civil-rights cases[28] are briefly reviewed below by a consideration of the school cases.

I. CIVIL RIGHTS IN PUBLIC PLACES

The Civil Rights Act, originally passed in 1885, was amended in 1903, and again in 1911. Section 1 of this act now provides:

That all persons within the jurisdiction of said State of Illinois shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodation, advantages, facilities and privileges of inns, restaurants, eating houses, hotels, soda-fountains, saloons, barber shops, bathrooms, theaters, skating rinks, concerts, cafés, bicycle rinks, elevators, ice-cream parlors or rooms, railroads, omnibuses, stages, street cars, boats, funeral hearses, and public conveyances on land and water, and all other places of public accommodation and amusement, subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law and applicable alike to all citizens; nor shall there be any discrimination on account of race or color in the price to be charged and paid for lots or graves in any cemetery or place for burying the dead, but the price to be charged and paid for lots in any cemetery or place for burying the dead shall be applicable alike to all citizens of every race and color.

Section 2 provides:

That any person who shall violate any of the provisions of the foregoing section by denying to any citizen, except for reasons applicable alike to all citizens of every race and color and regardless of color or race, the full enjoyment of any accommodations, advantages, facilities or privileges in said section enumerated or by aiding or inciting such denial, shall for every such offense forfeit and pay a sum not less than $25 nor more than $500 to the person aggrieved thereby, to be recovered in any court of competent jurisdiction in the county where said offense was committed, and shall also for every such offense be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not to exceed $500 or shall be imprisoned not more than one year or both; and _provided_ further, that a judgment in favor of the party aggrieved, or punishment upon an indictment, shall be a bar to either prosecution respectively.

_Anna William_ v. _Chicago & Northwestern Railway Company_ (55 Ill. 185)--the first case of color discrimination which reached the supreme court of Illinois--was heard in 1870, before the passage of the Civil Rights Act. The court decided that a railroad company could not exclude a Negro woman on account of her color from a certain car reserved for the use of ladies. The evidence showed that the brakeman had refused to permit the Negro woman to enter the "ladies' car" and pushed her away. The jury awarded her $200 damages, which the court upheld as reasonable.

Before the Amendment of 1903, the Civil Rights Act of 1885 provided that all persons should be entitled

to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodation, advantages, facilities and privileges of inns, restaurants, eating houses, barber shops, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and all other places of public accommodation and amusement, subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law and applicable alike to all citizens.

In 1896, in _Cecil_ v. _Green_ (60 Ill. App., 61; affirmed, 161 Ill. 265), the court decided that the expression "all other places of public accommodation" embraced only places of the same general character as those enumerated, and therefore that soda fountains were not included within the general term.

The amendment of 1903 included soda fountains, saloons, bathrooms, skating rinks, concerts, bicycle rinks, elevators, and ice-cream parlors.

In _Baylies_ v. _Curry_ (30 Ill. App. 105; affirmed, 128 Ill. 36), decided in 1889, a Negro woman, after being refused tickets at the box-office of Curry's Theater, had a white woman purchase two tickets for her in the balcony. Upon attempting to use them, the Negro woman and her husband were referred back to the box-office and their money returned. The proprietor introduced evidence to show that his theater was in a bad neighborhood, and he had, therefore, adopted the rule of reserving certain rows for Negroes in each section of the house. The supreme court, in affirming judgment for $100 damages, said: "Beyond all question, the Civil Rights Act prohibits the denial of access to the theater and to the several circles or grades of seats therein, because of race or color."

In 1903, in _Grace_ v. _Moseley_ (112 Ill. App. 100), it was held that the statute imposes liability only where the defendant denies or incites a denial of service, not where he merely fails to provide service.

The amendment of 1911 provided that there should not be any discrimination on account of race or color in the price charged for lots or graves in any cemetery.

Relying upon this provision, Gaskill, a Negro, applied for a writ of mandamus to compel the Forest Home Cemetery Company to receive the body of his wife for burial (_People ex rel. Gaskill_ v. _Forest Home Cemetery Company_, 258 Ill. 36, 1913). The cemetery company had passed a resolution in 1907 that thereafter the cemetery would be maintained for the burial of white persons only--except that colored persons owning lots in the cemetery, and their direct heirs, should be admitted for burial. Gaskill did not own a lot in the cemetery, but four of his children had been buried there fifteen to twenty years before in single graves separated from each other; and when he applied in 1912 for space for the burial of his wife, the company refused permission solely on account of her color.

The court held that the 1911 amendment did not prohibit a cemetery corporation, which did not have the power of eminent domain under its charter and which had no monopoly of the burial places in its vicinity, from making and enforcing a rule excluding colored persons from burial in its cemetery. The case was taken on writ of error to the Supreme Court of the United States (238 U.S. 606), but the writ was dismissed for want of jurisdiction without further comment.

In _Dean_ v. _Chicago & Northwestern Railway Company_ (183 Ill. App. 317; 1913), Dean, a Negro, recovered damages of $300 from the railway company for its refusal to allow him to ride in a station elevator because of his color.[29]

II. DISCRIMINATION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS

The first school case was decided in 1874, before there was any statute forbidding discrimination against Negro children in the public schools.[30] In _Chase_ v. _Stephenson_ (71 Ill. 383; 1874) a taxpayer filed a bill to enjoin the directors of a school district from maintaining a separate school for Negro children; and the court held that the directors had no authority to discriminate on account of color, and the separate school was enjoined.

In March, 1874, "An Act to Protect Colored Children in Their Rights to Attend Public Schools" was passed which provided:

That all directors of schools, boards of education, or other school officers, whose duty it now is or may be hereafter to provide in their respective jurisdictions schools for the education of all children between the ages of six and twenty-one years, are prohibited from excluding directly or indirectly any such child from such school on account of the color of such child.

Two school cases have since arisen at Quincy, Illinois. The first, decided in 1882 (_People ex rel. Longress_ v. _Board of Education of Quincy_, 101 Ill. 308), was a _quo warranto_ proceeding, attacking a regulation of the school board, requiring all Negro children to attend one school, and excluding them from all others. The court held that the laws of Illinois prohibited such discrimination and the board was without authority to make the regulation.

In the second Quincy case, decided in 1888 (_People_ v. _McFall and Board of Education of Quincy_ 26 Ill. App. 319; affirmed, 124 Ill. 642), the petition for _quo warranto_ charged that the Board of Education had continued the illegal discrimination against Negro children ever since the decision in the first case. The petition was supported by a number of affidavits of Negroes. After a full hearing on affidavits and counter-affidavits the trial court denied the petition. The appellate court affirmed the judgment, characterizing the affidavits in support of the petition as "vague and unsatisfactory"; and the supreme court affirmed the judgment.

Quincy has fourteen schools, and the School Board has divided the city into four school districts. The Lincoln School is exclusively a Negro school and is the only school in the district in which most of the Negroes live. All white children in that district are transferred to other schools, and the few Negro children outside the Lincoln district are urged to attend the Lincoln School. The Negro teachers and Negro principal of the Lincoln School are paid higher salaries than other teachers in Quincy, and are told that if they wish to maintain themselves in the Quincy schools, they must persuade Negro children in other districts to attend the Lincoln School. In this way the board has succeeded in confining Negro children with few exceptions to the Lincoln School. Yet some Negroes are attending five other schools, including the high school.

There have also been two school cases from Alton, Illinois. The first case was _People_ v. _Board of Education of Upper Alton_ (127 Ill. 613), decided in 1889. This was a proceeding by mandamus, begun in the supreme court by John Peair, to compel the Board of Education to admit his two children to the high school of Upper Alton. Certain issues of fact were certified to the circuit court for trial by jury. The jury returned a general verdict in favor of the Board of Education, notwithstanding the following special findings in answer to questions asked by the relator, John Peair:

_Q._: When application was made ... to the principal in charge of the said building on behalf of relator's two children for permission to attend school in said building, was such permission refused by said principal because said children were colored?

_A._: Yes.

_Q._: Have not the children of relator, John Peair, been excluded from attending school in said high school building by the defendants on account of the color of said children?

_A._: Yes.

The supreme court held that the general verdict in favor of the Board of Education was "so manifestly the result of misdirection by the court as to be entitled to no consideration," and a writ of mandamus was ordered.

The second school case from Alton, though begun in 1899, was not finally decided until 1908. This was a petition for mandamus filed in the supreme court by Scott Bibb to compel the mayor and city council of Alton to admit his children to the Washington School which they had been attending, and from which he alleged they were excluded on account of color and were transferred to a school attended only by Negro children. The supreme court certified the case to the circuit court of Madison County for the trial of certain issues of facts. Before the supreme court finally ordered the mandamus to issue in 1908 the case had been tried by a jury seven times, had been before the supreme court five times, and the Bibb children were grown up. It is interesting as a flagrant example of race prejudice in the trial judge and jury.

In this case (_People ex rel. Scott Bibb_ v. _Mayor and Common Council of Alton_, 233 Ill. 542) the supreme court said:

The issues in this case have been tried seven times by juries in the circuit court, and in two of them the jury disagreed. Upon the first trial where there was a verdict it was in favor of the respondents, and it was certified to this court. That verdict was set aside for manifest error prejudicial to the relator in rulings of the court in the admission of evidence. (_People ex rel._ v. _Mayor and Common Council of Alton_, 179 Ill. 615.) There was another trial resulting in a verdict in favor of the respondents, which was set aside on account of a misdirection of the court in submitting to the jury a question of law. (_People ex rel._ v. _Mayor and Common Council of Alton_, 193 Ill. 309.) Upon another trial there was a third verdict in favor of the respondents, which this court set aside because clearly contrary to the facts proved and without any support in the evidence. It was proved at that trial, beyond dispute or controversy, that the respondents were guilty of the charge contained in the petition, and the evidence introduced by them had no tendency to prove that the intention clearly manifested by their acts did not exist. The verdict could only be accounted for as a product of passion, prejudice or hostility to the law. (_People ex rel._ v. _Mayor and Common Council of Alton_, 209 Ill. 461.) The attorney for relator then urged that a peremptory writ should be awarded on the ground that the evidence in the record clearly showed the relator to be entitled to it. The relator, however, had not requested the circuit court to direct a verdict in his favor, and it was said that if such a motion had been made the court would doubtless have granted it. The court said that the issues were sent to the circuit court for trial in conformity with the practice governing the trial of issues of fact in actions at law before a jury, and it was not deemed advisable, in the existing condition of the record, to set aside that order. The case was sent back for another trial, and upon the next trial the attorney for relator moved the court to direct a verdict in his favor, and this the court refused to do, assigning as a reason that this court had directed that the issues be submitted to another jury. The excuse was so shallow and baseless as to justify a conclusion that it was a mere pretext to evade a compliance with the law as declared by this court, and the verdict was set aside and the circuit court directed, in the trial of the questions of fact, to proceed in accordance with the opinion then filed and the earlier opinions in the case. (_People ex rel._ v. _Mayor and Common Council of Alton_, 221 Ill. 275.) The case has been again tried, and a verdict in favor of the respondents, unsupported by any evidence, has been returned to this court. The evidence was to all intents and purposes the same as upon the former trials, and demonstrated, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that the children of relator were excluded from the Washington School, which was the most convenient of the public schools of the city to which they had the right to be admitted, and that the exclusion was solely on account of their race and color, and for no other reason whatever. The evidence for the respondents that nothing was said about schools or colored children by the mayor and council in changing the ordinances for the purpose of excluding colored children from schools attended by white children; that the intention to exclude them was not declared, or that orders were never issued to the police, or that the mayor never intended the police force under his control to do what they did and what he knew they were doing, had no tendency whatever to prove that the children of the relator were not excluded by the respondents on account of their race or color. At the conclusion of the evidence the attorney for the relator moved the court to direct a verdict finding the issues in favor of the relator and presented to the court a written instruction for that purpose, but the court denied the motion and refused to give the instruction. In so doing the court erred, and the error was in a matter of law, and contrary to the law in this case as declared by this court in previous opinions filed in the case.

The attorney for respondents says that we ought to approve this verdict for the reason that the questions of fact have been tried seven times in the circuit court; that the juries have twice disagreed and five juries have decided in favor of the respondents, and all the trials have been presided over by learned judges. Great weight is justly given to the conclusion of a jury upon controverted questions of fact where the verdict appears to be the result of an honest exercise of judgment and the weighing, with fair deliberation, of the credibility of witnesses, but it is beyond dispute that this verdict, when viewed in the most favorable light for the respondents, does not represent any conclusion of the jury from the evidence, and that all of the verdicts represent nothing but a refusal by juries to enforce a law which they do not personally approve or which is distasteful to them. In the first opinion filed in this case it was said that it might be that the wisest of both races believe that the best interests of each would be promoted by voluntary separation in the public schools, but that it is no less the duty of courts to enforce the law as it stands, without respect to race or persons. We would be remiss in our duty to enforce the law and would forfeit the respect of all law-abiding citizens if we should approve this verdict for no other reason than because it is one of a series which represent, not the enforcement of law or the discharge of duty, but a deplorable disregard for the law and for the rights of citizens. The verdicts have all been more offensive and dangerous assaults upon the law, the government, and organized societies, than utterances of individuals or societies who are opposed to all law, and which are regarded only as the sentiments of the ignorant, depraved and vicious who are the enemies of a government of laws. These verdicts were pronounced, not by those who were avowed enemies of law and government, but by those who constituted a part of the governmental machinery for the enforcement of the law and who had been sworn to discharge their duty in that regard. Such verdicts not only denote opposition to the enforcement of the law, but they also jeopardize the highest interests of society and individuals. When the law, through the refusal of jurors to regard their oaths, becomes impotent to protect the rights of the humblest, the rights of no person are secure; and jurors may take heed that they obey and enforce the law, lest their refusal to enforce the law for the protection of others becomes effective to deprive them of their legal rights and substitute the beliefs of jurors and courts as to the wisdom of laws enacted for their protection. The error of the court in refusing to direct a verdict is not obviated by the fact that there have been so many verdicts contrary to the law and the evidence. The verdict must be set aside, and the next question is whether the issues shall be again sent to the circuit court for trial.

In this case the effort to obtain a fair trial of the issues of fact before a jury has proved utterly futile, and upon the trial now under review the court refused to direct a verdict in passing upon a question of law raised by the motion of the relator for such a direction. It is clear that after so many trials there can be no further evidence produced by either party but that all the evidence relating to the issues is before us. We are of the opinion that it would be a wrong to the relator to further delay him in establishing his rights and to compel him to add to the trouble and expense already incurred in an effort to compel obedience to the law. The verdict of the jury is set aside and the issues will not be again certified to the circuit court for trial but will now be finally disposed of. The averments of the petition have been fully proved upon repeated trials and the evidence is preserved in the record. The evidence produced by the respondents affords no support to their answer.

We therefore find that all the material facts alleged in the petition are true as therein stated and that the relator is entitled to a writ of _mandamus_ as therein prayed, and it is therefore ordered that a peremptory writ of _mandamus_ issue according to the prayer of the petition, that the respondents pay the costs, and that execution issue therefor.

B. CONTACTS IN CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

The public schools furnish one of the most important points of contact between the white and Negro races, because of the actual number of contacts in the daily school life of thousands of Negro and white children, and also because the reactions of young children should indicate whether or not there is instinctive race prejudice.

The Chicago Board of Education makes no distinction between Negro and white children. There are no separate schools for Negroes. None of the records of any teacher or principal shows which children are Negroes and which white. The board does not know how many Negro children there are in any school or in the city at large, nor how many of the teachers are Negroes. It was impossible to obtain from the board, for example, a list of the schools having a large Negro enrolment with which to begin the investigation. An unfortunate but unavoidable incidental effect of the investigation was the focusing of attention of principals and teachers on the Negroes in their schools.

Frequently white teachers in charge of classes with Negro pupils are race conscious and accept the conduct of white children as normal and pay disproportionate attention to the conduct of Negro children as exceptional and distinctive. As a result of the focusing of attention on Negro children, the inquiry, which was intended to get balanced information, developed a disproportionate amount of information concerning their conduct as compared with that of whites. Teachers who considered both races were inclined to believe that Negro children as a group had no special weaknesses that white children as a group did not also exhibit; that some Negro children, like any other children, were good, some were bad, and some indifferent, and that no generalizations about the race could be made from the characteristics or attitude of a few.

It became evident as soon as the investigation started that it was necessary to distinguish between the northern and the southern Negro. The southern Negro is conspicuous the moment one enters the elementary schools. Over-age or retarded children are found in all the lower grades, special classes, and ungraded rooms, and are noticeable all the way to the eighth grade, where seventeen- and nineteen-year-old children are sometimes found. In some schools these children are found in the regular classes; in others there are special rooms for retarded children, and as these groups are often composed almost entirely of Negro children, there is an appearance of segregation which made necessary a study of these retarded children from the South.

The southern child is hampered first of all by lack of educational opportunity in the South. He is usually retarded by two or more years when he enters the northern school because he has never been able to attend school regularly, due to the short term in southern rural schools, distance from school, and inadequacy of teaching force and school equipment. According to a report by the United States Bureau of Education on _Negro Education_[31] 90 per cent of the Negro children between fifteen and twenty years of age attending school in the South are over-age. Says this report:

The inadequacy of the elementary school system for colored children is indicated both by the comparisons of public appropriations and by the fact that the attendance in both public and private schools is only 58.1 per cent of the children six to fourteen years of age. The average length of the public school term is less than five months in practically all of the states. Most of the school buildings, especially those in the rural districts, are in wretched condition. There is little supervision and little effort to improve the schools or adapt their efforts to the needs of the community. The reports of the state departments of Georgia and Alabama indicate that 70 per cent of the colored teachers have third grade or temporary certificates, representing a preparation less than that usually given in the first eight elementary grades. Investigations made by supervisors of colored schools in other states indicate that the percentage of poorly prepared colored teachers is almost as high in the other southern states.[32]

The inadequacy of Negro teachers' salaries is shown by the per capita expenditure in six southern states for each white and Negro child between six and fourteen years of age. The salary of the teacher, expressed in per capita for each child, ranges from $5.27 to $13.79 for white pupils and from $1.44 to $8.53 for Negro pupils. South Carolina pays its white teachers ten times as much as its Negro teachers. Alabama pays its white teachers about nine times as much. In Kentucky the per capita for white and colored is about the same.[33]

Distribution of school funds by counties indicated a decreasing per capita expenditure for the Negro as the proportion of Negroes in the county increased. A table from the Bulletin shows:[34]

======================================================================== County Groups, | White | Negro | Per Capita | Per Capita Percentage of | School | School | Expenditure, | Expenditure, Negroes in the | Population | Population | White | Negro Population | | | | ------------------+------------+------------+--------------+------------ Counties under | 974,289 | 45,039 | $7.96 | $7.23 10 per cent | | | | ------------------+------------+------------+--------------+------------ Counties 10 to | 1,008,372 | 215,774 | 9.55 | 5.55 25 per cent | | | | ------------------+------------+------------+--------------+------------ Counties 25 to | 1,132,999 | 709,259 | 11.11 | 3.19 50 per cent | | | | ------------------+------------+------------+--------------+------------ Counties 50 to | 364,990 | 661,329 | 12.53 | 1.77 75 per cent | | | | ------------------+------------+------------+--------------+------------ Counties 75 to | 40,003 | 207,900 | 22.22 | 1.78 100 per cent | | | | =========================================================================

A southern state superintendent of education is quoted in the report, as follows:

There has never been any serious attempt in this state to offer adequate educational facilities for the colored race. The average length of the term for the state is only four months; practically all of the schools are taught in dilapidated churches, which, of course, are not equipped with suitable desks, blackboards, and the other essentials of a school; practically all of the teachers are incompetent, possessing little or no education and having had no professional training whatever, except a few weeks obtained in the summer schools; the schools are generally overcrowded, some of them having as many as 100 students to the teacher; no attempt is made to do more than teach the children to read, write, and figure, and these subjects are learned very imperfectly.[35]

Another difficulty was suggested by the principal of a Chicago school (Webster) where 30 per cent of the children are Negroes, who said: "We base our educational ideas on certain backgrounds. The curriculum in Chicago was planned for children who come from families who are educated. It doesn't take children coming from uneducated families into consideration. That isn't fair either to the white or colored children."

The problem of readjustment to life in a northern city also affects the child's school life, and he is self-conscious and inclined to be either too timid or too self-assertive. A Negro teacher in speaking of the difficulties confronting the southern Negro, as well as the whole Negro group, said:

The southern Negro has pushed the Chicago Negro out of his home, and the Chicago Negro in seeking a new home is opposed by the whites. What is to happen? The whites are prejudiced against the whole Negro group. The Chicago Negro is prejudiced against the southern Negro. Surely it makes a difficult situation for the southern Negro. No wonder he meets a word with a blow. And all this comes into the school more or less.

Another Negro teacher thus analyzes further the adjustment problems which tend to make the Negro newly come from the South unpopular with the Chicago Negro, as well as with the whites:

These families from the South usually come from the country where there are no close neighbors.... Then the family is transplanted to Chicago to an apartment house, and even in with another family. The whole environment is changed and the trouble begins. No sense of property rights, no idea of how to use conveniences, no idea of how to live in the new home, to keep it up, to live with everybody else so near. On top of that, the father does not fit into his work, and therefore cannot support the family; the mother goes out to work, and what is the result? Poorly kept houses and poorly kept children.... A normal home shows itself in the school, and poor home conditions show up still more.

The Negro child born in the North is not found to an unusual extent among the retarded children. He has been able to enter school on time and to attend the full term of nine months; his teachers compare favorably with those in white American and foreign neighborhoods, and his parents as a rule have a better background. Many teachers say that the progress of northern-born Negroes compares very favorably with that of whites.

I. PHYSICAL EQUIPMENT OF SCHOOLS

Since the Board of Education keeps no record of Negro children as such, it could not furnish a list of the schools having a percentage of Negro children. Therefore a list was made up of all the schools in the Negro residential areas, the boundaries of these schools were obtained from the Board of Education, and the percentage of Negroes in each school district was worked out from the 1920 census figures. The schools listed in Table X were found to be situated in districts where the Negro population was 10 per cent or more. The figures at the right show the approximate percentage of Negro children in the school, as given by the principal of the school.

Fuller School is a branch of Felsenthal and has the same principal; it is in a neighborhood where the percentage of Negroes is practically the same as in the neighborhoods around Felsenthal, but there is a very great difference in the percentage of Negro children in the two schools, according to figures given by the principal. It appears from this that the principal, who is a believer in separate schools, places the large majority of the Negro children in Fuller School. Negroes in the vicinity say that Fuller School is run down and neglected, that the staff of teachers is below the average, that the school has no playground of its own but must use the one at Felsenthal, and that all the unmanageable children are sent there from Felsenthal. It is also believed by these Negroes that Fuller is used as a feeder for the other schools in the neighborhoods where there are fewer Negro children.

TABLE X

SCHOOLS IN DISTRICTS HAVING AN AVERAGE NEGRO POPULATION OF 10 PER CENT OR MORE

==============================+=============+============== |Percentage of|Percentage of School | Negroes in |Negro Children | District | in School ------------------------------+-------------+-------------- Colman | 81 | 92 Copernicus | 18 | 23 Doolittle | 65 | 85 Douglas | 72 | 93 Drake | 28 | 24 Emerson (branch of Hayes) | 70 | 75 Farren | 69 | 92 Felsenthal | 38 | 20 Forrestville | 20 | 38 Fuller (branch of Felsenthal) | 42 | 90 Haven | 24 | 20 Hayes | 70 | 80 Keith | 89 | 90 McCosh | 13 | 15 Mann (branch of Raymond) | 39 | 25 Moseley | 46 | 70 Oakland | 17 | 26 Raymond | 85 | 93 Sherwood | 20 | 25 Tennyson | 14 | 28 Webster | 50 | 30 Willard | 15 | 13 ------------------------------+-------------+--------------

The points in regard to physical equipment stressed by a district superintendent in the area containing the largest number of schools attended mainly by Negroes were: date of erection, an assembly hall located on the main floor, gymnasium, and, in the congested districts, bathroom and lunchroom. Table XI shows such facts concerning these schools.

It will be noted that only five of these schools, or 23 per cent, were built since 1900, and four of these five are in sections where the Negro population is less than 25 per cent. The ten schools serving the largest percentage of Negroes were built, one in 1856, one in 1867, seven between 1880 and 1889, and one between 1890 and 1899. Of the 235 white schools 133, or 56 per cent, were built after 1899.

TABLE XI

PHYSICAL EQUIPMENT OF TWENTY-TWO SCHOOLS ATTENDED LARGELY BY NEGROES[36]

Assembly halls and gymnasiums were totally lacking in seven of the twenty-two schools, and in the remaining fifteen the assembly hall was on the third or fourth floor, where, according to the district superintendent, it cannot have maximum use for community purposes. A really useful assembly hall, he stated, should be on the ground floor, opening directly on the school yard, and capable of being shut off entirely from the rest of the building so that it could be lighted and heated separately for evening gatherings. Only three of these fifteen schools had separate gymnasiums. In the others the gymnasium was combined with the assembly hall. There was little in the way of apparatus; what there was consisted mainly of hand apparatus, including clubs, dumbbells and basket-balls, that could be used in the assembly hall or the corridors. The district superintendent emphasized the need for gymnasiums in Negro residential areas because the children were weak physically and needed special exercises.

Playground space for schools attended largely by Negroes compares favorably with that for schools attended largely by whites, though Douglas School (92 per cent Negro), with 1,513 pupils, has only one playground 96×125 feet. Most schools have two playgrounds, one for boys and one for girls. The only other school having such limited play space as Douglas is a foreign school, Von Humboldt, where there are 2,500 pupils and the playground is 50×100 feet. Like Douglas, this is a double school with inadequate space for the children inside the school and outside. Sometimes there is a public playground near by which relieves the congestion on the school playground except in the case of Keith School (90 per cent Negro), the principal of which emphasized the need for a playground near her school.

In a group of twenty-four schools, six of which are attended mainly by Negroes, six mainly by white Americans, and twelve mainly by children of immigrants, it was found that there was no unusual crowding of classrooms in those attended mainly by Negroes except in the case of Douglas School. Conditions were practically the same in the three groups of schools.

Indications of overcrowding are the average number of seats in a classroom, the average number of pupils per teacher, and the double-school or shift system. There is little variation among the three groups of schools in the number of seats in the classroom and the number of pupils to each teacher, except that the school having the largest number of pupils to each teacher (57) is Colman, 92 per cent Negro. Although there are no double schools in the group attended mainly by white Americans, one of the six schools attended mainly by Negroes and five of the schools attended mainly by children of immigrants are double schools. Under this system, which is a makeshift in a neighborhood where another school is needed to take care of the children, the children go to school in two shifts, one shift an hour later than the other, and leave correspondingly later in the afternoon. Under this arrangement more children are at the school during the major part of the day than can be seated in the classroom and the full school curriculum can be carried on only under pressure, as one group of children must always be hurried on before the next group appears.

II. SCHOOL CONTACT PROBLEMS

Information as to problems of contact in the schools was gathered from conferences to which the principals of high and elementary schools were invited, and by personal visits to the schools. Thirteen elementary schools were visited, seven of which had an enrolment of less than 50 per cent Negro, and six of which had an enrolment of more than 50 per cent Negro. The schools with the smaller percentage were: Drake (30),[37] Felsenthal (20), Forrestville (38), Haven (20), Oakland (26), Webster (30), and Kenwood (a very small number of Negroes). The schools having a majority Negro were Colman (92), Doolittle (85), Douglas (93), Farren (92), Keith (90), and Moseley (70).

The high schools visited were Englewood, Hyde Park, and Wendell Phillips. In Englewood and Hyde Park the percentage of Negroes was very small, while in Wendell Phillips the Negro children were about 56 per cent of the enrolment.

The opinions of principals and teachers about Negro children are a cross-section of public opinion on the race question with all its contradictions and irritations. It must therefore be borne in mind in reading this section on school contacts that whether Negro children are reported good or bad, bright or dull, quarrelsome or amiable, whether antagonism and voluntary grouping or their lack are reported, there is an inevitable tendency for the teacher to see the facts in the light of any prejudice or general views she may have on race relations.

It was thought, for example, that for the purposes of this discussion the schools could be put in two general groups: those with less than 50 per cent Negroes and those with more than 50 per cent Negroes. But it was immediately apparent that no generalizations could be made on the basis of the percentage of Negro children in the schools, because sometimes two principals of schools having the same proportion of Negro pupils reported widely different experience with reference to friction; and in some cases principals of schools with a small percentage of Negroes reported friction, while other principals of schools with a larger percentage reported harmonious relations. The most important factor determining the attitude of the teachers in a school was invariably the attitude of the principal. Though there were many cases where individual teachers held views entirely different from those of the principal, yet the attitude of the principal was usually reflected in the expressed opinion of the teachers and in the atmosphere of the school.

But there is no explanation for total disagreement between two teachers in the same school as to whether or not there is race friction in the school except difference in points of view on the race problem. This factor is to be taken into consideration in weighing the testimony of teachers regarding school contacts of the races.

The attitude of some of the principals and teachers was revealed in their fear that their schools, with 20 per cent or 30 per cent Negro children, would be regarded as largely Negro schools. The principal of a school with 30 per cent Negro children considered it an insult to be asked to have his school take part in a song festival with schools largely attended by Negroes. A teacher in a school 26 per cent Negro was much incensed because the Board of Education had sent Negroes to the school to talk to the children on cleaning up the neighborhood. She said that the white children did not seem to mind and listened interestedly; it was the teachers who considered it an outrage that Negroes should come to "tell a community seven-eighths white to clean up."

Since the elementary schools and high schools present rather different problems, due to the greater number of social activities in the latter, it was decided to consider the two groups separately.

1. ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS

The contacts in the elementary schools fall naturally under three heads: classroom contacts, building and playground contacts, and social contacts.

_Classroom contacts._--There was much less variety of opinion in regard to classroom contacts than the other two. Most teachers agreed that there was little friction so far as school work was concerned, even when it meant sitting next to one another or in the same seats. Most kindergarten teachers found the most natural relationship existing between the young Negro and white children. "Neither colored nor whites have any feeling in our kindergarten," said one principal in a school 30 per cent Negro (Webster); "they don't understand the difference between colored and white children." In visiting one school the investigator noticed that the white children who objected to holding hands with the Negro children in the kindergarten and first and second grades were the better-dressed children who undoubtedly reflected the economic class and race consciousness of their parents. The Armour Mission near the school had excluded Negroes from its kindergarten, thereby fostering this spirit among the whites. A teacher in Doolittle (85 per cent) told of a little white girl in another school who cried because she was afraid the color from the Negro children's hands would rub off on hers; in her present school she has known no such instances in the kindergarten. This conduct is paralleled in instances in which Negro children who have never had any contact with white children in the South are afraid of them when they first come North.

Most of the teachers in the higher grades reported that there were no signs of race prejudice in the room. A teacher at Oakland (26 per cent) said that white girls sometimes asked to be moved to another seat when near a very dirty Negro child, but that this often happened when the dirty child was white. This teacher said it was the white mothers from the South, not the children, who wanted their children to be kept away from the Negroes. "The white children don't seem to mind the colored," she said. "I have had three or four mothers come in and ask that their children be kept away from the colored, but they were women from the South and felt race prejudice strongly. But they are the only ones who have complained."

A teacher in a school 90 per cent Negro said that when doubling up in the seats was necessary whites and Negroes frequently chose each other. A teacher at Moseley (70 per cent), when the investigator was present, called upon a white girl to act as hostess to a Negro girl who had just come from the South, and the request was met with pride and pleasure by the white girl. On the same occasion a white boy was asked to help a Negro boy with his arithmetic, and the two doubled up and worked together quite naturally.

"Race makes no difference," declared the principal of a school 92 per cent Negro (Colman). "The other day I had them all digging in the garden, and when they were all ready to go in I kept out one colored boy to help me plant seeds. We could use another boy, so I told Henry to choose anyone out of two rooms and he returned with an Italian. The color makes no difference."

A few instances of jealousy are cited. In one of them resentment ran high because when a loving cup was presented in McKinley (70 per cent) for the best composition, it was awarded by a neutral outside jury to a white girl. The principal of this 70 per cent Negro school, in addition to finding the Negro children jealous, considered their parents insolent and resentful. On the investigator's first visit she said that military discipline was the only kind for children, and that absolute segregation was necessary. At the next interview she said she preferred her school to any other; that there was never any disciplinary difficulty, and that white children who had moved from the district were paying car fare to finish their course at her school.

_Discipline._--There was considerable variety of opinion among the teachers as to whether Negro children presented any special problems of discipline. The principal of a school 20 per cent Negro (Felsenthal), for example, said that discipline was more difficult in this school than in the branch where 90 per cent were Negroes (Fuller). This principal is an advocate of separate schools. She was contradicted by a teacher in her school who said she had never used different discipline for the Negroes. In schools where the principals were sympathetic and the interracial spirit good the teachers reported that Negro children were much like other children and could be disciplined in the same way. One or two teachers reported that Negro children could not be scolded but must be "jollied along" and the work presented as play. This is interesting in view of the frequent complaint of the children from the South that the teachers in Chicago played with them all the time and did not teach them anything.

_Attitude toward Negro teachers._--Few Negro teachers were found in the schools investigated.

At Doolittle (85 per cent) there were thirty-three teachers, of whom two were Negroes. There was also a Negro cadet. At Raymond (93 per cent) there were six Negro teachers and a Negro cadet in a staff of forty. At Keith (90 per cent) there were six Negro teachers in a staff of twelve. Two of these principals said that their Negro teachers compared favorably with their white teachers and that some of them were excellent. Asked whether there was much antagonism if a Negro teacher was assigned where all the children were white, the principal of a 93 per cent school (Raymond) said there had been one or two such cases. "They are most successful in the foreign districts on the West Side. The European people do not seem to resent the presence of a colored teacher."

Another principal said that this was especially true where the foreign element was Jewish. A Negro teacher in a West Side school, largely Italian, is considered one of the ablest teachers in the school and proved herself highly competent during the war, when she assisted with the work of the draft board in the district.

One or two principals said that they would not have Negro teachers in their schools because the white teachers "could not be intimate with colored teachers," or because Negro teachers were "cocky," or because "the _Defender_ preaches propaganda for colored teachers to seek positions in white schools." Sometimes an effort was made to explain the principal's objection to Negro teachers by saying that Negro children had no respect for Negro teachers. One principal whose white teachers were rather below the accepted standard said that the one colored teacher who had been there was obliged to leave because of the children's protest against her. A Negro teacher in a 20 per cent school (Haven) was valued highly by the principal, who advised with her as to what measures could be taken to prevent the appearance of race feeling. This teacher formerly taught in a school where there were no Negro children and had experienced no difficulty in either type of school. "The children just seem to forget I am colored," she said.

In Farren School (92 per cent) a teacher of a special room for children recently arrived from the South expressed the belief that these children "have a distinct and decided fear of the white teacher and it's up to the teacher to change this fear into respect." They were very timid at first, she said, due to the new environment and the contact with so many more people, especially white. This timidity lasted for about a year and then these children became more like Chicago children.

_Building and playground contacts._--At six out of the thirteen elementary schools some friction about the buildings and on the playgrounds was reported, and none at the other seven schools. On further analysis it appeared that the friction reported was general at only two of the six schools. At the other four the instances cited seemed either to involve a few troublesome individuals or to be quarrels among Negro children rather than between Negroes and whites. The two schools reporting general antagonism between Negro and white children had about 30 per cent Negro children. The principals of these schools said that the white children were dominated by the Negroes and did not dare stand up for their rights. The testimony of the principal of one of these schools showed a disposition to regard many acts as characteristically racial. For example, she needed no further evidence that a Negro boy had cut up a white boy's cap than the fact that it was cut with a safety-razor blade. Although both white and Negro boys commonly carry safety-razor blades to sharpen their pencils, she thought of razors only in connection with Negroes. She also believed that "Negro children of kindergarten age are unusually cruel," and that "Negroes need a curriculum especially adapted to their emotional natures." Again she said that a Negro boy who asked to be put back from the third to the first grade, because the third-grade work was too hard for him, was typical of Negro children, who "shut down on their intellectual processes when they are about twelve or fourteen years of age." In view of the numbers of Negro children in the higher grades who are advancing normally, this is obviously an unwarranted generalization.

There were some signs of friction at a school 20 per cent Negro (Haven) when a school largely Italian was combined with it, but the situation was handled tactfully by the principal and there had been no trouble. At a school 85 per cent Negro (Doolittle), where the white element was Jewish, all the teachers reported that there was no antagonism between the races.

_Voluntary grouping._--The only school where the investigator noticed Negro and white children playing in separate groups was Webster (30 per cent), whose principal reported antagonism between Negroes and whites. At the other schools natural mingling was reported by some teachers or observed by the investigator. At a school 26 per cent Negro (Oakland) three teachers said that Negro and white children did not mingle on the playgrounds, while another teacher said they all played together regardless of color. The principal and twelve teachers at a school 85 per cent Negro (Doolittle) agreed, with the exception of one teacher who was a southerner, that there was never anything but the most natural mingling in the classrooms, about the building and on the playground. At a school 30 per cent Negro (Drake), the principal of which stated that the relations between the races were not harmonious, the investigator observed a free and natural grouping of Negroes and whites of all ages on the playground. The principal explained that this was "a forced rather than a natural grouping because of lack of apparatus for all." The white children at a school 20 per cent Negro (Haven) were Italians, Jews, and Greeks, and all the races played so naturally together that passersby frequently stopped to watch them.

_Social contacts._--There are few social organizations and gatherings in the elementary schools. The principal of a school 93 per cent Negro (Raymond) said that there were clubs through all the grammar grades and that the friendliness between the two races was marked, but added:

We have not more than fifty or sixty white children in this particular building. One white child was elected vice-president, the first white child elected in eight years. It shows the friendly relationship when a white child could be elected to office with a large preponderance of colored children. A Jewish boy was elected to a smaller office of clerk. The white children are not foreign. In their meetings the question of color never arises at all.

In a few instances principals had found that graduation presented some difficulties, as white mothers would appear at the school a few days before and request that their children do not march with Negro children. "About the only time I see a white mother is near graduation," said the principal of a school 38 per cent Negro (Forrestville). "They always say they wouldn't care for themselves, but a friend might see and they would feel ashamed." "White children prefer not to march with colored at graduation," said a teacher at Oakland School (26 per cent), "and mothers sometimes come to ask that it be so arranged that their girls can march with white girls. They usually say that for themselves they don't mind, but friends might see and wonder why that should be."

A number of the schools have orchestras or occasional musical programs. The investigator heard one orchestra of eleven pieces in Doolittle School (85 per cent), which played remarkably well. All but one of the children were Negroes. A teacher in Webster School (30 per cent), where there was reported to be constant friction between Negro and white children, gave an incident of a Negro boy in the school playing the violin with a white accompanist and being enthusiastically applauded by the children.

The principal of a 92 per cent Negro school (Colman) reported an unpleasant experience when pupils from her school were invited to take part in a musical program at a West Side Park.

A group of sixty went with two white teachers in charge. On the way over a group of foreign women called out insulting remarks to the teachers, but no one paid any attention. After the program the group started marching out of the park and were met at the gate with a shower of stones. The teacher told the children to run for their lives, and they all had to scatter and hide in the bushes in the park or run toward home if they could. A rough set of boys had got together and were waiting for those children, stones all ready to throw. Since that time we have never accepted an invitation to sing outside our own neighborhood. Invitations have come from time to time, but the children all come with excuses. All of them, children and parents throughout the neighborhood, are afraid but you can't get anyone to come out and say it.

_Attitude of parents._--Principals and teachers were questioned about their relations with the parents of both Negro and white children--whether they received co-operation from the parents in matters of discipline; what was the attitude of the parents toward Negro teachers; and whether many requests were received from Negro or white parents for transfers to schools where there were fewer Negroes.

In general it may be said that the principals who found Negro parents unco-operative, unambitious, and antagonistic were those who believed in separate schools, found Negro children difficult to discipline, and would have no Negro teachers in their schools. Such principals declared that Negro parents were "10 to 1 in the complaints brought into the office,"[38] and that "they fuss over everything and tell their children not to take anything from a white child." They also cited cases of insolence and threats which appeared to be exceptional rather than typical.

Some teachers said the reason they did not receive any co-operation from Negro mothers was because a large proportion of them were working. Tardiness and absence were due mainly to this cause, according to one principal, though a teacher of a room for retarded children in another school said there was little tardiness and practically no absence in her group. This teacher expressed the conviction, as did many others, that Negro parents were appreciative of school advantages and eager to have their children learn. Principals who came in contact with both Negro and foreign parents found the Negro parents much more interested and ambitious than the foreigners. Even the principal of a school 30 per cent Negro (Webster), who was somewhat prejudiced in her attitude toward Negroes in the school, said she had more Negro than white boys able to go to work whose parents wished them to remain in school.

Negro teachers were apparently acceptable to Negro parents, only one of the principals or teachers interviewed reporting objections by Negro parents. One teacher in a school 30 per cent Negro (Webster) said that Negro parents had their children transferred there from schools with more Negroes, so that they would have white teachers. The district superintendent said he had had some difficulty in placing Negro teachers in Negro schools, which he attributed to the fact that Negro parents felt that Negro teachers had not had the same opportunity for thorough training as white teachers. Some Negro parents, however, had indicated that their attitude was not due to belief that Negro teachers were inadequately trained, but to fear that too general placing of Negro teachers over Negro pupils was a step toward segregation.

The principal of a school 90 per cent Negro (Keith) thought Negro mothers preferred Negro teachers because several had said to her that the "colored teachers understand our children better."

The district superintendent in the area including most of the schools largely attended by Negroes said that few requests for transfers were made during the year, but he believed more were made at the request of Negro than of white parents. A number of these Negro children transferred not to go to a school largely white but to a school 70 per cent Negro, because they said they were afraid to go to the school in their own district which was across Wentworth Avenue. The race feeling between certain groups in this district was very intense, according to the superintendent. It was especially violent between the Negro children and the Italians and between the Jews and the Bohemians. The principal of a school 93 per cent Negro (Raymond) also testified to the spirit of antagonism along Wentworth Avenue:

Wentworth Avenue is the gang line. They seem to feel that trespass on either side of that line is ground for trouble. While they will admit colored members to the school without any trouble for manual training, they have to be escorted over the line, because of trouble, not from members of the school, but groups of boys outside the school. To illustrate: We took a kindergarten group over to the park. One little six-year-old girl was struck in the face by a man. The condition is a tradition. There does not seem to be any malice in it. "He is from the east side," or "Hit him, he is from the West Side," are remarks frequently heard.

Transfers from schools with a predominant Negro membership were reported by one or two principals and teachers in schools with a Negro minority, who said that the Negro mothers objected to having their children in schools "where there are so many common niggers." One of the principals said she had many requests from Negro mothers for transfers from the branch of the school with 90 per cent Negroes to the main school with 20 per cent. The Commission did not find in its inquiry among Negro mothers that such an objection was prevalent, but that most of the transfers requested were due to the reputation of the school for being overcrowded, poorly taught, and generally run down.

2. HIGH SCHOOLS

_Classroom and building contacts._--In the high schools the ordinary contacts in classes and about the building become subordinate to the more difficult problems created by the increased number of social activities--athletics, gymnasium exhibitions, clubs, and parties.

The dean of Englewood High School, which has only about 6 per cent Negro children, said that the white and Negro children mingled freely with no sign of trouble or prejudice but thought that if more Negro children came to the school the spirit would change. A teacher in this same school who had formerly been at Wendell Phillips, where the majority are Negro, said that a spirit of friendliness had grown up there between the two races, and race distinction had disappeared.

There was only one Negro teacher in the high schools of Chicago at the time of this investigation, the teacher of manual training at Wendell Phillips. He is a graduate of the University of Illinois and had substituted around Chicago for several years. Although they spoke very highly of him, none of the principals of three high schools with small Negro percentages and in which there were vacancies could use him. The principal of Wendell Phillips, with a large proportion of Negroes, told, however, of a different experience when this teacher was at that school. "In answer to complaints by pupils I told them that this man was a graduate of the University of Illinois, a high-school graduate in the city, and a cultured man. 'Go in there and forget the color, and see if you can get the subject matter.' In the majority of cases it worked."

Racial friction about the buildings and grounds was not reported by any of the high-school principals. "I have not known of a fight between a colored and a white boy in fifteen years," said the principal of Hyde Park.

Two principals said that the Negro children voluntarily grouped themselves at noon, either eating at tables by themselves in the lunchroom or bringing their own lunches and eating in the back part of the assembly hall. The gymnasium instructor at Wendell Phillips said that she had no difficulty in her work if she let the children arrange themselves. The gymnasium instructor at a school with a small proportion of Negroes said that the white girls had objected to going into the swimming-pool with Negro girls, but that she had gone in with the Negro girls, which had helped to remove the prejudice.

_Athletic teams._--In the field of athletics there seems to be no feeling between the white and Negro members of a school team, but the Negro members are sometimes roughly handled when the team plays other schools. "The basketball team is half and half," said the principal of Wendell Phillips. He reported some friction in previous years but said that "this year it is not shown at all." "They played a strenuous game with Englewood last week. A colored boy was roughly treated by the other team. Our white boys were ready to fight the whole Englewood team."

The principal of Hyde Park High School also said that there was no feeling in his school against Negro members of athletic teams, and that he did not know of a single instance in which a Negro boy was kept off an athletic team if he was the best for the place.

Two Seniors in a high school mainly white (Tilden) thus described the way they handled the Negro members of a visiting basket-ball team:

On the way over here fellows on the outside bawled them out, but our fellows sure got them on the way home. There were three black fellows on the team and those three got just about laid out. Our team wouldn't play them, so there was a great old row. Then, when they went home some of our boys were waiting for them to come out of the building to give them a chase. The coons were afraid to come out, so policemen had to be called to take them to the car line. The white fellows weren't hurt any, but the coons got some bricks.

_Transfers between high schools._--Requests for transfers from Wendell Phillips to Englewood and Hyde Park schools had been made by both white and Negro children, according to the principals of the latter schools. The permits of the Negro children had frequently been revoked after they had been admitted to classes, and the children returned to Wendell Phillips. A teacher at Wendell Phillips pointed out the injustice of transferring a child in the middle of a term. After a child has been admitted to classes he should be permitted to remain through the semester, she believed, for otherwise a full term's work was lost because the courses in the schools were different. "All this transferring is nonsense, anyway," she said. "Children should be made to go to school in the district where they live and that would end the trouble."

This teacher told of an incident at Tilden School when a group of Negro boys registered for entrance:

About sixty colored boys entered Tilden High School either for the regular high-school course or prevocational work and were thrown out by the Tilden boys. They made it so hot for the colored boys that the sixty had to withdraw. Some came back here; others dropped out of school entirely. It's pretty bad when one set of boys can put out another set and nothing is done to punish one and call back the other group.

Two boys at Tilden who took part in this affair gave this version of the incident:

About thirty colored boys registered at Tilden last fall, but we cleaned up on them the first couple of days and they never showed up again. We didn't give them any peace in the locker room, basement, at noon hours, or between classes--told them to keep out of our way or we'd see they got out. The fellows who were in school before we didn't tackle--they know where they belong. There's one colored fellow in our class everybody likes. He's a smart nice fellow to talk to, and he doesn't stick around when you don't want him. He didn't say anything when we made the new coons step around, but I guess he didn't like it very well.

It was this same group of boys who objected to playing a visiting basketball team with three Negroes on it and "just about laid them out."

_Social activities in high schools._--In high schools, with their older pupils, there is an increased race consciousness, and in the purely social activities such as clubs and dances, which are part of high-school life, there is none of the general mingling often found in semi-social activities such as singing and literary societies. Although Negro pupils do not share in the purely social activities, they do not organize such activities among themselves.

"The colored never come to social affairs," said the dean of one school. "They are so much in the minority here that they leave all organizations to the whites." The principal of this school told of having seen two colored girls at a class party who danced together for a while and left. "It is the only time I've seen the two races at the same social gathering."

The dean of Englewood said: "We have colored children in singing clubs, in the orchestra, in literary societies, in class organizations, and on athletic teams. Always when there is a class party there will be five or six colored children. They will always dance together, but they are present and welcomed by the white. Between dances it is not uncommon to see white and colored talking."

An incident showing lack of feeling against individuals of special achievement was given by the principal of this last school:

Several years ago we organized a voluntary orchestra which met after school. The director accepted all applications, among them a number of colored boys. The white boys balked; it should be white membership or they would leave. As it was near the end of the year the orchestra was dissolved. The next year I suggested to the teacher that he fill the orchestra places by a general tryout, so understood, but really with the policy of excluding the colored. This was done and a white orchestra organized. Shortly, the father of H. F., a colored boy who had been excluded, protested in my office, saying that his boy had been excluded because of race prejudice and that he was going to carry his protest to the Board of Education, for he knew his boy played better than any boy in school. I admitted that it was a choice in the school of white orchestra or no orchestra, but that if his boy was the fine musician he said he was I would gladly see what could be done. Soon after that H. appeared on a school program and played with remarkable skill and technique. He was applauded enthusiastically and recalled three times. Straightway the orchestra members asked him to play with them. He became unusually popular throughout the school. His standing was the highest and he was awarded a scholarship of $100 allowed by the Board of Education for the best student. He was also chosen to represent the school on the Northwestern University scholarship, and in his Freshman year he won another scholarship for the next year. The death of his parents made it necessary for him to leave college to support his brothers and sisters. At this time he was stricken with infantile paralysis. The interest on Liberty bonds taken out by the high school is paid in to H., and when the colored people gave a benefit for him the pupils sold 500 tickets. He is improving and teaching violin to thirty pupils at present. His sister is in the school now on a scholarship and is doing remarkably well also.

At Wendell Phillips the situation was quite different, for there were no school or class social affairs which were general. There were invitational affairs to which the Negroes were not invited. All the clubs in the school were white, Negroes being excluded. The principal said he would not insist on mixed clubs until he saw the parents of the children mixing socially. The glee club was an especially difficult problem because of its semi-public as well as social character. The Negro children maintained that a glee club composed entirely of whites was not representative of a school in which the majority were Negroes. The Negroes had not responded to the suggestion of the principal that they form a glee club of their own, and as the white children would not be in a glee club with Negro children, there was constant friction over this club.

Other principals expressed the conviction that the racial problem of school social affairs could not be solved until the prejudice and antagonism of adults had disappeared. One principal said he had had to call off an arrangement for a class affair because the hotel would not accommodate the Negroes. Another principal thought that the schools would not wait to follow the lead of the parents in forgetting the race prejudice but would themselves be the greatest factor in destroying it.

_Relations with parents._--In most cases the high schools were receiving splendid support from Negro parents in matters of discipline. "I have never had a case where the parent did not back up the teacher in the treatment given to a colored child," said one principal, speaking of cases where children had got into difficulty when they complained that the teacher had "picked on them" because they were Negroes. The parents always made the child withdraw the statement and admit that the trouble was not due to color at all.

3. TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOLS

Reports were received from three technical high schools, Lane, Tilden, and Lucy H. Flower. Lane and Tilden had few Negro students, while in Lucy H. Flower the Negroes were about 20 per cent. The principals of Lane and Tilden said they were not conscious of any racial difference in their pupils, that no special methods of instruction were necessary for the Negro children, that there were no quarrels with a racial background in the schools, and no voluntary or compulsory groupings of white and Negro. The principal of Lucy H. Flower found racial differences between the Negroes and whites which she believed created special problems of education and discipline. The children got along together very well in school, and whatever quarrels there were, the principal thought were due to personal dislikes rather than to race prejudice. The colored girls grouped themselves voluntarily at noon and at dismissal time, and the white girls did the same.

III. RETARDATION

1. RETARDATION IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS

With the assistance of the Board of Education a selection was made of three groups of schools to be studied for comparative retardation. The group comprised six schools having the largest percentage of Negro children, six attended mainly by whites in neighborhoods where the family income might be comparable, and twelve attended mainly by children of immigrants. Table XII gives the number and percentage of accelerated, normal, and retarded children for each school, for each group, and for the whole group of twenty-four schools.

This table shows the much greater amount of retardation among schools attended by Negroes than in schools attended by white Americans or by children of immigrants. The percentage for the group attended by Negroes is 74, while for the different schools in the group it varies from 67 to 81. For the two groups of schools attended by white Americans the percentage of retardation is the same, 49, though there is greater variation among these schools than among the schools attended by Negroes. In the group attended by children of immigrants, for instance, only 32 per cent are retarded in the Jungman (Bohemian) School, while 71 per cent are retarded in the Holden (Polish) School. A similar discrepancy appears in the group attended by white Americans, where the figure is 40 per cent for the Armstrong School and 62 per cent for the Byford School.

TABLE XII

NUMBER AND PERCENTAGE OF CHILDREN IN ACCELERATED, NORMAL, AND RETARDED GROUPS IN SCHOOLS ATTENDED MAINLY BY WHITE AMERICANS, BY NEGROES, AND BY CHILDREN OF IMMIGRANTS

========================================================================================= School |Accel.|Percent-|Normal|Percent-|Retarded|Retarded |Percent-|Total | | | age | | age | |Ungrad.[39]| age | | -------------------+------+--------+------+--------+--------+----------+--------+-------+ Attended mainly | | | | | | | | | by white Americans:| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Armstrong | 202 | 21 | 365| 39 | 355 | 19 | 40 | 941 | Byford | 118 | 9 | 361| 29 | 783 | -- | 62 | 1,262 | Harper | 291 | 17 | 609| 35 | 829 | -- | 48 | 1,729 | Howe | 220 | 17 | 421| 35 | 577 | -- | 48 | 1,218 | Key | 173 | 25 | 205| 29 | 314 | -- | 46 | 692 | Morse | 169 | 14 | 450| 37 | 581 | -- | 49 | 1,200 | +------+--------+------+--------+--------+----------+--------+-------+ Total |1,173 | 17 | 2,411| 34 | 3,439 | 19 | 49 | 7,042 | | | | | | | | | | Attended mainly | | | | | | | | | by Negroes: | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Coleman | 54 | 8 | 124| 17 | 561 | 2 | 75 | 743 | Doolittle | 267 | 16 | 261| 16 | 1,099 | 24 | 68 | 1,651 | Douglas | 136 | 9.3 | 197| 13.7 | 1,126 | -- | 77 | 1,463 | Keith | 77 | 11 | 93| 14 | 497 | -- | 75 | 667 | Moseley | 62 | 7.5 | 95| 11.5 | 551 | 122 | 81 | 830 | Raymond | 112 | 13 | 179| 20 | 578 | -- | 67 | 869 | +------+--------+------+--------+--------+----------+--------+-------+ Total | 708 | 11 | 949| 15 | 4,412 | 148 | 74 | 6,217 | | | | | | | | | | Attended mainly by | | | | | | | | | children of | | | | | | | | | immigrants: | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Bohemian: | | | | | | | | | Bryant | 385 | 21 | 735| 37 | 809 | 15 | 42 | 1,944 | Hammond | 161 | 12 | 503| 34 | 795 | -- | 54 | 1,459 | Jungman | 375 | 35 | 350| 33 | 357 | -- | 32 | 1,082 | | | | | | | | | | Polish: | | | | | | | | | Chopin | 298 | 17 | 631| 36 | 818 | 1 | 47 | 1,748 | Hibbard | 392 | 29 | 445| 32 | 535 | -- | 39 | 1,372 | Holden | 122 | 11 | 208| 18 | 759 | -- | 71 | 1,089 | | | | | | | | | | Italian: | | | | | | | | | Goodrich | 157 | 14 | 240| 22 | 693 | -- | 64 | 1,090 | Jackson | 360 | 15 | 731| 32 | 1,174 | -- | 53 | 2,265 | Jenner | 176 | 11 524| 33 | 875 | -- | 56 | 1,575 | | | | | | | | | | Jewish: | | | | | | | | | Herzel | 609 | 25 | 731| 30 | 1,085 | -- | 45 | 2,425 | Lawson | 466 | 16 | 944| 32 | 1,407 | 20 | 52 | 2,837 | Von Humboldt | 528 | 22 | 848| 34 | 1,072 | -- | 44 | 2,448 | +------+--------+------+--------+--------+----------+--------+-------+ Totals |4,029 | 19 | 6,890| 32 |10,379 | 36 | 49 |21,334 | Totals for | | | | | | | | | three groups |5,910 | 17 |10,250| 30 |18,230 | 203 | 53 |34,593 | -------------------+------+--------+------+--------+--------+----------+--------+-------+

The retardation figures for the group of twenty-four schools studied are close to those for the city at large, 53 per cent retarded in the special group and 51 per cent for the city at large. In the accelerated group the percentage of accelerated Negro children, 11, is smaller than the percentage of accelerated white children, 17, or the percentage of accelerated foreign children, 19. This variation is not so striking as that in the normal group where only 15 per cent of the Negro children appear to make normal progress as compared with 34 per cent of the white children and 32 per cent of the foreign children. From this it would appear that there are factors in the lives of many Negro children which prevent them from making normal progress.

The degree of retardation, as shown in Table XIII is again quite different for the white and Negro groups.

The largest single groups of backward white American and foreign children are retarded less than one year (42 per cent of the white American and 39 per cent of the foreign group), and the numbers decrease rapidly as the degree of retardation increases. In the case of the Negroes 19 per cent are retarded less than one year. The decrease as the degree of retardation increases is slower than in the white groups, and many more children are retarded two, three, four, five years and more. In the white American group only one child out of 3,439 retarded children is retarded five and one-half to six years, while there are forty-one in the corresponding Negro group out of a total of 4,412. One white child is retarded six and one-half to seven years, while seventeen Negro children are retarded this amount; twelve foreign children out of 10,379 retarded children are retarded six to ten years, and thirty-seven Negro children are found in these groups.

Though the main reasons for the high degree of retardation among Negro children are set forth in the next section under "Causes of Retardation," a partial explanation is to be found in the fact that Negro parents are frequently more interested in keeping their over-age children in school than white parents, especially foreign parents, whose anxiety to have their children leave school as soon as they are old enough to get work-permits is well known.

_Causes of retardation._--It is generally understood of course that comparisons of Negro with white children are hardly fair, since Negro children have not had the same opportunities as whites to make normal progress.

A study was made of the reasons why children were retarded in the groups of schools attended mainly by Negroes, by white Americans, and by children of immigrants. Records were obtained at the schools for 1,469 Negro children and 1,560 white children who were listed according to the Board of Education's classification for retarded children.

Table XIV shows clearly that the predominating cause of retardation among Negroes is late entrance, which, according to the board's classification, means that they did not enter school until more than six years of age. This is generally explained by the fact that the family came from the South, where there was no school near enough for the child to attend, or the school was overcrowded, or the family was uneducated and indifferent. In some cases the parents have come North, leaving the child with grandparents who made no effort to see that it went to school.

TABLE XIII

NUMBER OF CHILDREN IN TABLE XII WHO ARE RETARDED ONE-HALF TO ONE YEAR, ONE YEAR TO ONE AND ONE-HALF YEARS, ETC.

============================================================= | YEARS ----------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-----+---- | ½ | 1 | 1½ | 2 | 2½ | 3 | 3½ SCHOOL | to | to | to | to | to | to | to | 1 | 1½ | 2 | 2½ | 3 | 3½ | 4 ----------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-----+---- Attended mainly by white Americans: Armstrong | 143 | 84 | 62 | 31 | 15 | 13 | 3 Byford | 317 | 175 | 105 | 64 | 54 | 20 | 11 Harper | 364 | 234 | 106 | 67 | 28 | 12 | 6 Howe | 275 | 128 | 93 | 57 | 9 | 9 | 2 Key | 141 | 106 | 33 | 19 | 20 | 2 | 2 Morse | 229 | 160 | 81 | 56 | 27 | 14 | 8 ----------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-----+---- Total | 1,470 | 887 | 480 | 294 | 143 | 70 | 32

Attended mainly by Negroes: Colman | 109 | 114 | 109 | 66 | 50 | 46 | 27 Doolittle | 229 | 175 | 146 | 152 | 117 | 86 | 69 Douglas | 190 | 198 | 191 | 142 | 126 | 83 | 71 Keith | 94 | 66 | 71 | 78 | 54 | 34 | 30 Moseley | 95 | 104 | 96 | 54 | 59 | 31 | 34 Raymond | 135 | 115 | 111 | 69 | 50 | 39 | 27 ----------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-----+---- Total | 852 | 772 | 724 | 561 | 456 | 319 | 258

Attended mainly by children of immigrants: Bohemian: Bryant | 369 | 224 | 107 | 51 | 36 | 15 | 3 Hammond | 306 | 225 | 114 | 69 | 47 | 13 | 10 Jungman | 173 | 87 | 49 | 27 | 12 | 6 | 2

Polish: Chopin | 323 | 216 | 125 | 57 | 43 | 23 | 16 Hibbard | 252 | 158 | 68 | 28 | 18 | 5 | 4 Holden | 216 | 190 | 112 | 91 | 60 | 36 | 18

Italian: Goodrich | 236 | 185 | 104 | 68 | 42 | 28 | 10 Jackson | 369 | 284 | 202 | 141 | 84 | 53 | 16 Jenner | 281 | 253 | 135 | 86 | 42 | 32 | 20

Jewish: Herzel | 521 | 294 | 124 | 71 | 38 | 19 | 9 Lawson | 574 | 370 | 233 | 109 | 65 | 24 | 19 Von Humboldt | 498 | 145 | 145 | 76 | 37 | 17 | 6 ----------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-----+---- Totals | 4,118 | 2,710 | 1,518 | 874 | 524 | 271 | 133 ----------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-----+---- Totals | 6,440 | 2,249 | 2,722 | 1,729 | 1,123 | 660 | 423 for three groups | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------

TABLE XIII (continued)

====================================================== | YEARS ----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+---- | 4 | 4½ | 5 | 5½ | 6 | 6½ | 7 SCHOOL | to | to | to | to | to | to | to | 4½ | 5 | 5½ | 6 | 6½ | 7 | 7½ ----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+---- Attended mainly by white Americans: Armstrong | ... | 4 | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... Byford | 32 | 2 | 2 | ... | ... | 1 | ... Harper | 4 | 3 | 1 | ... | 1 | ... | 1 Howe | ... | 4 | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... Key | 1 | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... Morse | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ... | ... | ... ----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+---- Total | 40 | 14 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1

Attended mainly by Negroes: Colman | 18 | 7 | 8 | 4 | 2 | ... | ... Doolittle | 44 | 37 | 16 | 8 | 4 | 4 | ... Douglas | 45 | 26 | 21 | 14 | 10 | 7 | ... Keith | 32 | 17 | 8 | 6 | 4 | 3 | ... Moseley | 26 | 20 | 15 | 7 | 4 | 2 | 3 Raymond | 12 | 10 | 6 | 2 | ... | 1 | ... ----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+---- Total | 177 | 117 | 74 | 41 | 24 | 17 | 3

Attended mainly by children of immigrants: Bohemian: Bryant | 1 | 2 | 1 | ... | ... | ... | ... Hammond | 8 | 2 | 1 | ... | ... | ... | ... Jungman | 1 | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ...

Polish: Chopin | 9 | 2 | 1 | 2 | ... | ... | ... Hibbard | ... | 2 | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... Holden | 13 | 9 | 8 | 4 | 2 | ... | ...

Italian: Goodrich | 9 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 2 | ... | ... Jackson | 13 | 4 | 4 | 2 | ... | 1 | 1 Jenner | 10 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 2 | ...

Jewish: Herzel | 4 | 4 |... | 1 | ... | ... | ... Lawson | 7 | 4 | 2 | ... | ... | ... | ... Von Humboldt | 6 | 2 | 1 | ... | ... | ... | ... ----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+---- Totals | 81 | 36 | 25 | 17 | 6 | 3 | 1 ----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+---- Totals | 298 | 167 | 103 | 59 | 31 | 21 | 5 for three groups | | | | | --------------------------------------------------

TABLE XIII (continued)

============================================= | YEARS ----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+---- | 7½ | 8 | 8½ | 9 | 9½ | 10 SCHOOL | to | to | to | to | to | to | 8 | 8½ | 9 | 9½ | 10 | 10½ ----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+---- Attended mainly by white Americans: Armstrong | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... Byford | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... Harper | ... | ... | 1 | ... | ... | ... Howe | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... Key | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... Morse | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... ----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+---- Total | ... | ... | 1 | ... | ... | ...

Attended mainly by Negroes: Colman | 1 | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... Doolittle | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | ... Douglas | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | 2 Keith | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... Moseley | ... | 1 | ... | ... | ... | ... Raymond | 1 | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... ----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+---- Total | 6 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2

Attended mainly by children of immigrants: Bohemian: Bryant | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... Hammond | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... Jungman | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ...

Polish: Chopin | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... Hibbard | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... Holden | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | 1

Italian: Goodrich | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... Jackson | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... Jenner | ... | ... | 1 | ... | ... | ...

Jewish: Herzel | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... Lawson | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... Von Humboldt | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... ----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+---- Totals | ... | ... | 1 | ... | ... | 1 ----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+---- Totals | 6 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 for three groups | | | | --------------------------------------------- TABLE XIV

REASONS WHY 1,469 NEGRO CHILDREN AND 1,560 WHITE CHILDREN WERE RETARDED IN GROUP OF TWENTY-FOUR SCHOOLS

Abbreviations:

LE - LATE ENTERING Fn - FOREIGN PD - PHYSICAL DEFECT IH - ILL HEALTH FD - FAMILY DIFFICULTIES DV - DEFECTIVE VISION DH - DEFECTIVE HEARING VM - VARIANT MENTALITY Bd - BACKWARD LM - LOW MENTALITY Fm - FEEBLE-MINDED IA - IRREGULAR ATTENDANCE TG - TEMP. IN GRADE DC - DEMOTED FOR CONDUCT

================================================================== SCHOOLS |TOTAL |LE | Fn | PD | IH | FD --------------+-----+-----+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--- |N. |W. |N. |W. |N. |W. |N. |W. |N. |W. |N. |W. --------------+-----+-----+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--- Attended mainly by Negroes: Colman, | 29| 1| 20|...|...|...|...|...| 1|...|...|... 92 per cent Negro attendance | | | | | | | | Doolittle, | 603| 6|190|...|...| 6| 3|...| 68|...|141|... 85 per cent | | | | | | | | | | | Drake, | 72| 58| 41| 11|...| 3|...|...| 4| 15|...| 3 24 per cent | | | | | | | | | | | Farren, | 171| 7| 49|...|...|...| 1| 1| 34| 1| 21|... 92 per cent | | | | | | | | | | | Felsenthal, | 173| 69| 58| 13| 3| 2|...|...| 6| 12| 56| 15 20 per cent | | | | | | | | | | | Forrestville,| 93| 5| 34| 2|...|...| 2|...| 4|...| 10|... 38 per cent | | | | | | | | | | | Haven, | 71| 59| 56| 9|...| 6|...|...| 2| 9|...|... 20 per cent | | | | | | | | | | | McCosh, | 18| 31| 7| 4|...| 2|...| 1| 5| 8|...|... 15 per cent | | | | | | | | | | | Oakland, | 50| 44| 18| 6|...|...| 1|...| 4| 5|...| 6 26 per cent | | | | | | | | | | | Raymond, | 133| 6| 64| 2|...| 2| 1|...| 7| 1| 18|... 93 per cent | | | | | | | | | | | Webster, | 52| 31| 27| 7|...| 1| 1|...| 5| 9| 6| 2 30 per cent | | | | | | | | | | | Attended mainly by White Americans: Fiske | 2| 88|...| 3|...| 16|...| 2|...| 1|...| 34 Rowland | ...| 101|...| 13|...| 7|...| 2|...| 17|...| 3 Kenwood | ...| 25|...| 1|...| 5|...|...|...| 4|...| 4 Attended mainly by children of immigrants: Farragut | ...| 107|...| 12|...| 10|...| 2|...| 11|...| 6 Goodrich | ...| 92|...|...|...| 28|...| 3|...| 8|...| 7 Jackson | ...| 255|...| 32|...| 48|...| 12|...| 38|...| 38 Jungman | ...| 21|...| 11|...| 2|...|...|...|...|...| 1 Kosciuszke | ...| 144|...| 23|...| 17|...| 4|...| 9|...| 18 Lawson | 1| 155|...| 7|...| 15|...| 1|...| 19| 1| 20 McCormick | ...| 21|...|...|...| 2|...| 1|...| 7|...|... Seward | ...| 131|...| 19|...| 29|...| 2|...| 14|...| 10 Smyth | ...| 57|...| 3|...| 14|...| 1|...| 9|...| 4 Swing | ...| 46|...| 9|...| 2|...| 1|...| 7|...| 4 --------------+-----+-----+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--- Totals by |1,469|1,560|564|187| 3|217| 9| 33|140|204|253|175 races | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------+-----+-----+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--- Totals of | 3,029 | 751 | 220 | 42 | 344 | 428 both races | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------

TABLE XIV (continued)

============================================================= SCHOOLS | DV | DH | VM | Bd | LM | Fm --------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+-- |N. |W. |N. |W. |N. |W. |N. |W. |N. |W. |N. |W. --------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+-- Attended mainly by Negroes: Colman, |...|...|...|...|...|...| 4|...|...|...| 1|... 92 per cent | | | | | | | | | | | Doolittle, | 7|...|...|...| 35|...| 73|...| 10|...|...|... 85 per cent | | | | | | | | | | | Drake, |...| 2|...|...|...| 7| 7| 12|...| 1|...|... 24 per cent | | | | | | | | | | | Farren, | 3|...| 1|...| 12| 2| 18|...| 11| 2|...|... 92 per cent | | | | | | | | | | | Felsenthal, |...| 2| 1|...| 7| 1| 33| 10| 3| 4|...|... 20 per cent | | | | | | | | | | | Forrestville,| 1|...|...|...| 4|...| 30|...| 1|...| 1|... 38 per cent | | | | | | | | | | | Haven, |...| 4|...|...|...| 3| 7| 19| 2| 4|...|... 20 per cent | | | | | | | | | | | McCosh, |...| 1|...|...|...|...| 1| 1| 1| 6|...|... 15 per cent | | | | | | | | | | | Oakland, | 1| 2|...| 2| 3| 6| 3| 5| 4| 3| 1|... 26 per cent | | | | | | | | | | | Raymond, |...|...|...|...| 1|...| 11|...| 6|...| 6|... 93 per cent | | | | | | | | | | | Webster, |...|...|...|...|...| 1| 4| 2| 9| 6|...|... 30 per cent | | | | | | | | | | | Attended mainly by White Americans: Fiske |...| 1|...|...|...|...| 1| 21| 1| 2|...| 1 Rowland |...| 4|...|...|...| 9|...| 28|...| 10|...| 1 Kenwood |...|...|...|...|...| 2|...| 5|...| 1|...|... Attended mainly by children of immigrants: Farragut |...| 3|...|...|...| 5|...| 23|...| 32|...|... Goodrich |...| 3|...|...|...| 2|...| 23|...| 10|...|... Jackson |...| 8|...| 1|...| 3|...| 45|...| 8|...|... Jungman |...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|... Kosciuszke |...| 2|...|...|...| 12|...| 4|...| 8|...| 1 Lawson |...| 2|...| 1|...| 25|...| 39|...| 19|...| 2 McCormick |...|...|...|...|...|...|...| 1|...| 8|...|... Seward |...|...|...| 1|...| 2|...| 13|...| 11|...| 5 Smyth |...| 2|...|...|...|...|...| 14| 1| 5|...|... Swing |...| 2|...|...|...| 1|...| 6|...| 6|...| 1 --------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+-- Totals by | 12| 38| 2| 5| 62| 81|192|271| 49|146| 9| 12 races | | | | | | | | | | | | --------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+-- Totals of | 50 | 7 | 143 | 463 | 195 | 21 both races | | | | | ---------------------------------------------------------------

TABLE XIV (continued)

====================================== SCHOOLS | IA | TG | DC ---------------+---+---+---+---+------- |N. |W. |N. |W. |N. |W. ---------------+---+---+---+---+----+-- Attended mainly by Negroes: Colman, | 1| 1|...|...| 2|... 92 per cent | | | | | Doolittle, | 68|...| 8|...|...|... 85 per cent | | | | | Drake, | 19| 5|...|...|...|... 24 per cent | | | | | Farren, | 21| 1|...|...|...|... 92 per cent | | | | | Felsenthal, | 13| 2|...| 1|...|... 20 per cent | | | | | Forrestville,| 6| 3|...|...|...|... 38 per cent | | | | | Haven, | 4| 5|...|...|...|... 20 per cent | | | | | McCosh, | 3| 9|...|...|...|... 15 per cent | | | | | Oakland, | 12| 9| 1| 2|...|... 26 per cent | | | | | Raymond, | 19| 1|...|...|...|... 93 per cent | | | | | Webster, | 1| 2|...|...|...|... 30 per cent | | | | | Attended mainly by White Americans: Fiske |...| 6|...| 1|...|... Rowland |...| 7|...|...|...|... Kenwood |...| 3|...|...|...|... Attended mainly by children of immigrants: Farragut |...| 3|...|...|...|... Goodrich |...| 8|...|...|...|... Jackson |...| 19|...| 2|...|... Jungman |...| 7|...|...|...|... Kosciuszke |...| 39|...| 9|...|... Lawson |...| 5|...|...|...|... McCormick |...| 1|...|...| 1|... Seward |...| 20|...| 5|...|... Smyth |...| 5|...|...|...|... Swing |...| 2|...| 4|...|... ---------------+---+---+---+---+----+-- Totals by |167|161| 9| 24| 3|... races | | | | | | ---------------+---+---+---+---+----+-- Totals of | 328 | 33 | 3 both races | | ---------------------------------------

The next most important cause of retardation among the Negroes is family difficulties. The fathers are often kept away from home weeks at a time by their work. A large number of the mothers are working, and the parents' lack of education is frequently the cause of a home life that is below standard, physically and morally.

Among the whites, late entrance, inability to speak the language, ill health, backwardness, and low mentality are the main causes of retardation. While it is often maintained that the Negro is the mental inferior of the white, these figures do not bear out that contention. Also the retardation figures do not show the home life of the Negroes to be productive of as much ill health as is the case with the whites.

Approximately the same number of Negro and white children were retarded because of irregular attendance.

In addition there were forty-two Negro children and 155 white children who were classified under two, three, or four different causes for retardation. Children who were late entering also had some physical difficulty, or children who were retarded because of family difficulties were also of poor mental endowment. In some cases such double classification represented a realization by the teacher that retardation is a complicated and delicate thing which cannot be explained by one hard-and-fast reason. Others, finding it difficult to decide whether children were backward, of low mentality, or feeble-minded, classified them under all three causes. In two instances Negroes were found to be retarded because they were late entering and "foreign"--that is, they were handicapped by an "initial lack of the English language."

_Intensive study of 116 retarded Negro children._--The presence of retarded Negro children in the Chicago public schools within recent years has been regarded by many teachers and principals as a problem of Negro education. Some assume that this retardation is due to an inherent incapacity for normal grade work. Inquiries of the Commission early disclosed the fact that although the retardation rate of Negro children was higher than that of white, the great majority of the retarded Negroes were from southern states, and that Negro children born in the North had, as a rule, no higher rate of retardation than the whites. In the belief that the causes of retardation among Negro children could be found in the same factors of social background and environment which operates to retard white children, an intensive study was made of 116 Negro children taken at random from among all the retarded Negro children in several schools to learn what elements in their former life and present home environment might explain their retardation.

Out of the 116 children 101 had been in school before coming to Chicago. Of these eighty-six had lived in the South and attended southern schools. Since this group was chosen at random, the large proportion from the South tends to bear out the statements of school principals and teachers that Negro children from the South constitute the bulk of retarded children. Previous school records were obtained for eighty-four of these eighty-six southern children, and in sixty-four cases the children were retarded when they came to Chicago. Many of them were retarded two and three years, and some three, four, five, and even six years. Forty-seven of the sixty-four were retarded more than one year. In a number of cases children who were in the normal grade for their age in the South were put back one or two grades when they entered Chicago schools because they were not equipped to do the work of this grade in the North.

The states from which these children came are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. Twenty-three of the eighty-six children who had lived in the South were from Mississippi--the largest group from any one state--and of these three were up with their normal grade, eleven were retarded three or four years, one was retarded six years, and one who was in the normal grade in the South was demoted two years. One reason for the poor record of these Mississippi children is undoubtedly to be found in that state's inadequate compulsory-education law which provides a school term of eighty days in districts which do not reject the law. Eight of the Mississippi children lived on plantations which were so far from school that regular attendance was impossible.

Information gathered concerning the parents of these 116 retarded children showed that in eighty-six cases the father was living with his family. In six cases the father was dead, in one case he was insane, in fifteen cases he had separated from or deserted the mother, and in eight cases there was no report on the father.

The mother was found to be living with her family in 112 cases. In two cases the mother was dead, and in two cases she had deserted father and child.

All of the eighty-six fathers who lived at home were working, though one was reported as working irregularly, and two as having deserted their wives occasionally for periods of several weeks. In two of the cases where the father had separated from the mother he was reported as contributing to the support of the child.

In forty out of the eighty-six cases where the father was living at home and working, the mother was also working, and in the fifteen separation cases where the mother was supporting the child, she was working. The fact that a total of fifty-five out of 112 mothers, or 49 per cent, were working is undoubtedly a large factor in the retardation of the children. The statement was frequently made by teachers that 40 or 50 per cent of the Negro mothers worked, and that the child was therefore neglected, and the teacher could get no co-operation from the mother, as she was never free to come to school to talk over matters affecting the child.

Some teachers felt that many mothers worked where there was no economic necessity, as the father was earning enough to support the family. It should be noted in this connection that at the time this material was gathered there were more opportunities for work than there were men to fill them. Under ordinary conditions there would doubtless be a certain amount of unemployment in these Negro families which would cause more mothers to work from economic necessity. Many of the families investigated, where both parents were working, were reported as getting on very well, though there were some cases of real poverty. In a number of instances the families could not seem to make ends meet on a good income because they were ignorant and did not know how to spend their money, or because they had not been able to adjust themselves to city life.

Of the eighty-six fathers who were working, few were in skilled occupations which would command a substantial wage. Most of the mothers were engaged in work that took them away from home. A few did sewing, hairdressing, and laundry work in their homes, but the large majority went out to work. Work carried on in the home frequently has as bad an effect on the child's school attendance as the mother's absence, for the child is sometimes kept at home to help and often finds the work more interesting than school.

The following occupations of mothers of retarded children were noted:

Day work 22 Stock Yards 12 Hairdresser 4 Laundry 4 Maid 4 Barrel factory 3 Seamstress 3 Domestic service 2 Box factory 1 Car cleaner 1 Cleaning (hospital) 1 Dishwasher 1 Elevator 1 Foundry 1 Housekeeper 1 Lamp-shade factory 1 Waist factory 1

_Education of parents._--Of the eighty-six fathers, thirty-one were illiterate, and forty-eight had gone to elementary school but had completed only the second, fourth, or sixth grade. Five of the fathers had gone to high school, and two were college graduates.

The figures are slightly better for the mothers. Out of 112, twenty-one were totally illiterate, seventy-six had gone to elementary school, ten had been in high school or college, and five were not reported on. Eighty-eight per cent of the mothers, therefore, and 91 per cent of the fathers had less than a high-school education. Though there were many illiterate or poorly educated parents who were eager for their children to have advantages which they never had themselves, others, as in any illiterate group, no matter what the color, failed to appreciate the importance of school.

_Home discipline._--A number of teachers reported that they were unable to discipline the children in school because they were undisciplined at home. In seventy-three of the 116 homes there was found to be discipline, in twenty-two a lack of discipline, and twenty were not reported on. Discipline seemed to be the responsibility of the mother in the large majority of cases, and many of the twenty-two undisciplined children were boys who were beyond the control of the mother. In every case but four where there was no discipline the mother was working, so that the child did not receive much care during the daytime and the mother was too tired to bother about discipline at night. Lack of discipline can also be traced to the fact that the child has not always lived with the parents but with relatives who have been lax in the matter of discipline.

_Home care._--The physical condition of the home, the preparation and substance of the meals, may be expected to affect a child's health and therefore his attendance at school. The homes of eighty-four children were reported to be clean and twenty-five not clean, while seven were not reported on. In twenty-one cases out of the twenty-five reported not clean, the mother was working. In forty-seven cases out of the eighty-four reported clean the mother was working. In many of the forty-seven cases there was an aunt or grandmother who took care of the house.

In many homes the ignorance of the parents was obviously responsible for failure to provide the kind of food adapted to the needs of the children. A great deal of fresh meat, usually pork and bacon, potatoes, rice, and coffee were the staples, while green vegetable, fruits, cereals, and milk were noticeably lacking. Also, when the mother is away all day the food is hastily prepared, which usually means that it is fried. The girl who gets home from school before her mother has finished her day's work usually starts the dinner, or brings something from the delicatessen. Many children are given twenty-five cents with which to buy lunch, and in three extreme cases the children were given money to buy all their meals, with no supervision over what they ate.

_Difficulty of adjustment._--When all the causes contributing to retardation were taken into consideration in the histories of the 116 retarded children studied, it was still obvious that the greatest stumbling-block to normal progress was previous residence in the South. The retardation of children from the South is explained in a variety of ways.

Some of the children from the South did not get along well because they had not been able to adjust themselves to city life. They had been accustomed to the freedom and outdoor life of the farm and did not like the confined life of the city. They felt timid and shy in the midst of so many people, as they did not come much in contact with people when they lived on southern farms four or five miles from the nearest town. Most of these children had never gone to school for more than a few months at a time, either because the school term was short or they lived too far from the school to attend regularly. Consequently some of them found the nine months' term irksome.

_Demotion._--A number of children were found to be over-aged for their grades because they had been demoted one or two years when they came to Chicago. Some of these had gone to school regularly in the South and were of normal age for their grades, but the school term was so short that it was impossible for them to complete the same amount of work in the same number of years as children in northern schools. Children who were in the fifth or fourth grade in the South had been put back to the third or second grade on entering Chicago schools. This sometimes discouraged them so much that they dropped out of school on reaching fourteen, the age limit of the compulsory-education law.

_Inadequate schools._--Overcrowded and poorly taught schools also are responsible for the retardation of southern Negro children. One girl attended a school which was in session only three months a year and where there were 100 to 125 children under one teacher. Consequently this girl was retarded four years. A boy who, when he came to Chicago, was fifteen years old and six years behind his grade had always lived in small country towns in the South. In one of these his teacher was the iceman. "He didn't come to school until he was through totin' ice around," said the boy. "Then if anyone wanted ice they comed after him. He wasn't learning me anything so I quit." This boy was found to be ambitious and was attending school regularly in Chicago in spite of the fact that he was conspicuously over-age for his grade.

_Other causes of retardation._--Some over-age children are extremely sensitive about their size and are irregular at school on this account. A fifteen-year-old boy who was 5 feet 8 inches tall was in the fifth grade. He refused to go to school because he was larger than anyone in his class. At one time he was so ashamed of being seen in the room with smaller children that he would go out of the classroom every time a girl passed the door.

As in many white families where the importance of regular school attendance is not fully understood, work at home or work after school hours is sometimes permitted to interfere materially with school attendance. Older children are kept at home to look after young children while the parents are away at work and sometimes when the mother is home. A fourteen-year-old girl who was three years retarded had always been kept out of school to do housework. The five younger children were all in the normal grades for their ages but the fourteen-year-old girl had been out of school so much she had lost interest. Other children were working after school hours selling papers and delivering packages and wanted to leave school as soon as possible so that they could work all the time.

The attitude of the teacher seemed in a few instances to be responsible for the child's lack of interest. In one case the teacher threw a paper at a boy instead of handing it to him, and the boy had refused to recite to her ever since. He went to school but recited to his mother at home. Another boy had been kept back in school by a misunderstanding between his mother and the principal. The principal took the boy home with her to do some work around her house and kept him until nine o'clock. The mother became so worried she had the police out looking for him. When she found out the cause of his lateness coming home, she went to the school and threatened the principal. The principal afterward refused either to promote the boy or transfer him to another school.

_Recreation._--A study of the favorite forms of recreation among 116 children, aside from the few who reported that they had no time to play, showed the movies to be in the lead. Children economized on lunch, buying potato salad and pickles, in order to have enough left from their lunch money to go to the movies. One boy who worked outside of school hours made $3 to $5 a week and spent most of it on the movies; he went three or four times a day if he had the money. A few children played truant in order to go to the movies.

TABLE XV

FAVORITE RECREATION OF 116 RETARDED NEGRO CHILDREN

Movies 85 Baseball 32 Reading 31 Marbles 29 Skating 20 Jumping rope 11 Music 6 Jacks 6 Vaudeville 5 Running games 4 Singing games 4 Sewing 3 Basket-ball 2 Target practice 1 Pool 1 Mechanical toys 1 Drawing 1 Dolls 1 Bicycle 1 Typewriting 1 Swinging 1 Rolling hoop 1 Card games, checkers, etc. 1 --- Total 248

Most of these children had two and even three forms of recreation, and the second was usually some form of outdoor recreation--baseball, marbles, or jumping rope. Most of the younger ones went to the playgrounds, except those who had housework to do or the few who did not care to associate with other children.

A reference to the section on "Recreation" will show that Negro children are limited in their recreational activities by lack of recreation centers where they are welcome. There are playgrounds for the younger children in the areas of Negro residence, but no recreation centers with their varied indoor facilities for the older children.

2. OPINIONS ON SCHOLARSHIP OF NEGRO CHILDREN

_Progress of the southern Negro._--The retarded Negro child, usually from the South, who is conspicuous in the elementary schools, has been referred to in the section on "Retardation in Elementary Schools." In some schools such children are put in the regular grades, where they receive no special attention and can progress only one year at a time, though most teachers agree that retardation is due to lack of educational opportunity rather than to inability to learn. In other schools there are special rooms for these children where they are advanced through several grades as rapidly as possible.

Doolittle School (85 per cent) had six first-grade rooms for such children. In one of these rooms there were about twenty-five children from twelve to seventeen years of age doing all the lower-grade work up to the sixth. The teacher said that many of these children who were unable to read or write when they came from the South showed remarkable progress in a few months, and in less than a year were able to do fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade work.

"One big girl of thirteen, when she arrived from the South," this teacher said, "pretended to read with her book upside down, but in a little more than a year she was doing sixth-grade work. One twelve-year-old boy from the South, unable to read the primer or write his name, after about nine months of applied work just ate up everything I gave him and during the following year read sixty library books."

A thirteen-year-old girl, just five days in the school, had come from Alabama, where she had never attended school. "There wasn't room for me," she explained. She read for the investigator on the tenth page of the primer, haltingly but with understanding. The teacher was confident that she could put her through several grades next year. She said further:

These children who have been deprived in the South of their rights educationally are very eager. At first they are timid, but they learn very quickly. They're as smart as whips if they'd just get down to business. Without question this is the kind of attention all the colored children from the South need when they enter school in the North. The plan has been successful and should be adopted throughout the school system. One appreciates by comparison the injustice of putting the fifteen-year-old newcomer from the South into second grade, requiring of him only second-grade work over the nine months' period.

Another school, 92 per cent Negro (Farren), has a special room for children from the South. "Our dull children are almost without exception those from the South who have never been to school," said the teacher. "Those children should not be classed as dull, either, for they learn remarkably fast and often catch up to grade."

A teacher of the ungraded room in a school 38 per cent Negro (Forrestville) said:

Practically all of the colored children are from the South, where they have not been in school. Once they get started they learn very rapidly and often catch up to the proper grade if they are not too old when they start school. The older children in this room have good power of concentration and consequently learn much in a short time. Take, for example, a boy twelve years old who came here not two months ago from the South. When he came he had no idea how to write his name. A few days ago he wrote for me a fourth-grade eight-line memory passage with but three mistakes in spelling. Now I call that remarkable. I have taught in this school all my teaching years, and they have been many, and have never seen any child equal this, either white or black.

_Capacity for advanced work._--Teachers in the seventh and eighth grades usually found Negro children equal to the work, though in some cases they felt that these children had been pushed out of the lower grade because of crowded conditions before they were ready for the more advanced work. An eighth-grade teacher gave the following statement:

When children get this far they have a good foundation and do their work very well. One of my colored girls is the brightest child in school--arithmetic is hard for her but she works at it. One of my colored boys is seventeen years old. He came here from the South last fall to live with an uncle and to get to a better school. His father wants him to be a doctor and thought he wasn't getting along as well in the South as he would in the North. When the boy came to me he said he had been going to a college[40] in the South. I took him into the eighth grade but saw he didn't have the fundamentals. On close questioning he told me he had been in the seventh grade in that college. Now he is doing excellent work for me. He has much broader interests than the other children. He reads, reads, reads, all the time and is well informed.

Other teachers believed that there was nothing to keep the Negro children from making equal progress with the white, given similar opportunities. "The progress of the colored children in Drake school (30 per cent) cannot be compared with that of the white," said an upper-grade teacher, "because the colored are all from the South and have had the poorest opportunities. But comparing a Negro child and a white child who have had the same advantages in school and equal opportunities for observation and example in the home, the Negro makes the same progress."

"I say that under the same conditions a Negro child will do as well every time as a white," said the teacher of an ungraded room in a school 38 per cent Negro (Forrestville). "Many do as well as the white and live in very poor neglected homes. I think every person who is not prejudiced must admit that the colored do fully as well in school as the white."

An upper-grade teacher in the Felsenthal School (20 per cent) held a similar point of view: "The colored are making wonderful strides. They advance just as rapidly as the white, given equal opportunities. But their background is so slight and so short in years that one cannot fairly compare them. The southern colored child must be studied individually to get his point of view in the school or he gets nowhere in his work."

_High-school work._--The principal of Wendell Phillips High School prepared tables showing the numbers of white and Negro children dropping out at the end of each school year. They show that the largest number of Negro children dropped out during the first year, and the largest number of white children during the first and second years, the number of drop-outs being the same for both years. Some children repeat the work so that all of them do not leave school.

One or two teachers in other schools stated concerning Negro children that a "very limited number go beyond the first year." "They cannot grasp the subject," said an English teacher; "they do not understand as the white child does. They lack the mentality."

In the same school the Latin teacher held quite the opposite opinion. "The colored children are in every way equal to the white children. They are just as well equipped mentally and make similar progress. My best student at present is a colored girl. Her choice of English and her vocabulary and construction are far ahead of that of any white student."

Several teachers and principals testified to the brilliancy of individual Negro students who not infrequently had the highest standing in the school. The principal of an elementary school (Crerar) who had formerly had experience in a school largely Negro felt that the junior high school would meet the needs of the Negro children to a large degree:

More of them than the immigrant enter high school but do not stay to finish. I suppose the parents insist upon some high-school training, but it is necessary for the child to go to work before he finishes. Another reason for the dropping out might be the teachers' lack of interest in the child. In the high school you don't find the teachers taking a keen interest in every individual child as you do in the grades, and just what colored children need is a keen interest in them. They do better work.

_Academic v. other courses._--A preference of Negro children for academic work was reported by principals and teachers at two high schools. This may be due in part to the fact, testified to by many teachers, that Negro children excel in languages and music and find mathematics and sciences difficult. The usual implication was, however, that Negro children took academic work because they thought it gave them better social standing. A principal who said that "Negroes want to know nothing about industrial training" and that "the girls don't care for sewing and cooking," said on another occasion that the majority of children in auto-mechanics, printing, and household arts were Negroes. He also reported more Negro than white children in the normal course preparing themselves to be teachers, though this was the first year that this had been the case.

_Comparative scholarship in elementary schools._--Negro children are reported to be slower than the Jews, less responsive than the Bohemians, and more ambitious than the Italians. A manual-training and domestic-arts teacher thought Negroes did as good work as the Jews, Bohemians, and white Americans whom he taught. A Latin teacher said that the Negroes were studious and ambitious, and that in every way she preferred them to the Jews.

Several teachers thought the Negroes were slow and lacked logic and "sticking qualities." An upper-grade teacher explained the slowness as partly due to the fact that they had been pushed out of the crowded lower grades before they were ready for more advanced work. A physics teacher who was convinced that Negro children had no ambition said it was his policy to promote a Negro child if the child had made the effort, because he appreciated that the child had come "to the limit of his mental ability."

The principal who said that Negroes had no "sticking qualities" gave a single instance of a boy who wanted to become a mechanical engineer but gave up the course after five months, because he said he did not care enough about the course to work at it for several years. In endeavoring to prove that Negro children are not successful in completing high-school work, this principal emphasized the fact that in the 3-B class 20 per cent of the Negroes dropped out as compared with 6 per cent of the whites. In actual numbers three Negroes and two whites dropped out. He did not mention that in the 2-A class 12 per cent of the whites (sixteen children) as compared with 3 per cent of the Negroes (three children) dropped out. In the 4-B grade 21 per cent of the whites (three children) and none of the Negroes dropped out. The fact that 21 per cent of the whites dropped out was explained by the principal to be due to the fact that the white children wished to graduate from a high school wholly white. However, only three children were involved.

_Attendance and failures._--Table XVI shows the record for attendance and failures in three groups of schools attended mainly by Negroes, by children of immigrants and by white Americans. It will be noticed that the best attendance records are found in Douglas and Farren schools, both mainly attended by Negroes. The other schools, attended mainly by Negroes, compare favorably with those attended by whites.

The smallest percentage of failures is at Colman (92 per cent), while the next to the largest percentage is also at a school attended mainly by Negroes (Raymond, 93 per cent). This may be explained to a certain extent by the fact that there is a higher economic class of Negroes in the neighborhood of the Colman School. In the other schools the percentage of failures compares very favorably with that of whites.

TABLE XVI

ENROLMENT, AVERAGE ATTENDANCE, AND NUMBER OF FAILURES IN TWENTY SCHOOLS

=================================================================================== | Enrol- | Average | Percent- | Number | Percent- School | ment | Attendance | age of | of | age of | | | Attend- | Failures |Failures | | | ance | | ----------------------------+--------+------------+----------+----------+--------- Attended mainly by Negroes: | | | | | Colman, 92 per cent | 964 | 709 | 73 | 13 | 1.8 Doolittle, 85 per cent | 1,784 | 1,282 | 72 | 77 | 6.0 Douglas, 93 per cent | 1,443 | 1,341 | 93 | -- | --- Farren, 92 per cent | 986 | 924 | 93 | 83 | 8.9 Forrestville, 38 per cent | 1,493 | 1,085 | 73 | 130 | 12.0 Haven, 20 per cent | 1,165 | 700 | 60 | 24 | 3.4 McCosh, 15 per cent | 1,280 | 1,017 | 79 | -- | --- Moseley, 70 per cent | 923 | 605 | 66 | 81 | 13.3 Raymond, 93 per cent | 1,532 | 1,299 | 85 | 200 | 15.4 Webster, 30 per cent | 805 | 654 | 81 | -- | --- Attended mainly by | | | | | children of immigrants: | | | | | Farragut | 1,729 | 1,502 | 86 | 107 | 7.0 Goodrich | 1,305 | 1,039 | 78 | 121 | 11.6 Kosciusko | 1,134 | 775 | 68 | 33 | 4.2 Lawson | 3,069 | 2,545 | 83 | 292 | 11.5 McCormick | 1,432 | 1,266 | 88 | 204 | 16.1 Seward | 1,058 | 708 | 67 | 43 | 5.9 Smyth | 1,106 | 860 | 77 | 69 | 8.0 Swing | 810 | 629 | 77 | 99 | 15.8 Attended mainly by white | | | | | Americans: | | | | | Fiske | 1,535 | 1,272 | 83 | 45 | 3.5 Howland | 2,161 | 1,809 | 84 | 100 | 5.0 -------------------------+--------+------------+----------+----------+------------

C. CONTACTS IN RECREATION

In studying contacts between the races at places of recreation a survey was made of the various recreational facilities maintained by the Municipal Bureau of Parks, Playgrounds, and Bathing Beaches, the South Park Commission, the West Chicago Park Commission, and the Lincoln Park Commission. Recreational facilities maintained by twelve park boards which control smaller areas in outlying parts of the city were not included in the survey unless they were in or near Negro areas. Visits were made by the Commission's investigator to places in or bordering on the Negro areas at a time of day when the use of the park would be greatest; the director or one of his assistants was interviewed and observations were made as to the relations between Negroes and whites.

The information thus gathered was supplemented by a conference held by the Commission, at which representatives of the various park boards discussed policies and experiences with reference to race relations in the various recreation places under their charge.

I. CLASSIFICATION OF FACILITIES

Although there is no definite city-wide classification, the publicly maintained recreation facilities of the city may, for the purpose of this study, be grouped by types and defined as follows:

1. _Playground._--A small tract of land, usually adjacent to public schools, providing space for ball games, gymnastic and play apparatus, and in most cases a small building used as an office and storage place for apparatus.

2. _Recreation center._--Including outdoor and indoor gymnasiums for men, women, and children, a swimming-pool, and a little children's playground out doors, and a field house providing an assembly room and dance hall, clubrooms, shower baths, and often an infant-welfare station and branch library.

3. _Large park._--A large area with lawns, shrubbery, and general recreation facilities, such as tennis, golf, baseball, and boating.

4. _Bathing-beach._--Intended primarily for swimmers and usually including no other recreation equipment. A dressing-house, showers, and towel supply are provided with life guard and attendants on duty.

5. _Swimming-pool._--In some instances a swimming-pool or natatorium is maintained separately from a recreation center.

II. DISTRIBUTION OF FACILITIES IN RELATION TO NEGRO AREAS

Of a total of 127 public places of recreation excluding the large parks, thirty-seven are in or near Negro areas. Of the eighty-two playgrounds, fourteen are in the Negro areas and nine are adjacent. Of the twenty-nine recreation centers, none is located within the Negro areas, but seven are adjacent.

Though these figures seem to indicate that the Negro areas are fairly well supplied with recreation facilities, it should be borne in mind that their use by the Negroes in their vicinity is by no means free and undisputed. The reasons for this are shown in the next section on "Use of Facilities," but the following summary of use will aid in considering the distribution of recreation facilities in relation to the Negro areas:

===================================================================== | | | | Number Used | Total for | In Negro | Near Negro | 10 Per Cent | City | Areas | Areas | or More by | | | | Negroes -------------------+-----------+----------+------------+------------- Playgrounds | 82 | 14 | 9 | 13 Recreation centers | 29 | None | 7 | 1 Bathing-beaches | 8 | 3 | 2 | 1 -------------------+-----------+----------+------------+-------------

The type of recreation facility most commonly found in the Negro areas is the playground. The lack of recreation centers within the Negro areas is conspicuous, as is also the fact that six of the seven recreation centers accessible to Negroes are not used as much as 10 per cent by them. The playground is intended for the use of young children and has practically nothing to attract older children and adults, except sometimes a baseball or athletic field. Indoor facilities are not a part of the equipment of a playground, so that the average maintenance cost of a playground is not more than $2,000 to $5,000 a year.[41]

The recreation center is the most unusual and notable feature of Chicago's recreation system but one from which the Negro gets little benefit. It is a complete community center, with both indoor and outdoor facilities. It represents an investment of from $200,000 to $800,000, according to the amount of ground, the location, and the extent of its facilities. The yearly expenditure necessary to maintain such a recreation center where older children and adults can hold meetings, dances, and entertainments, and where there are concerts, indoor games, swimming-pools, showers, etc., is shown by the reports of the park boards to be from $30,000 to $50,000. Though the argument that wholesome recreation makes for better citizenship applies to Negroes as well as to whites, no recreation center has been located within the Negro areas and only seven near them.[42]

The director of Armour Square, a recreation center which is just beyond the edge of the main Negro area, but which the Negroes do not feel free to use for reasons discussed later, was asked what places of recreation for adult Negroes existed in that neighborhood. She instanced a social settlement that had been out of existence for more than six years, an infant-welfare station and a commercial amusement park known to be in bad repute.

Although in recent years the Negro population has been increasing in density in the neighborhood directly east of Wentworth Avenue along which Hardin, Armour, and Fuller recreation centers are located, this has not increased the use of these centers by Negroes. It has tended, rather, to increase the antagonism of the whites in the vicinity to the use of the centers by Negroes. In this neighborhood the hostility toward Negroes of whites, especially gangs of hoodlums, is shown by the many attacks upon Negroes in this area as discussed in the sections on the "Riot of 1919" and "Antecedent Clashes."

Several representatives of the park boards strongly deprecated the lack of recreation centers within the Negro area and said that such facilities should be provided. The South Park representative recommended the area east of Wentworth Avenue between Thirtieth and Forty-seventh streets as one needing additional facilities. The West Park representative said: "A complete all-year-round recreation center for the colored people should be established at Ashland and Lake streets. We need greater facilities, or equal facilities, for the colored people. There isn't any place on the West Side that I know of, but yet we have many of these complete recreation centers there for the whites." Although the Negroes on the West Side had never asked for additional facilities, the white people in that neighborhood had frequently asked the West Park Commission to provide greater facilities for the Negroes. The Negroes in the district were not organized, according to the West Park official, but the white people realized that something ought to be done for the Negroes and made the request.

The director of Seward Park said the maintenance cost was the chief obstacle to additional recreational facilities. "The law permits acquisition of property for small parks by request of citizens and bond issues for the purchase of the property and its development," he said. "When it comes to maintenance the question of taxes comes in, and unless people are willing to be taxed in excess of what they are taxed now, there won't be any possibility of maintaining more parks."

Though there are three public bathing-beaches near the main Negro area, the whites seem to expect Negroes to confine themselves to the Twenty-sixth Street Beach. It is quite limited and unattractive in approach and surroundings. The approach is over a rough road through a much-neglected neighborhood, and then up a long flight of stairs to a four-foot viaduct over the railroad tracks, and a roundhouse and switch yards are near by. The beach is a strip of sand about fifty feet wide and a short block in length; it narrows at one end to the tracks and at the other end is walled by a high embankment. While it offers a chance to get into the lake, the atmosphere of wholesome, recreative outdoor life is entirely lacking.

In the Morgan Park region there is a large Negro population but no park or playground within its Negro area. Barnard Playground and Ridge Park are the nearest facilities, a mile or more distant. Negro children said they did not go there because "those are in Beverley Hills and only rich folks go there--no colored people." The directors of these parks said there was no discrimination against Negroes but that they did not come because they felt that these parks were "for white folks only."

III. USE OF FACILITIES

Table XVII gives estimates by the officers in charge of the Negro attendance at the places of recreation in or near the Negro areas.

TABLE XVII

NUMBER OF NEGROES ATTENDING PARKS AND PLAYGROUNDS IN OR NEAR NEGRO AREAS AND THEIR PERCENTAGE OF THE TOTAL ATTENDANCE

===============================+=====================+===================== | | | AVERAGE DAILY | PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL | ATTENDANCE | DAILY ATTENDANCE +------+-------+------+------+-------+------ NAME | | | Vaca-| | | Vaca- |School|Through| tion |School|Through| tion | Time | Year | Time | Time | Year | Time -------------------------------+------+-------+------+------+-------+------ South Side District: | | | | | | Twenty-sixth St. Beach | | 200| | | 95 | Thirty-eighth St. Beach | | 500| | | < 1 | Fifty-first St. Beach | | 500| | | < 1 | | | | | | | Moseley Playground, Twenty- | | | | | | fourth St. and Wabash Ave. | 900| | 150| | 80 | Colman Playground, Forty- | | | | | | sixth and Dearborn Sts. | 350| | 700| | 90 | Doolittle Playground, Thirty-| | | | | | fifth St. near Rhodes Ave. | 800| | 500| | 90 | Oakland Playground, | | | | | | Fortieth St. and Langley | | | | | | Ave. | 600| | 400| | 75 | Beutner Playground, Thirty- | | | | | | third St. and LaSalle St. | 1,400| | 1,000| | 67 | Sherwood Playground, Fifty- | | | | | | seventh St. and Princeton | | | | | | Ave. | 1,500| | 900| 50| | None Drake Playground, Twenty- | | | | | | seventh St. and Calumet | | | | | | Ave. | 1,100| | 600| | 25 | McCosh Playground, Sixty- | | | | | | sixth St. and Champlain | | | | | | Ave. | 1,200| | 450| 25| | 15 Carter Playground, Fifty- | | | | | | eighth St. and Michigan | | | | | | Ave. | 1,200| | 500| | 25 | Fiske Playground, Sixty- | | | | | | second St. and Ingleside | | | | | | Ave. | 1,500| | 1,000| | 2 | | | | | | | Fuller Park Recreation | | | | | | Center, Forty-fifth St. | | | | | | and Princeton Ave. | | 1,500| | | 3 | Armour Square Recreation | | | | | | Center, Thirty-third St. | | | | | | and Shields Ave. | | 1,500| | | 1 | Hardin Square Recreation | | | | | | Center, Twenty-sixth St. | | | | | | and Wentworth Ave. | | 800| | | 1 | | | | | | | Washington Park | | 27,000| | | 10 | Jackson Park | | 47,000| | | 2 | | | | | | | Ogden Park District: | | | | | | Copernicus Playground, | | | | | | Sixtieth and Throop Sts. | 1,400| | 800| 7| | 16 Ogden Park Recreation Center,| | | | | | Sixty-fourth St. and | | | | | | Racine Ave. | | 3,000| | | < 1 | South Chicago District: | | | | | | Thorp Playground, Eighty- | | | | | | ninth St. and Buffalo Ave. | 500| | 350| | 5 | | | | | | | West Side District: | | | | | | Robey Playground, Birch and | | | | | | Robey Sts. | 500| | 800| | 20 | Mitchell Playground, Oakley | | | | | | Ave. and Ohio St. | 1,200| | 200| | 5 | Washington Playground, Grand | | | | | | Ave. and Carpenter St. | | 200| | | 1 | Otis Playground, Grand | | | | | | Ave. and Armour St. | | 200| | | 1 | McLaren Playground, Polk | | | | | | and Laflin Sts. | 300| | 400| | | Gladstone Playground, Robey | | | | | | St. and Washburne Ave. | 1,300| | 400| | 1 | Hayes Playground, | | | | | | Levitt and Fulton Sts. | | |Closed| | | Union Park Playground, | | | | | | Washington St. and | | | | | | Ashland Blvd. | | 1,500| | | 40 | | | | | | | North Side District: | | | | | | Northwestern Playground, | | | | | | Larrabee and Alaska Sts. | | 300| | | None | Orleans Playground, Orleans | | | | | | St. and Institute Pl. | 150| | 400| | 5 | Franklin Playground, | | | | | | Sigel St. near Wells St. | 1,500| | 300| 5 | | 25 | | | | | | Seward Park Recreation | | | | | | Center, Elm and | | | | | | Sedgwick Sts. | | 1,500| | | 15 | Stanton Park Recreation | | | | | | Center, Vine and Rees Sts. | | 2,000| | | 1 | Lincoln Park | | 60,000| | | 15 | -------------------------------+------+-------+------+------+-------+------ Maximum attendance, 100,400. Negroes approximately, 19,000.[43]

_Factors influencing attendance._--Out of the thirty-five playgrounds, recreation centers, and bathing-beaches in or near the Negro areas for which attendance figures were secured, at fifteen Negro attendance never amounted to more than 10 per cent, and usually was less. In several cases distance or such barriers as railroad tracks seemed to explain the small percentage of Negro patrons. In other cases it seemed due to the existence of other facilities nearer the center of the Negro area which were more largely patronized by the Negroes; an example is Stanton, which though not far from the Negro area is farther than Seward Park. The small number of Negroes at other places often could not be explained by the director. At Gladstone Playground, for example, in a neighborhood where the Negro population was increasing rapidly, practically no Negro children were found, though the white children said there were plenty of Negro children in the school. "They don't stick around after school hours or in the summer," said the children, but no one appeared to know why this was the case, as there had never been any difficulty at this playground. Negro children used Drake and Sherwood playgrounds much less, or not at all, after school hours and in summer. At Drake, though the two races mingled in games in the daytime and no disorders had occurred, the Negro boys took no part in the games in the evening when the older white boys were home. This, the director said, was due not to timidity or fear of aggression, but rather to "lack of ambition." At Sherwood Playground, west of Wentworth Avenue, where 50 per cent of the children using the playground during school hours were Negroes, there were no Negroes on the playground in the afternoon and evening and all summer. This was said to be due to the fact that the Negro children in the school, especially the girls, were larger than the white children and during the school session were the dominating group. After school, however, the older white children got home from other schools or from work and assumed control, allowing no Negroes in the playground. The Negroes then went to Carter Playground, which is east of Wentworth Avenue, in the main Negro settlement. This separation, the attendant stated, was due entirely to action on the part of the children, as the officials did not discriminate in any way. This neighborhood has been much disturbed and is discussed in more detail under "Contacts."

Representatives of each park commission said that they had no rules or regulations of any kind discriminating against Negroes, and that all races were treated in exactly the same way. The only case in which this rule appeared to be violated was in connection with Negro golf players at Jackson Park. Two Negroes participated in the Amateur Golf Tournament at Jackson Park in the summer of 1918 and made good records. The only requirement for entrance into the tournament at that time was residence in the city for one year. In 1919 the requirements were increased, entries being limited to the lowest sixty-four scores, and membership in a "regularly organized golf club" being required. Since Negroes are not accepted in established golf clubs, the Negro golf players met this qualification by organizing a new club, "The Windy City Golf Association." In 1920 the restriction was added that contestants must belong to a regularly organized golf club affiliated with the Western Golf Association. As it was impossible for Negro clubs to secure such affiliation, it is impossible for Negroes to compete in the tournament.

Unofficial discrimination, however, frequently creeps in. According to the representative of the Municipal Bureau, "the person in charge of the park is largely influenced by the attitude of the people outside the park. We had trouble at Beutner Playground because of the tendency on the part of the director, who was a white man, to be influenced by the attitude of the white people in the neighborhood, and either consciously or unconsciously showed by his actions to the colored people that they were not fully accepted." Beutner Playground later became an example of unofficial discrimination in favor of the Negroes, for the Municipal Bureau decided to "turn over the playground particularly to Negroes" and instructed the director "to give them more use of the facilities than the whites." But this was found to be impossible as long as a white director was employed, because he was influenced by the feeling of the whites in the neighborhood who did not want the playground turned over to the Negroes. The desired result was finally obtained by employing a Negro director. "Then the switch suddenly came," said the park representative, "and the playground was turned over to the Negroes almost exclusively."

A similar method was employed with reference to the Twenty-sixth Street Beach, according to the head of the Municipal Bureau, who said: "As the colored population gradually got heavier and more demand came for the use of that beach it gradually developed into a beach that was used almost exclusively by Negroes. And we did as we did in the Beutner case: we employed a Negro director when the preponderance was Negro."

This beach has since been transferred to the South Park Commission, and there is no longer a Negro director there, though most of the attendants are Negroes.

Park policemen will not let Negroes go in swimming at the Thirty-eighth Street Beach, according to a Negro playground director. "The park policemen tell you, 'You can't go in, you better not go in, I'd advise you not to go in,'" said the director. "If you try to go in he keeps you out."

The Negro director of Beutner Playground reported an unpleasant personal encounter with the policeman of Armour Square. "Last summer I had occasion to go over there with my assistant who is colored. We went to the library and the park police officer we met said, 'niggers ought to stay in Beutner Park.'" Policemen in Armour Square also had helped to drive out Negro boys who had gone over there to use the showers, according to this director. In addition he said that Negro boys had been refused permits to play baseball at Armour Square. The director of the park said, in answer to these statements, that there was no discrimination on the part of the management and if such things had occurred it was without the knowledge of the management and due to the fact that the applicants did not see anyone in authority. "The only applicants I have had for a colored baseball team this year was for an outside industrial team, and they were given permission," said the director. "Whether the police officer followed them up and told them they shouldn't come back, I don't know, but they didn't come back. I gave them the permit to come."

At one or two parks definite efforts had been made to encourage larger numbers of Negroes to make use of the facilities, but at Armour Square the director did not believe this to be advisable. "I have never gone out to do any promotional work to bring them in," she said, "because I would not choose personally to be responsible for the things that would happen outside my gates if I were responsible for bringing large groups into Armour Square. If such groups come to me for reservations I give them, but they don't come." This director also said that she would feel it necessary to warn any Negro group that might come to her park that she could not be responsible for their protection outside the park.

At Union Park, which has a playground and swimming-pool and is situated on the edge of the densest Negro residential area on the West Side, every effort has been made to encourage the Negroes of the neighborhood to make use of the limited facilities, according to the representative of the West Chicago Park Commission, who said:

We have advertised among the colored people and done everything we could to get them to use the swimming-pool, shower baths, and reading-room, and send their children to the playground. The result to some extent is satisfactory but of course they are not using it in proportion to the population of the Negroes in that neighborhood. That, I think, is partly due to the fact that we ought to have some other facilities there. We ought to have some equipment for boys over sixteen years of age, and we ought to have an assembly hall, a regular library, clubrooms, and other facilities for the recreation of older boys and girls.

The director of Fuller Park told of a special effort he had made, with the assistance of a Y.M.C.A. physical instructor, a Negro, to increase the use of the park by Negroes living east of Wentworth Avenue. The Y.M.C.A. instructor guaranteed to get the people, and 400 application blanks were distributed among Negro children in the Sunday schools of the neighborhood. All the blanks were signed with the names of Negro children between eight and sixteen and returned to the office. When the classes started a few weeks later, no Negro children appeared. The distributor of the blanks tried for three or four weeks to find out why the Negro children did not come but failed to discover any reason. Then the director sent a notice to the _Defender_, a widely circulated Negro newspaper, saying that the children who had signed application blanks for classes at Fuller Park were requested to come at any time and were just as welcome as white children. Thereupon a few children came--two or three out of a class of thirty. Additional notices were put in the _Defender_, and an effort was made to interest the Negro pastors, but the attendance did not increase, and finally the attempt was given up for that year. The next year a similar effort was made but with only slightly better results. At the band concerts and moving pictures the Negro attendance is fairly good, and a large number of Negroes use the library, but the gymnasium and the children's playground are used very little by the Negroes, and the swimming-pool practically not at all.

The reasons advanced by the park officials for the non-use of convenient recreation facilities are that the Negro is timid and reluctant to go where he feels he is not wanted, or that he fears attack in the park or near it. At a conference the West Park representative said:

When we first opened the doors of Union Park we thought, owing to the large colored population in the district, that the colored people would come there most willingly and avail themselves of the facilities just as freely as any person would. But we found that it was not so, that the greater number of persons who came there were the whites, and they as usual availed themselves of the facilities freely. The colored were timid, came in gradually, and as soon as they found they were welcome, that there was no line of discrimination drawn, the attendance of the colored increased.

At Sherwood Playground, Armour Square, and Fuller Square, all west of Wentworth Avenue, which is considered the dividing line between the white and Negro areas, fear is probably a large factor in the small Negro attendance, as the feeling in the neighborhood is bitter and fights have been frequent. At Sherwood Negro children use the playground during school hours when they feel that they have the protection of the school, but not after school when they feel that protection is lacking. Webster School at Wentworth Avenue and Thirty-third Street, which is 30 per cent Negro, has its graduation exercises in Armour Square, but the Negro children do not go to Armour Square at any other time, and they did not go over at night for an entertainment which the principal of Webster School arranged at Armour Square. Negro children use the Armour Square library freely, according to the director, but there has never been an application for the use of a clubroom, and no Negroes come to the outdoor moving pictures which are given one night a week. "There's absolutely nothing to prevent them coming," said the director. "Why don't they come? There is nothing within the park they need to be afraid of. There has been absolutely no distinction made in the handling of colored children or colored men or colored women coming to Armour Square, but they do not come." The director was positive that the failure to come to the park was due to the attitude toward Negroes outside the park. She explained that although she could guarantee safety and police protection inside the park, she could do nothing to protect Negroes outside the park gates. The park policemen are employees of the park boards and not of the city and have no jurisdiction outside the parks. This is true of the police at all parks and beaches maintained by the park boards, but the police at the playgrounds and beaches maintained by the Municipal Bureau of Parks, Playgrounds, and Bathing Beaches are members of the regular city police force.

Continuing, the Armour Square director said:

Personally I know of no disturbances that have started within Armour Square, and yet we have had outside of Armour Square every year at least two riots, not counting the general race riot--riots that started largely in school clashes. There have been some very serious riots between the children of the Webster School and the Keith School just east of it, and there have also been some very serious clashes between the black and white children going to and from the parochial school--actual fights in which they have had to call large detachments of the police. Armour Square is not used by the colored people in proportion to their numbers in the neighborhood, but it has absolutely nothing to do with our management. It is because they are afraid to come to the park. They know absolutely that within the four walls of the park nothing is going to happen to them.

The testimony of the Negro director of the Beutner Playground seemed to indicate that Negroes were kept out of Armour Square in ways that its director did not know about.

IV. CONTACTS

_Behavior._--The behavior of Negroes at the parks apparently has not been the major cause of the difficulties that have arisen in the past. Such complaints as were made by park officials in regard to the behavior of Negroes at the parks concerned groups of rough or domineering children at the playgrounds rather than adults.

The playgrounds where the attitude of Negro children was criticized were Sherwood and Moseley, both in neighborhoods where unusually bitter racial feeling was reported by the playground directors. The older Negro girls were particularly rough and hard to control, these officials said, abusing small children both white and Negro, monopolizing apparatus, and refusing to leave the playground when asked to do so.

Testimony in regard to adults indicated that the park directors found them quiet and desirable patrons of the parks. Said the director of Seward Park:

One of the most interesting and best-conducted and best-behaved groups I have ever seen is a group of colored people known as the "Jolly Twenty," a dancing organization. They started coming eight years ago and had a system of couple dancing which was marvelous. I have never seen it equaled anywhere. They have been coming every year, once a year, for a dance at Seward, and the "Jolly Twenty" has grown to be about the "Jolly Four Hundred," but the larger the group the better they seem to behave and the better they dance.

The director of Ogden Park told of a Negro club which holds frequent dances at Ogden Park. He said: "About 300 attended the last one. They are the best-behaved group that come. I never have to object to improper dancing or boisterousness, and they always leave on time, have had to object several times to conduct at white dancing parties."

This testimony in regard to Negroes at dances is interesting in view of the situation regarding the recreation facilities at the Municipal Pier. Negro attendance there is about 8 per cent of the total attendance of four million or five million a year, according to the director of the Pier. They are well dressed and well behaved and inclined to segregate themselves. There had never been a single instance of an intoxicated Negro or of one who had made himself in the least objectionable, the director said. The only people whom the pier authorities have had to reprimand for violation of pier rules in regard to cleanliness, monopolizing of furniture, etc., have been whites. Many of the attendants are Negroes, and the band which plays for the dance concessionaire is composed of Negroes. Negroes are welcome everywhere on the Pier, as are all races, according to the director, except in the dance hall, where their appearance is discouraged by the concessionaire. The following method is followed to discourage the appearance of Negroes on the dance floor, according to a white man who had observed it:

Admission to the dance floor is at the rate of five cents per couple, per dance. Each dance lasts about three minutes. If a Negro couple buys a ticket and dances one dance nothing is said. If the couple comes in for another dance, one of the floor managers--employed by the concessionaire--speaks courteously to the couple. He expresses regret that he must mention the matter of their dancing to them, but that they are not dancing properly, and he invites them to come to a corner of the dance floor where he will instruct them in the proper way to dance. This usually occupies the remainder of the particular dance, and results in the Negroes not coming on the floor again. If the couple does reappear, the floor manager again speaks to them saying he is very sorry he has to tell them again that they still are not dancing quite properly and again he invites them to a corner of the dance floor for further instruction. This is the procedure by which the Negroes are embarrassed and discouraged from using the dance floor.

_Relations between the children._--Lack of antagonism was reported at a large number of playgrounds. Apparatus was used by both groups without friction, Negro and white children mingled freely in their games and in the swimming-pools, and both Negroes and whites played on baseball and athletic teams. Occasional playground fights had taken place, but usually without any element of racial antipathy. "There might be personal misunderstandings and disagreements between a white and a black just the same as between two whites," said the director of Union Park, "but I wouldn't lay it to race prejudice. They work together and play together and seem to harmonize in most instances." When this director came to Union Park a year before he found a tendency among Negroes and whites to group by themselves, but steps were taken to bring them together in games of various kinds, and toward the end of the season the director felt that they "harmonized better and worked together more cordially than they did before." When the investigator from the Commission visited Union Park Playground, he saw the small children playing together on the same pieces of apparatus--a Negro child on one end of a teeter ladder and a white child on the other.

These children were ten years or under. The director felt that it was not until children reached the age of eleven years or older that they began to feel racial antipathy. In the swimming-pool at this park, which is used by the older children and adults, the Negroes and whites kept separate. There was no trouble between them, but they stayed in separate groups. The director felt that there was little likelihood of trouble ever starting in this park, because "where such nicknames as 'Smoke' are applied to colored boys by white boys, and is given and accepted in a friendly spirit, there is little chance for serious disturbance."

As this playground in Union Park is intended for children under ten, the occasional difficulties between older children might be alleviated if the Hayes Playground, one of those in the system maintained by the Municipal Bureau, were kept open in the summer. The playground at the Hayes School, 80 per cent Negro, was closed and the apparatus dismantled in the summer of 1920 when the investigator visited it. Though it is not a large playground it is the one the older Negro children are accustomed to use during the school year, and they are doubtless reluctant to go in the summer to other school playgrounds which they do not ordinarily use.

At Seward Park the Negroes use the facilities freely and play with the white children on the apparatus and in the ball field. The only difficulty reported here was in connection with a wrestling tournament. The director described it as follows:

Last season we had a wrestling championship tournament. There were some colored groups who had wrestled at Seward who were eligible for entrance into this tournament, and when the night came for weighing in, the director for one of the other parks said, "What are these colored people doing here?" "They are weighing in." I said. "They will not wrestle with my group," he said. "Very well, then, I guess your groups will not be in it," I said.

It looked as though we were up against a problem, but the night when the wrestling came the colored contestants didn't show up, so that the problem was solved for that time. Of course we couldn't say that any white man must wrestle with a colored man. It presented a problem that had to be settled in some way. I think the reason they didn't show up was because I told my investigator to say to these colored men, "Next season if you have a sufficiently large group you can have a contest of your own. We'll award the same prizes to colored wrestlers as we do to the white."

The representative of the Municipal Bureau also spoke of occasional difficulty in wrestling, though there may be no objection to Negro participation in other events. He said:

We have athletic meets in which a Negro team has competed and for five years has won the championship in athletics. In baseball there is no trouble. The difficulty comes in some of the activities, particularly wrestling, because of the nature of the activity. It is a closer contact. We make no distinction, however, and when a Negro boy gets up to face a white boy and the white boy doesn't face him, the bout is forfeited to the Negro. I think more meet than fail to.

At Fiske Playground, where there are few Negroes, as they do not live near, the investigator witnessed a baseball game with a team from Colman Playground composed entirely of Negro boys except the pitcher. They played as any teams would, with no evidence of racial antipathy. The Negro team seemed to be the better, and according to the director had won every game so far that season.

At McCosh, Robey, Carter, Oakland, Colman, Doolittle, and Beutner playgrounds the children mingled without friction, according to the directors. Negroes were in a minority at the first three and in a majority at the last four. At Carter Playground the investigator witnessed the presentation of a medal for athletics to one of the white boys while the Negro boys looked on in admiration and, after it was over, invited the white boys to "come on out and play ball." The only trouble that has been experienced at this playground was a few days before the 1919 riot, when a fight between a white boy and a Negro started on the playground and the spectators divided along racial lines, especially after the fight was transferred to the street. A riot call was sent in, and the police put a stop to the fight. No trouble has occurred since and the director believed it could not happen again. "The boys have learned better," he said.

Free mingling of Negro and white children was observed at Oakland and Robey playgrounds and was encouraged by the directors. Italian and Negro boys were playing ball together when the investigator visited Robey Playground, and Negro and white girls were playing on the same slides. The director said that in the evening the ball games were watched by both Negroes and whites, and that frequently the Negroes had a game themselves, which white onlookers enjoyed watching. The only incident of importance at Robey Playground had occurred a few days before, when a dispute over a baseball game arose between a white boy of fourteen and two Negro boys of eleven, resulting in a fight in which the director had to interfere. The director said there was not the slightest chance that such a fight would divide the playground along racial lines, as there had never been any disorders there, and that animosity between the Negro and white groups was entirely lacking.

At Oakland Playground, where neither race predominated strongly, the assistant director said there had never been any difficulty. The investigator witnessed a ball game in which Negro and white girls participated and saw groups of Negro and white boys talking outside the playground in a friendly manner.

At Colman, Beutner, and Doolittle playgrounds, where the Negroes come in the majority, no difficulties were reported. The Negro director of Doolittle Playground encourages comradeship between Negro and white children and allows no discrimination against white children. "If a white boy can make a team, he makes it," this director says to a Negro team which objects to a white boy being allowed to play on it. When this director was assigned to Doolittle Playground he was told that 60 per cent of those who made use of the playground were Negro and 40 per cent white. When he got there he found that 70 per cent were white and 30 per cent were Negroes. He said:

I had to look around to find a colored child, but I never had any trouble. Of course the white people gradually moved out and the colored people moved in. We never had any trouble with colored boys or white boys--they played on the same teams. In fact, I think we won the district championship for four years. Then they moved me over to the Beutner and the majority of the white children got up a petition to bring me back to Doolittle Playground. That shows there was no distinction there. They wanted me because we carried on activities.

White ball teams often use the field at Beutner Playground in spite of the fact that Armour Square is only two blocks away. "Last year [1919] there were several games between white and colored teams," said the assistant director, "but there have been none so far in 1920."

No difficulties between Negroes and whites were reported at Palmer Park, Bessemer Park, or Thorpe, Otis, and Orleans playgrounds, which are patronized by a few Negroes, though they are too far away from the Negro areas to be generally used.

The supervisor of girls' work in the Municipal Bureau made the following statement in regard to the relations between the Negro and white children visiting the municipal playgrounds:

From my observation and supervision of the girls' work in the municipal playgrounds I can only say that in all our activities colored and white children mingle without restriction. In indoor gymnasium and dancing-classes as well as in games, athletics, and general informal use of the playground, they take part together. Ability and sportsmanship are the only qualifications considered in candidates for any playground team. In the field of adult recreation, since we have no community centers conducting indoor activities in connection with any of our playgrounds within the colored area, my observations refer only to outdoor gatherings. On such occasions adults of both races mingle without friction. It is my experience that the most harmonious relations are established in connection with band concerts, field days, festivals, pageants, etc., including all forms of community art, which tend to unify rather than to split those taking part. In the Illinois Centennial Pageant, presented by groups from thirty-eight neighborhoods in 1918, girls from Doolittle Playground represented "Dances of the New Freedom," bringing "Liberty and New Strength to Illinois." In preparation of this episode several rehearsals were held at Doolittle Playground, white dancers from other playgrounds taking part; and the interest and co-operation shown by the neighbors made each evening memorable.

_Voluntary racial grouping._--Voluntary racial grouping appears to be a characteristic of the large parks and beaches, which adults frequent, rather than of the playgrounds which are used mainly by children. One instance of voluntary grouping among children was found at Copernicus Playground. The percentage of Negroes using this playground is much larger in summer than in winter. The playing space is in the shape of an "L," one end intended for boys and the other for girls, but by common consent the children divide along race lines rather than sex. The investigator saw small white children playing at one end of the playground, while Negro boys were playing ball in the larger end. Later, after the Negro boys left, some of the white children used the larger space while some Negro children collected around the apparatus in the smaller end. No instance of mixed play was observed, but there seemed to be no antagonism between the groups, and no disorders were reported.

The director of Union Park in speaking of boys who play games in the recreation rooms, said that there seemed to be a tacit understanding between the blacks and whites that they had certain nights. On certain nights all the attendance would be black and on other nights it would all be white. Asked whether Negro and white boys who were school friends played separately at the park, the director said that blacks and whites often came in together, but that for every case where they came in together and played a sociable game, there were probably three instances where groups were either of one race or the other. However, the director said that this grouping was casual, and that there was no prevailing community sentiment that the Negroes should use the park on separate nights. He believed that additional recreation facilities would help greatly in doing away with this tendency to voluntary segregation. He also said that the Negroes had a tendency to separate from the whites, not because they wished to avoid them, but because they preferred to associate with their own race.

In the general use of Lincoln and Washington parks the Negroes and whites stay in separate groups. There has never been any difficulty, according to the Lincoln Park representative, arising from the fact that Negroes have taken possession of a spot desired by whites for a picnic or other amusement. No part of either park is especially set aside for the use of one race, and groups of both Negroes and whites are seen everywhere in the parks, but they do not mingle. While there was no outward evidence of antagonism toward Negroes at the time of the investigator's visit to Washington Park, white visitors who were questioned showed an antipathy to the Negro which seemed to have its basis in the influx of Negroes into the residence districts. One man, originally from the South, was bitter against Negroes. He said he had left the Socialist party because it accepted Negroes as equals. At an open-air "free-speech" meeting speakers representing various radical doctrines were addressing a crowd composed almost entirely of whites. The chairman of the meeting, however, was a Negro, whose humorous remarks made him popular with the white crowd.

The only place in Washington Park where there seemed to be a general mingling of Negroes and whites was on the ball field. There were games in which the two teams were composed entirely of Negroes, and games in which the teams were composed entirely of whites; there were also games in which both Negroes and whites were engaged. The investigator watched one game in which vacancies on two teams from American Legion posts had been filled by Negroes. There was the best of spirit between the players and among the spectators. The white spectators were lined up along the first base line and the Negro spectators along the third base line, but rooters and players joked with each other with no sign of racial antagonism.

The South Park representative testified to the good feeling between Negroes and whites at a baseball game, and said the whites often preferred to watch the Negro games. At other points in the park, however, particularly the tennis courts and the boathouse, difficulties between the races were reported. These will be discussed in the next section on "Clashes."

Separate racial grouping is the general rule at the beaches, though it is not always voluntary. At the Thirty-eighth Street Beach, for example, Negroes are prevented by white boys and the park policeman from going into the water, according to a Negro playground director. "Boys who live around there from Thirty-ninth to Thirty-first Street have to swim at the street end between Thirty-third and Thirty-second. They rock you if you go in." This director was invited by white boys of the Vincennes Club to swim at Thirty-eighth Street, but when he suggested bringing some Negro boys along the white boys said, "Oh no, they can't come."

At the Diversey Beach in Lincoln Park both races go in the water, but a Lincoln Park representative said that the few Negroes who used this beach kept by themselves on one part of the beach, though there was no official rule compelling them to do this. There have never been any racial disturbances at this beach.

From the Twenty-sixth Street Beach, which is patronized almost entirely by Negroes, down to Thirty-sixth Street, Negroes and whites go into the water in separate groups, except at Twenty-sixth Street, where the few whites who go in mingle amicably with the Negroes. The investigator saw a white couple who had gone out to a raft and could not get back rescued by a Negro life guard. The other bathing-places along the shore for those ten blocks have been allotted by custom exclusively to one race or the other. At Twenty-ninth Street, where the 1919 riot started, a policeman is now stationed, and no trouble has occurred since the riot, though many fights have started which the police have stopped. Gangs of young men come from as far as Halsted Street, according to the policemen, ready to fight at the slightest opportunity. Fights usually occur because of some remark made by one group about a girl in another group. On the whole, however, few Negroes come to Twenty-ninth Street, the policeman said, going instead to Twenty-sixth Street.

At the beaches outside the main Negro area, such as Fifty-first Street and Triangle Park, and Clarendon and Rogers Park beaches to the north, the only Negro patrons are a few young children. The attendants at these beaches believe there would be trouble if adult Negroes started to use them. Negro children have been objected to at Clarendon Beach, where a man asked the director to put a little girl out because "she was a nigger."

Several directors reported that the Negroes did not use the swimming-pools much and segregated themselves when they did go in. The director at Union Park said the Negroes did not use the swimming-pool in proportion to their numbers, and that when they did use it, they came in small groups and confined themselves to a certain part of the pool instead of mingling with the whites. He said that there was nothing in the attitude of the white boys to make them do this, but that it was the "natural impulse of the colored people to do that in the swimming-pool." He thought that many Negroes did not use the pool more because "they are afraid of the water." A Negro playground director testified that he had frequently seen a white boy dive off one side of the pool at Union Park when a Negro boy dived off the other side and hold the Negro boy down until, when he came up, he was gasping for air.

The director of Ogden Park gave an incident that had occurred recently at that park:

One day I noticed three small colored girls sitting among the others in the "swimming line" waiting for the doors to open. A few minutes afterward they were at the end of the line. I tried to find out the reason but could discover nothing either from the colored girls or the others. I saw that they went back to the place in the line they had before and went to my office. Some minutes later I looked out and saw that while the swimming had begun, these three had not gone in but were sitting there watching the rest. I was unable to discover why they didn't go in--they said merely that they "didn't want to." Whether there was some threat or whether the girls were naturally timid about going into the pool I do not know.

The representative of the South Park Commission said that in the South Park district the parents were opposed to race contacts in swimming- and wading-pools. "Not 10 per cent of the families will allow contact with Negroes in the pools," he said.

None of the three natatoriums maintained by the Municipal Bureau is patronized by Negroes, with the exception of the Washington Heights pool which is used by a few Negro children in the summer. This pool is near a Negro district, but the other two are remote from the Negro areas.

A distinction was made by several directors between formal and informal activities at playgrounds and recreation centers. It was their theory that Negroes and whites mingled successfully in informal activities, but not in formal ones. "There is a difference in the informal use by children of a playground and the use of a recreation building where there are clubs and dances and classes and things of that sort," said the director of Armour Square. "Children and adults come in individually to use the library and other facilities, but there are no applications from organized groups of Negroes for any of the facilities at Armour Square." The real distinction in most cases is probably not between formal and informal use but between use by children and use by adults, as the formal activities are those in which older children and adults engage, as was pointed out by the representative of the West Chicago Commission.

_Clashes._--Clashes between Negroes and whites at various places of recreation are reported as far back as 1913. These clashes in the main have been initiated by gangs of white boys. In 1913, for example, the secretary of boys' work at the Wabash Avenue Y.M.C.A. (for Negroes) conducted a party of nineteen Negro boys from the Douglass Center Boys' Club to Armour Square. They had no difficulty in entering the park and carrying out their program of athletics. The party then took shower baths in the field house. The Y.M.C.A. secretary had noticed the increasing crowds of white boys near-by but had no misgivings until the party left the park. Then they were assailed with sandbags, tripped, walked over, and some of them badly bruised. They were obliged to take refuge in neighboring saloons and houses in Thirty-third Street west of Shields Avenue. For fully half an hour their way home was blocked, until a detachment of city police, called by the park police, scattered the white gang.

That same year the Y.M.C.A. secretary had found it impossible to proceed east through Thirty-first Street to the lake with groups of Negro boys. When this was tried they inevitably met gangs of white boys, and fights ensued with any missiles procurable. Attempts to overcome this antagonism by continuing to demonstrate that the Negro boys had a right to use these streets were unavailing for the next two years.

In 1915 similar conflicts occurred. That winter Father Bishop, of St. Thomas Episcopal Church, took a group of the Negro Y.M.C.A. boys to Armour Square to play basket-ball. The party, including Father Bishop, was beaten up by white boys, their sweaters were taken from them, and they were otherwise maltreated. The Y.M.C.A. staff then decided not to attempt to use the park or field house during the evenings.

The same year an attempt was made to take seventy-five of these boys through the Stock Yards. They had received tickets of admission to the annual stock show, in the pavilion at "the Yards." In spite of the four adult leaders, several of the boys were struck by sticks and other missiles while passing from one section of the show to another. The gang of white boys continually increased in numbers, and the situation by three o'clock, two hours after the Negroes had entered, began to look desperate. Police assistance was required to get the Negro boys safely out of the building and into street cars. No effort was made to restrain the white gangsters, who were allowed to range through the building at will.

An altercation between white and Negro boys in Washington Park is on record as early as the summer of 1913. These boys were sixteen or seventeen years of age. During the spring and summer of 1919, numerous outbreaks occurred because of the use of the baseball diamonds in Washington Park by Negro players. White gangs from the neighborhood of Fifty-ninth Street and Wentworth Avenue, not far from the park, also came there to play baseball, among them some of "Ragen's Colts."[44] Gang fights frequently followed the games. Park policemen usually succeeded in scattering the combatants. The same season gangs of white boys from sixteen to twenty years of age frequently annoyed Negro couples on the benches of this park. When the Negroes showed fight, minor clashes often resulted.

In Ogden Park, as far back as 1914, there were similar instances of race antipathy, expressed by hoodlums who were more or less organized. A Negro playground director said that if Negro boys attended band concerts in that park, white gangs would wait for them outside the park, and the Negroes were slugged. The white gangs also tried to keep Negro boys from using the shower baths at the park. This director told how a party of Negroes whom he had taken there was surrounded by white gangsters when they emerged from the shower house. "A boy reached around and caught me and pulled me up close to the other fellow," he said. "I dug down and got out. Of course they rushed for me. In the rush the other colored lads got out. Brass knuckles were used on me. When I looked up they said, 'My God, you have hit L--; you have hit the wrong fellow.'" The director declares that the man who hit him with the brass knuckles was discharged by the court with a reprimand.

This condition in the parks continued up to the early summer of 1920. George R. Arthur, secretary of the Negro Y.M.C.A. branch, expressed the fear at that time that a riot might occur in Washington Park any Sunday afternoon. He described the condition in the vicinity of the boathouse in that park as "fierce." There were fights there every Sunday. Five white men had beaten a Negro there one night the previous week. That sort of thing had been going on for years, he said. The Y.M.C.A. had long been dealing with the situation but he had noticed this trouble especially in the last two years. He attributed it to the gang spirit and to racial antipathy, which ordinarily would not amount to much, but which because of the tense situation in Chicago might lead to serious riots.

The director of the Negro branch of Community Service of Chicago ascribed the trouble to the same source. He said that most of the white boys came to Washington Park from the "Ragen's Colts" Club, that some of them went to poolrooms where the mischief was hatched. There was but one policeman in charge of about fifteen baseball games in the park, he said.

The racial difficulties at the baseball fields in Washington Park had doubtless never been brought to the attention of the representative of the South Park Commission, because he cited these games as an example of good feeling between the two races. He believed that there was never any difficulty at the baseball fields, and that the white people who enjoyed the Negro games would be the first to object if the Negroes were not permitted to play in the park. This opinion coincides with the situation at the ball fields observed by the investigator for the Commission, but apparently there are occasional clashes here as in other parts of the park.

The representative of the South Park Commission did not think Negroes hesitated to use any of the facilities of the park because of fear of mistreatment in the park, though they might have some fear of being mistreated outside the park. He did not know that any difficulties have ever occurred at the boathouse, though a Negro doctor testified that he had treated many Negro boys who had been assaulted there. The South Park representative said:

I have never known of any actual abuse of a colored patron in any park to which I was personally assigned. I have known people coming and going who were abused, mistreated, and actually assaulted, outside the park reservations, but I don't believe our records would show very many cases--probably no more than occur where the Poles and the Irish get together, or the Bohemians and the Germans.

Fights of a racial character were reported at one or two playgrounds. At Franklin Playground, where fights among boys between ten and fourteen are frequent, the director said he was always especially careful to stop a fight between a white and Negro boy because "a race riot would be easy to start."

At Sherwood Playground Negro children do not use the playground after school hours or during the summer. The attendant declared that "things used to be mighty rough but are better now." The change may have been due to a younger group of children replacing the former pupils, among whom were many children fourteen to seventeen years of age. There was much fighting between Negroes and whites in the neighborhood of Sherwood Playground, according to the attendant. Street fights were frequent, often ending in the use of knives or stones, and numerous arrests had been made. The fight usually started between two boys over some trivial dispute, a mixed crowd gathered, and the fight became general. Fights were also frequent within the playground, the attendant said; sometimes as many as three were going on at once. But a policeman had been stationed near-by, and conditions were improving. The playground had no director at the time it was visited.

An example of objection to the first Negroes appearing in a park was given by an official of the Municipal Bureau:

I remember a particular instance at the Beutner Playground in about 1903. Prior to that time we had very few colored people in that vicinity. One evening a young colored boy, probably seventeen or eighteen years of age, came in there. I happened to be on the athletic field at that time. He came in the rear gate, and the first thing I noticed there was quite a crowd of white fellows chasing this fellow all over the field. He ran down to where the Armory now stands, doubled, and came back and got out of the gates.

This official said that after that incident there was little trouble between the races at the playground until about 1910, when the balance of the patronage became almost equal. He continued:

That was when the trouble started. There wasn't any preference shown on the part of the park management to any particular race, but it was the people outside. They absolutely took the stand that as long as they could keep the colored people away they were going to do it. They used every means they could to keep the colored people away from Beutner Playground and Armour Square.

Another instance of whites objecting to the use of recreation facilities for the first time by Negroes was given by the representative of the West Chicago Commission:

Not long ago, two colored men, for the first time in the history of Garfield Park, came out there to play tennis. Immediately somebody in the neighborhood called up the Park Board and complained about Negroes breaking into Garfield Park. We frankly told the people who were complaining that they had equal rights to the use of the facilities at Garfield Park. But it seemed that while we said nothing, the colored gentlemen never appeared again to use the tennis facilities.

The representative of the South Park Commission in commenting on this same point said:

There is a history of development in amicable race relations. Most of the troublous conditions are where there is injected for the first time the question of racial intermingling. Where it is established, where it has gradually grown up, in time there comes an adjustment.

At Armour Square individual Negroes have been accepted as "part of the scheme," according to the representative of the South Park Commission, practically ever since the park was opened. But the director says that it is group action which stirs up trouble:

I think the trouble will adjust itself as the colored people continue to come into the neighborhood, but we are in the situation of having colored people come into the neighborhood where there haven't been any before. I think it will adjust itself in a year or so, and that possibly at that time colored people will begin coming.

The head of the Municipal Bureau thought the difficulties arose, not when Negroes first entered a white neighborhood, but when a balance between the two races was struck, and it was a question which race was going to predominate. "That has been my experience with the municipal playgrounds," he said, citing the case of the Beutner Playground which the Municipal Board decided to turn over to the Negroes.

Where Negroes are accepted and live amicably near white people, or where there has not been enough influx of Negroes to arouse feeling against them the contacts in the playground are usually peaceful. On the other hand, in communities where Negroes are looked on as intruders and objectionable neighbors, and where the white people are antagonistic, a contact between a Negro and white child, which would normally be peaceful, will result in a disturbance and tend to increase existing antagonism. This is the situation at Moseley and Sherwood playgrounds.

At Thirty-eighth Street Beach the prejudice is such as to prevent any Negro from bathing there, although it is as near the center of the main Negro area as the Twenty-sixth Street Beach, to which Negroes are expected to confine themselves. At Armour Square neighborhood sentiment permits a few Negroes to use the park, but trouble starts if new groups come. At Ogden Park a Negro playground director was assaulted by white boys and hit with brass knuckles in 1914, but now, according to a prominent Negro familiar with the situation at the center, there is order and fair treatment both within the park and on the way to it, and the Negroes prefer to travel out there than to go to Washington Park, which is closer at hand, but where they may be attacked if they try to use a boat or may be obliged to wait indefinitely for a tennis court.

The use of the parks by Negroes is determined almost entirely by the degree of antagonism in the neighborhood, and Negroes are afraid to make use of the parks where the neighborhood sentiment is hostile. "The neighborhood condition pretty much governs the feeling of security, on the basis of which the Negro will come in and use our park facilities," said the representative of the South Park Commission. "Without feeling secure in his neighborhood and in his access to the park, I don't think anything we could do would pull the Negro in."

At Mitchell Playground, in a district with a reputation for lawlessness, and at Seward Park, two blocks from a region known as "Little Hell," no racial difficulty is reported.

The two causes of neighborhood antagonism most commonly cited were the real estate and the sex problems. Among visitors to Washington Park the real estate problem in the residence districts near the park seemed to be the primary cause of ill feeling. One of the property owners in that region showed his feeling by complaining that the park ought to be rechristened "Booker T. Washington Park." The figures in Table I indicate that only about 10 per cent of the patrons of the park are Negroes.

An important point in considering neighborhood sentiment is whether the white hoodlum who appears to be mainly responsible for the clashes which have taken place is a cause of neighborhood antagonism or whether he merely reflects the attitude of the community. The fact that the hoodlum is permitted to terrorize and mistreat Negroes without serious protest from whites is an indication that the hoodlum expresses what the white community feels. The hoodlum does not always live, however, in the immediate neighborhood of the place of recreation where he makes trouble. The gangs of white boys who come down to Twenty-ninth Street Beach and start trouble, for example, do not live near the beach, the policeman in charge says, but over at Halsted Street. The director of Armour Square, though she stated that the feeling in the immediate neighborhood of the park was responsible for keeping Negroes away from Armour Square, said that the boys who were active in starting trouble at the time of the 1919 riot came from west of the park, and that the boys in her vicinity tried to stop the others.

The head of the girls' work in the Municipal Bureau said:

It [hoodlumism] is a symptom, the reflection and logical carrying out of an attitude widely accepted by the community as a whole. Although a serious and troublesome symptom, I believe it should be faced and welcomed as evidence of the potential brutality of this attitude. Men and women of good standing in white society condone much that they would hesitate to do in person; and by their failure to protest prove themselves equally responsible for results.

The director of Fuller Park believed that the groups of hoodlums mainly responsible for keeping Negroes out of the parks were the athletic clubs "composed usually of a bunch of young sports that are not athletes at all." "These clubs, which have only about one athlete on the roster," he said, "are so situated that the Negroes have to pass them going to and from the park. Those are the boys, numerous in every park neighborhood, who are keeping the colored people out of the parks."

The director of Ogden Park took the part of a Negro boy set upon by a white gang during the 1919 riot and rescued by the police, though they did not keep the mob from killing the Negro. He advocated the formation of "square-deal" clubs to defend innocent people from hoodlums. "Members would be bound to fight for the square deal--whites against white hoodlums and blacks against black hoodlums," he said. "Until both races will act, the lawless elements will continue to cause trouble."

It is possible in some cases, such as those in which the "athletic clubs" are involved, to find out the identity of boys who molest Negroes, but, according to the testimony of several park directors, it is absolutely impossible to control these boys because the courts will not convict them. The director of Armour Square stated:

I have had boys taken down to the courts time after time, and now my policeman refuses to take them down to the court any more, because he is reprimanded when he brings them in.... One of our attendants was shot through the lung and is now absolutely incapacitated for work, and the policeman was reprimanded because he had kept the boy in jail two nights. When it came to trial, they had already seen somebody and the policeman got the reprimand.

There was a general feeling among park representatives that the presence of a director with a proper attitude toward the problem was the greatest factor in bringing about amicable relations within the park, but there was considerable difference of opinion as to whether the park management could or should attempt to influence the surrounding neighborhood. The West Chicago Commission representative said that there was no instructor at Union Park the first year it was open, and that considerable segregation and undesirable conduct on the part of both whites and Negroes resulted. Since then, there had always been a director in charge, and a very harmonious mingling of the two races had been brought about on the playground. He believed that a similar relationship could be brought about within the recreation building by a director with the right personality, if adequate facilities were provided.

The Seward Park director did not consider it a proper function of a recreation center to try to direct the community life outside it.

The director of Armour Square felt that she could do nothing to promote Negro activities there. She did not approve of the suggestion of turning over Armour Square to the Negroes as the best way of solving the problem. She thought this would result in ill feeling and trouble, since there was a well-established tradition that the whites should use Armour Square to the fullest extent. But since the Negroes had no such recreation center as Armour Square available to them, she believed that a new center with full equipment should be started in a neighborhood part white and part Negro with the understanding that it should be a Negro recreation center where the whites were welcome if they wished to come. She thought that white people would patronize such a recreation center and, with careful leadership, would mingle with the Negroes on friendly and peaceable terms.

Two recreation-center directors favored entirely separate recreational facilities for Negroes with whites excluded. One of these was the director of Fuller Park, who told the Commission that he had made every effort to get Negroes to come to the park, and that he considered it part of his duty to go out into the neighborhood and try to get Negroes to use the park. "Separate parks and playgrounds for colored people are advisable," he said, "not because one group is any better than the other, but because they are different. Human nature will have to be remodeled before racial antipathy is overcome."

The director of Hardin Square, another recreation center little used by Negroes, though it is near the main Negro area, believed that separate facilities for each race would be the best solution of the problem. He did not encourage Negroes to come to Hardin Square. The policeman at the park also believed that "you can't make the two colors mix." This policeman said he knows a group of young men in the district, mostly ex-service men, who would "procure arms and fight shoulder to shoulder with me if a Negro should say one word back to me or should say a word to a white woman." He thought it would not take much to start another riot, and that the white people of the district would resolve to make a "complete clean-up this time." This policeman is the one whose failure to arrest a white man accused of stoning the Negro boy, Williams, at the Twenty-sixth Street Beach was an important factor in precipitating the riot in 1919.

The director of Moseley Playground, who was born and raised in that vicinity, said there had been antagonism between the two races in that neighborhood for thirty years. He believed that separate recreation facilities would be impracticable because the taxpayers could not be divided in such a way that they would not be paying for fields their children could not use.

The director of Seward Park thought that it might be arranged in the small parks to give special hours to Negro groups. This would meet what he believed to be the desire of the Negroes to be by themselves and also the objection of the white girls who had protested against having Negro girls in the same gymnasium classes with them.

V. TRAINING FOR RECREATION DIRECTORS

The importance of the personality of the park director in determining the conditions in the park, which was often emphasized, led to a consideration of the training for the work--whether training was required that would develop the understanding and vision necessary to handle the problems involved in racial contacts. The representative of the Municipal Bureau said that every effort had been made to get trained men, but that there was no school or curriculum of training that determined the efficiency of a person in charge. Some of his best directors had had no specific training, while some of the poorest came from the best recreational training schools.

Few Negro instructors were found at the places of recreation and these were employed by the Municipal Bureau. The representative of the West Side Commission said that he had been trying for a long time without success to get a Negro to take the civil-service examination for playground instructors, as he was anxious to get a Negro for Union Park. The representatives of the Lincoln and South Park commissions said that they used Negroes only as life guards, attendants, janitors, etc. The South Park Commission representative said the question of the desirability of having Negro instructors and play leaders had never come up, because no Negro had ever become a candidate for a position as a result of the competitive examinations.

_Training opportunities for Negroes._--It was found that the Y.M.C.A. has a four-year recreational training-course in which no distinction is made between Negroes and whites. As the courses are not open to women, the Y.M.C.A. has no such race problem as arises in recreation courses where women are admitted. The president of the graduating class at the Y.M.C.A. College the year previous was a Negro, though the rest of the class was composed entirely of whites. The number of Negroes taking the Y.M.C.A. recreation course is relatively small, usually about two in a class of 150.

The American College of Physical Education and the Chicago Normal School of Physical Education reported that they did not admit Negroes to any courses, saying that their students would object to physical contact with Negroes.

The Recreation Training School of Chicago, successor to the Recreation Department of the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy, admits Negroes to the recreation course on the same terms as all other students and has trained several, both in the short courses and in the full year's course. This school admits both men and women.

VI. SUMMARY

Though the Negro areas are as well supplied with ordinary playgrounds as the rest of the city, they are noticeably lacking in more complete recreation centers with indoor facilities for the use of older children and adults. Several of these recreation centers, such as Hardin, Armour, and Fuller squares, Stanton and Ogden parks, border on Negro areas but are not used to any great extent by Negroes because the Negroes feel that the whites object to their presence. Though there are three publicly maintained beaches within the main Negro area the Negroes feel free to use only the Twenty-sixth Street Beach, though many of them live as far south as Sixty-sixth Street. Where Negroes do not use nearby facilities to any great extent they have usually either been given to understand, through unofficial discrimination, that they are not desired, or they have been terrorized by gangs of white boys. Few attempts to encourage Negro attendance have been made, and with the exception of Union Park these attempts have failed.

In the main there seem to be no difficulties arising from contacts between young white and Negro children at the playgrounds, no matter whether the playground is predominantly white or predominantly Negro, with the exception of one or two playgrounds, such as Sherwood and Moseley, which seem to share in traditional neighborhood antagonism between the two races. Voluntary racial grouping at the playground was found only in rare instances and usually involved the older rather than the younger children. The swimming-pools, for example, are patronized more by older children, and voluntary racial grouping at swimming-pools was reported in several instances. In the ordinary playground sports and athletic contests the two races mingle with the best of feeling.

Voluntary racial groupings and serious clashes are found mainly at the places of recreation patronized by older children and adults--the large parks, beaches, and recreation centers. Trouble is usually started by gangs of white boys, organized and unorganized. The members of so-called "athletic clubs," whose rooms usually border on the park, are the worst offenders in this respect. If they do not reflect the community feeling they are at least tolerated by it, as nothing is done to suppress them. Some park authorities that have made sincere efforts to have these hoodlums punished are discouraged because they get no co-operation from the courts, and the policeman who takes the boy to court gets a reprimand, while the boy is dismissed.

Another source of racial disorder is the lack of co-ordination between park and city police. The park police stop a fight between a white child and a Negro child and send them from the park. Outside the park gates the children start fighting again, and the park police have no power to interfere. The spectators may then get into the fight, dividing along racial lines, and before the city police can be summoned a race riot may be well under way. Either city police should be stationed directly outside every park, ready to co-operate with the park police, or else the jurisdiction of the park police should be extended to include the area immediately surrounding the park.

The most important remedies suggested to the Commission for the betterment of relations between Negroes and whites at the various places of recreation were: (1) additional facilities in Negro areas, particularly recreation centers which can be used by adults; (2) an awakened public opinion which will refuse longer to tolerate the hoodlum and will insist that the courts properly punish such offenders; (3) selection of directors for parks in neighborhoods where there is a critical situation who will have a sympathetic understanding of the problem and will not tolerate actions by park police officers and other subordinate officials tending to discourage Negro attendance; and (4) efforts by such directors to repress and remove any racial antagonism that may arise in the neighborhood about the park.

D. CONTACTS IN TRANSPORTATION

I. INTRODUCTION

_Volume of traffic._--The number of passengers carried in 1916 in a twenty-four-hour day by the Chicago surface lines was 3,500,000 and by the elevated railway lines 560,000, according to a tabulation made by the Chicago Traction and Subway Commission in 1916. With the city's growth in population the traffic in 1920 doubtless showed an even larger volume. This traffic is distributed over approximately 1,050 miles of surface and 142 miles of elevated track. It is most congested in the "Loop" area of the downtown business section, which is a transfer center for the three sides of the city, North, South, and West; and of course it is heaviest at the hours when people go to and from work.

_Concentration of Negro traffic._--Negroes constitute 4 per cent of the city's population, according to the federal census for 1920, and presumably about that percentage of the city's street-car traffic. The Negro traffic, however, instead of being scattered all over the city, is mainly concentrated upon twelve lines which traverse the Negro residence areas and connect them with the manufacturing districts where Negroes are largely employed. These twelve lines, which are shown on the two transportation diagrams facing page 300, cover 11 per cent of the total mileage of the surface and elevated lines. Because of this concentration, however, the proportion of Negroes to whites on these twelve lines is much higher than 4 per cent, and on such lines as that on State Street, which runs along the principal business street of the main South Side Negro residence area, it often happens that the majority of the passengers are Negroes. In addition to these twelve lines of heaviest Negro traffic, there are others traversing less densely populated parts of Negro residence areas. In varying degrees contacts of Negroes and whites may be found on other lines which serve the small proportion of the Negro population scattered throughout the city.

The main area of Negro residence, on the South Side, where about 90 per cent of the Negroes in Chicago live, is traversed by the State Street, Indiana Avenue, Cottage Grove Avenue, Stony Island Avenue, and the South Side elevated lines, running north and south, and by eleven cross-town lines, running east and west, beginning with the Twenty-second Street line at the north and ending with the Seventy-first Street line at the south. From six to nine o'clock in the morning, and from four to six o'clock in the afternoon, there is a heavy Negro traffic on the lines going north to the "Loop," on the Cottage Grove Avenue line going south to the South Chicago manufacturing district, and on the Thirty-fifth Street and Forty-seventh Street lines and the elevated branch line at Fortieth Street going west to the Stock Yards. To reach the Stock Yards, Negro laborers must ride through a territory between Wentworth Avenue and Halsted Street in which, as shown in the sections of the report dealing with housing and with racial clashes, hostility toward Negroes has often been displayed. This Negro traffic west of Wentworth Avenue is, therefore, chiefly confined to a few hours in the morning and the afternoon.

The West Side Negro residence area is connected with the "Loop" by the Madison Street and Lake Street surface lines, and the elevated line on Lake Street, and with the Stock Yards by the Halsted Street and Ashland Avenue lines.

The North Side Negro residence area is connected with the "Loop" by the lines on State and Clark streets and by the Northwestern elevated lines. Contacts on these lines, however, are not as important as on the lines serving the South and West Side areas, because the number of Negroes involved is only about 1,500, or less than 2 per cent of the Negro population.

_Contacts and racial attitudes._--As in other northern cities, there is no "Jim Crow" separation of the races on street cars in Chicago. The contacts of Negroes and whites on the street cars never provoked any considerable discussion until the period of Negro migration from the South, when occasional stories of clashes began to be circulated, but only one such incident was reported in the newspapers. Even since the migration began there have been few complaints based upon racial friction in transportation contacts.

In response to inquiries, the South Side Elevated Company, which has the largest Negro traffic of any elevated line, replied that except during the riot in 1919, when a few cases of racial disorder were reported, there had been no complaints from motormen or trainmen since 1918, when a trainman was cut by a Negro but not seriously injured. No complaints from white passengers had been received since the spring of 1917, when white office workers objected to riding with Stock Yards laborers, mainly Negroes, on the Stock Yards spur of the elevated. White laborers in the Stock Yards mostly lived within walking distance of their work, but Negroes found it necessary to use car lines running east to the main Negro-residence area. The Chicago Surface Lines replied that complaints due to racial friction were negligible.

Information obtained by investigators for the Commission showed that the attitude of Negroes and whites toward each other was being affected by contacts on the cars. A white woman in the Hyde Park district, an officer of the Illinois Federation of Woman's Clubs, when interviewed upon race relations, made special reference to transportation contacts. She said:

While Negroes are coming into this neighborhood, especially on Lake Park, I see little of them, except on the street car. There I must say I have a decided opinion. Just last evening around five o'clock, I took a Lake Park car at Fortieth Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, and several colored men saw to it that they were first to board the car. I had to sit near the front and a great big Negro man sat next to me, smoking a cigar right in the car. I told my husband when I got home, I was for moving them all out of the city, and I never felt like that toward them until just of late. There's a feeling of resentment among us white people toward the colored people on the cars, and they feel that, and they feel the same resentment toward us. I think I see that very plainly. Last night, on this same car, a colored man was hanging over me, and I know he didn't want me there near him, any more than I wanted him.

As a factor in attitudes on race relations, transportation contacts, while impersonal and temporary, are significant for several reasons. In the first place, many whites have no contact with Negroes except on the cars, and their personal impressions of the entire Negro group may be determined by one or two observations of Negro passengers. Secondly, transportation contacts are not supervised, as are contacts in the school, the playground, and the workshop. If there is a dispute between passengers over a seat it usually rests with the passengers themselves to come to an understanding. Any feeling of suspicion or prejudice on either side because of the difference in race accentuates any such misunderstanding. In the third place, transportation contacts, at least on crowded cars, involve a degree of physical contact between Negroes and whites which rarely occurs under other circumstances, and which sometimes leads to a display of racial feeling.

_Scope and method of investigation._--In obtaining information as to transportation contacts the Commission's investigators, both white and Negro, men and women, made many observation trips on the twelve lines carrying the heaviest volume of Negro traffic and therefore involving the greatest amount of contact. Counts of passengers, Negro and white, were made, behavior and habits were noted, passengers and car crews were questioned, and officials of the surface and elevated lines, starters, and station men were interviewed.

Superintendents of 123 industrial plants were interviewed to ascertain the numbers of whites and Negroes employed in offices and in plants, transportation lines used by workers, nature of work and its effect upon cleanliness of person and clothing, provision of baths, etc. A further source of information was a report made for the officers of the Central Manufacturing District, setting forth the transportation facilities for the 12,000 employees of the district and providing data drawn from questionnaires filled out by these employees. The district includes the area from Thirty-fifth to Forty-third streets and from Morgan to Robey streets.

II. DISTRIBUTION OF NEGRO TRAFFIC

Negro traffic is fairly continuous throughout the day in the Negro residence areas, and the proportion of Negroes and whites is about the same at different hours of the day. Except during the times of going to and from work the cars are not overcrowded, and the danger of friction is therefore small. On the routes connecting the Negro residence areas with the Stock Yards and with South Chicago, where many Negroes are employed in steel plants, the Negro traffic is confined to a few hours in the morning and late afternoon, but at these hours the cars are very crowded. There is much rushing to board cars and get seats, and white office workers and other non-laborers are thrown into contact with Negro laborers still in their working clothes. It is under such circumstances that irritation and actual clashes are most likely to arise. It should be noted that similar contacts with white laborers in their working clothes are disagreeable in the same ways, though in such cases the odors and grime are not associated with race and color.

The hours of greatest general travel and car crowding were found to be from six to nine o'clock in the morning and from four to six o'clock in the afternoon.

The proportions of whites and Negroes on lines carrying the largest numbers of Negroes to and from work are shown in two diagrams. These are based on counts of white and Negro passengers, several trips being averaged to show typical car loads during the heavy travel of early morning and late afternoon. The first diagram shows the proportions in travel from the Negro residence areas of the South and West sides toward the Stock Yards, the other large industries employing Negroes, and the "Loop" district during the period from six to nine A.M. The second diagram shows the proportions in travel from the Stock Yards, the other industries, and the "Loop" toward the Negro residence areas of the South and West sides during the period from four to six P.M.

III. CONDUCT RESULTING FROM CONTACTS

As already noted, contacts of Negroes and whites on street cars provoked little discussion until the migration of Negroes from the South began to be felt. The great majority of the migrants are laborers. Many of them are ignorant and rough mannered, entirely unfamiliar with standards of conduct in northern cities. It is this type which is meant in references hereinafter to the "migration" or "southern" Negro.

Coming to a city like Chicago, with no "Jim Crow" racial segregation, was a new experience to many southern Negroes. They felt strange and uncertain as to how they should act. Many whites and Negroes long resident in Chicago have said that they could tell a migration Negro by his ill-at-ease manner and often by his clothes.

The conspicuous points in the behavior of the migration Negro before he became urbanized were his "loud laughing and talking," his "ill-smelling clothes," his "roughness," and his tendency to "sit all over the car." These are easier to understand when one considers the background of the southern Negro.

Few white people realized how uncertain the southern Negro felt about making use of his new privilege of sitting anywhere in the car, instead of being "Jim Crowed." One Negro woman who came to the city during the migration said, when she was asked about her first impression of Chicago: "When I got here and got on the street cars and saw colored people sitting by white people, I just held my breath, for I thought any minute they would start something. Then I saw nobody noticed it, and I just thought this is a real place for Negroes." There were exceptional cases in which southern Negroes walked miles, rather than take a car.

It may seem strange in view of such uncertainty of mind and timidity that the most noticeable point of behavior of the southern Negro was loud talking, joking, and laughter. The South Side Elevated Company, replying to the Commission's inquiries, said: "These colored people are of a happy-go-lucky type and are often noisy, especially when two or more acquaintances meet on the trains or station platforms or crossing from one side of the station to the other. They laugh and talk a good deal and seem to be happy and care-free."

Although some of this boisterousness was no doubt due to a care-free spirit and a broad good humor, some of it had quite a different source. Many a southern Negro thinks that the whites like him to be "typical," and that they will tolerate him as long as his dialect, his wit, and his manner are amusing enough. A Negro newspaper of Chicago took the southern Negroes to task for using this safety device in Chicago.

Many whites, clerical workers, shoppers, and others of a non-laboring type, have expressed objections to what they term a tendency of Negroes to "sit all over the cars," meaning to sit anywhere in the car. This was most conspicuous when whites had to ride in the morning on a car which had come from one of the Negro residence areas and was already filled with Negroes, or when Negroes and whites were boarding a comparatively empty car near one of the big industrial plants in the afternoon. The employment manager of the Corn Products Company plant at Argo reported a complaint about this tendency made to him by one of the girls in the office:

An office girl told me she had trouble getting a seat on the cars. She was not able to get a seat by herself and did not want to sit next to a Negro. She said that Negroes would rush in and get all the seats by the windows. She thought they did it more to tease the office help than anything else. This girl was undoubtedly prejudiced. That was one of her arguments to explain why she had difficulty in getting to work in the morning. She is a St. Louis girl of Flemish extraction.

Many of the southern Negroes were found to be very hesitant about taking seats next to whites. The southern tradition was so ingrained in them that they tried to be as inconspicuous as possible. On the other hand, some, with the sudden removal of the restraints of the South, used their new freedom without thought of the effect of their behavior on Chicago whites and Negroes.

The attitude of migration Negroes was sometimes expressed to the Commission's investigators. For example:

You can spend your money as you please, live better and get more enjoyment out of it--I mean go where you please, without being Jim-Crowed.

* * * * *

There's no lynching or Jim Crow. You can vote, you receive better treatment and more money for your work.

* * * * *

The freedom of speech and action. You can live without fear and there's no Jim Crow.

Some southern Negroes apparently came to Chicago with a real grudge against all whites and ready at slight provocation to display their resentment. The minister of one of the Negro churches in Chicago said:

After years of restriction and proscription to which they were subjected in the South, they suddenly find themselves freed in a large measure of these conditions. Their mind harks back to that which they endured at the hands of members of the Aryan race in the South, and they grow resentful, and in the midst of their new environment they vent their spleen. One has but to ride on any of the surface lines running into the section of Chicago largely occupied by my race group to be convinced of the facts mentioned above.

The southern Negro who got into trouble with whites by insisting on his right to a seat sometimes belonged to the class of suspicious and sensitive Negroes, and sometimes he was simply a "greenhorn." The following cases show how "green" the migration Negro could be, and how easy it was for him to make himself disliked and ridiculous. The first case was observed by a Negro man, the second by a Negro woman, both long resident in Chicago:

I boarded a crowded car in the "Loop" going south and was forced to stand near the rear door. There are two lengthwise seats at the rear of the car, one of which will hold three people and one of which will hold two. Two colored women, carelessly dressed and holding greasy paper bundles in their hands, got on the car at Twelfth Street and stood in the back of the car hanging on to straps. They rode this way until Eighteenth Street, when one of them, a large woman, noticing that there were three white people on one of the seats and only two on the other said to her companion, "If three folks can sit on that seat, I ain't going to stand over these white folks, who are just like they are down South, and don't want you to sit down. I'm going to sit down myself." She then inserted herself between the two white women, one of whom was pushed to the floor. The Negro woman was much embarrassed, but I don't think she has yet realized that the seats were of different lengths.

* * * * *

I was on a State Street car when two southern Negro women got on, talking loud, and throwing themselves around loose and careless like. I was sitting on one of the end seats, just big enough for three, and one of the women says to the other, "Here's a seat, here's a seat." "You move over," she said to me. There was fire in their eyes, and I don't like fighting, so I made up my mind that if they started anything I'd get up and give them my seat. Most people would have understood how you felt if you did that, but I am not sure they would have understood. I said to one of them, "There really isn't room on this seat." She gave me a shove, so I said, "But I'll get up and give you my seat." You wouldn't believe what happened then. The conductor came in and said, "You just keep your seat." And a white man, who was sitting in one of the cross-seats, turned around and said, "I'll see that she does."

Soiled and ill-smelling clothes were a large factor in making Negro workingmen objectionable to many whites even of the same working class.

At the time of the migration, in the fall of 1916 and the spring of 1917, the Stock Yards were taking on hundreds of Negro laborers to increase their war-time production, and these new hands, most of them migration Negroes, rode to and from work with white office workers. How the white office workers felt about it is shown by a statement of a white woman clerk in the Stock Yards:

Some of the Negroes on the Thirty-fifth Street car are very rough. Most of them work out at the Stock Yards and the smell of the Yards is very bad. They seem to try to clean up, but the smell is there, especially in cold weather when the cars are closed. I would suggest that they run special cars from the Stock Yards for those people, and that would leave enough cars for us and we wouldn't get the odor either.

This situation was somewhat remedied by the fact that most of the Negro laborers at least changed their clothes before going home, even if they could not entirely rid themselves of the Stock Yards odor; also the hours for Stock Yards employees were so arranged that the office workers came to work later and left later than the white and Negro laborers.

The Negro press of Chicago tried to make the migration Negro realize how the odor attaching to his clothes was affecting public opinion. The _Chicago Searchlight_ of May 22, 1920, had this exhortation by the editor:

Did you ever get on the elevated train at Indiana Avenue about 5:30 o'clock in the afternoon, and meet the "gang" from the Stock Yards? It would make you ashamed to see men and women getting on the cars with greasy overalls on and dirty dresses in this enlightened age. There is really no excuse for such a condition to exist. There is plenty of soap and water in the Stock Yards and you have better clothes in your homes. Why not take a suit to the yards and wash up and change your clothing, before attempting to mingle with men and women, many of them being dressed for theaters and club parties, etc.? Don't you know that you are forcing on us here in Chicago a condition similar to the one down South?

In order to find out whether Negroes working in other plants than the Stock Yards do work which leaves the worker soiled and smelling, superintendents or foremen were questioned. It was learned that much other work done by Negro laborers leaves oil, grease, and acid stains, that many of the plants have no baths or adequate facilities for washing, and that sometimes where there are such facilities they are not kept in order. Three-fourths of the superintendents and foremen interviewed had the impression that Negroes were more careful about bathing and changing their clothes than whites. They said the difference was probably due either to the fact that the white laborer who was doing the same class of work as the Negro, was an immigrant, or to the fact that the white laborer often lived near the plant where he works, and preferred to wash up at home.

The Negro laborer meets little objection when he is riding with white laborers; it is when he comes in contact with whites of a non-laboring class that there is the most likelihood of trouble. Such whites often find white laborers quite as objectionable. A lawyer in Indiana Harbor who was questioned about the transportation contacts in the Calumet industrial district, said:

So far as transportation is concerned, little trouble need be expected. Most of the people here are working people, and they know what to expect when a dirty workman comes and sits down next to them. The fact of it is that if there is any complaint to be made, it would be against the foreigners. In the winter, when the doors are closed, the smell of garlic is almost unbearable.

Another complaint from whites is that Negroes on the street cars are "rough." It is significant, however, that all the incidents related to the Commission in regard to "roughness" occurred on crowded cars. The rush to get on a car before or after working hours is often heavy. The Commission's investigator, describing the loading of cars at an important transfer point near the Stock Yards at the evening rush hour, said:

I observed the loading and transfers at Ashland and Forty-seventh from three to four o'clock in the afternoon. With the possible exception of six to seven in the morning the traffic is heaviest at this time. The transfers from the Ashland to the Forty-seventh Street car are mostly Negroes from the government plants at Thirty-ninth and Robey. About 40 per cent of them are women. Cars going east on Forty-seventh Street leave every five minutes. There is a supervisor on this corner, whose duty it apparently is to supervise the arrival and departure of cars. He pays no attention, however, to the matter of loading. Usually the men meet the car in the middle of the block and climb on while it is moving. By the time the car reaches the corner the seats are all taken and the doorway is congested. The women, like the men, get on as they can. No deference is shown them. Most of those who get on this car are colored, and most of them, colored and white alike, are workmen.

Some friction between whites and Negroes has occurred during the boarding of cars. It may be caused by general racial attitude as well as by the circumstances of the particular case. The following cases were both related by white men, one an assistant superintendent in a foundry, and the other a barber:

One of our employees (Negro) in running to catch a car accidentally knocked over a white man. The white man became particularly abusive, and the crowd joined in with him. The crowd attempted to beat the Negro up, but he ran back to the plant here for protection and we quieted them down.

* * * * *

I remember one time about three years ago, I was coming home on the Forty-seventh Street car and two Negroes were standing on the back. It was pretty crowded. A man swung his wife on board, and two more white men jumped on too. He got her through into the car, and one of the Negroes said to her: "I'm going to get that husband of yours." I went up and stood in back of the white man and told him I'd stand by him, if anything happened. There were lots of whites on the car but about half Negroes, I guess. I think the Negroes have too much freedom. They don't know how to act. Some of those Negroes on the street car are real uncivilized.

The South Side Elevated Company, in answer to a questionnaire said: "It requires constant watching to prevent Negroes from entering and leaving cars through the windows." The following incident, reported by the Commission's investigator, who traveled over all the lines used by Negroes, shows that both whites and Negroes may climb through the windows under the same conditions of crowding:

I was transferring from the Argo car to the Sixty-third Street car with a number of white and Negro workmen from the Corn Products Refining Company. The crowd rushed for the door, and the doorway soon became congested. Two white men climbed in the car through the back window, followed immediately by a Negro. When the conductor came up, a white woman, who was standing next to me and had seen the whole performance, said to the conductor, indicating the Negro, who had climbed in through the window: "I wouldn't take his fare, if I were you. He came in through the window."

Selection of seats by white and Negro passengers often provides instances of conduct which is based on racial prejudices. These seem to be most frequent on lines with comparatively light travel by Negroes and where there is thus less opportunity for the races to become accustomed to contact. Sometimes whites show plainly their avoidance of Negroes.

Some Negroes have timidly offered their seats to women standing, and have been chagrined by the refusal of the white women to accept the courtesy. The superintendent of one of the plants where Negroes work made the following comment:

Negroes seemingly refrain from showing courtesy to white women, such as offering them their seats, because of two facts. Either the woman to whom the courtesy was extended, or outsiders, seem to the Negro to place a wrong construction upon his courtesy. They think him either fresh or servile, and in the majority of cases where a Negro would extend such courtesies, he refrains from doing so.

A few Negroes justified themselves by pointing out that white men did not give up their seats for Negro women, and so they did not intend to give up their seats for white women. The editor of a Negro newspaper took Negro men to task for their disregard of white women and also women of their own race, as follows:

Do you know that there is a growing tendency among the young men of our race to show disrespect for our womanhood? If you don't think so, just get on a street car or visit public amusement places, or even notice their actions as they walk along the street. It is nothing to see hundreds of big strong young men sitting on our cars, while women stand until they become almost exhausted, while those "fellows" sit and read their papers or gaze out of the car windows.

There is one trait, and I might say only one, that I take off my hat to the southern "Cracker" for, and that is his respect and high regard for women. While he hasn't any for the other fellow's [the Negro's] wives and daughters, yet he respects his own. We must set a good example for him and respect all women, regardless of race, color, or creed. Then you will win the admiration of all civilized people. Men who do not respect and honor their women are not worthy of citizenship. Do you get me, brother?

White men have become much incensed when they have given seats to white women, and Negro men, not realizing what had happened, took the seats. The timekeeper at a large industrial plant said:

I was on an East Chicago Whiting car. Six Negro workmen were standing. The car was full about one-third with Negroes. A man got up to let a white woman sit down. A Negro, seeing the seat vacated, sat down before the woman had a chance to get to it. The man who had proffered the seat became indignant, cursed the Negro, yanked him out of his seat, and proceeded to beat him up. The Negro drew out a knife. About this time, it became a general race clash. One of the Negro workmen had a gun: he pulled it out of his pocket and cleaned out the car.

The following incidents were reported by two white investigators:

I was on a Cottage Grove Avenue car at 5:30 P.M. The car was crowded, about one-third colored people. A young, well-dressed colored boy of about twenty was standing in the aisle beside a white man and a white woman. The seat directly in front of this colored boy was vacated, and the white man made a move to seize it, but the boy by holding his arm on the back of the seat barred the white man's way and stepped aside to allow the woman to sit down. The woman nodded her thanks to the boy, and the white man went on reading his paper.

* * * * *

I was on an eastbound Oak Park elevated train at about 10:30 A.M. Several Pullman porters got on at Campbell Avenue and had to stand, as did several white women and men. As the crowd began to thin out, I noticed that the white men were apt to drop into a vacant seat themselves, while the Negro porters were careful to wait until the women sat down before they took advantage of any vacant seats.

A white woman in the Hyde Park district said to one of the investigators:

On the street cars I would rather ride with Negro gentlemen than with many of our so-called white gentlemen. A Negro man who has the slightest training is courteous and genuinely so. My children use the street car every day to go to the Hyde Park High School, and it's not the Negro men on the street cars I hate to think of; it's the cheap white men. A very rough element of whites congregate every night on Lake Park near Fifty-first Street--hoodlums that the colored people living there must fear.

No case of attempted familiarity by a Negro man toward a white woman on the street cars was reported to the Commission. Cases were reported, however, of accidental contacts between Negro men and white women which might easily have been misunderstood, but which seemed to the investigator, a white woman, to be due to the clumsiness of southern rural Negroes in crowded cars. Two such cases follow:

I was on a Madison car going west. A number of Negroes got on at the Northwestern Station. The car was crowded, and I felt someone in the aisle leaning heavily against my shoulder. I was very much annoyed and glanced up. I saw that the man was a Negro about twenty years old. He was with a girl, obviously his sister, who was also standing in the aisle. They both had childlike faces, and I could see that he was quite unaware that he was leaning against me. I didn't say anything, as the car was really crowded.

* * * * *

I was in the aisle seat of an Illinois Central suburban car about 5:00 P.M., waiting for the train to start. A Negro man standing in the aisle next to me suddenly leaned against my shoulder so hard that it hurt. I looked up at him resentfully but he didn't notice me. He looked as though he had been picked up in a little western town and dumped down in a city for the first time. He had a wide western hat on, and his face was lean and weatherbeaten. I take it he was about fifty years old. He was in animated conversation with a woman in a seat behind me. This woman had many bundles. Apparently they wanted to find seats together. Soon another man joined them who had been scouting for seats in the car ahead, and they all set out together for another car. They were so concentrated on this problem of getting a seat that they didn't know there was anyone else in the car. They lunged down the aisle knocking against people as they went along, but no one paid any particular attention to them.

Another case of accidental contact, showing an attitude of suspicion on the part of a white woman, was reported by a Negro Y.M.C.A. secretary:

I was on a street car going west through the "Loop" on Madison Street. A colored man, apparently a workman, was sitting across the aisle from me, looking out of the window, with his left arm stretched along the back of the seat. A white woman came in, glanced at the vacant seat beside me, and sat down beside the colored man across the aisle. He looked around and saw the woman sitting in the seat, and apparently was confused. He attempted to remove his arm, and in doing so his arm brushed across the woman's shoulder. She got right up and exclaimed: "How dare you put your arm around me?" The man looked at her dumbly, his face the picture of excitement and wonder. I said to the lady, "I was watching this man and he was honestly trying to remove his arm from the back of the seat. I think he was more surprised to find you there than anything else, and the whole thing was sheer accident." She wanted to know what I had to do with it, and I simply said I wouldn't like to see a matter of that kind misunderstood. She resumed her seat beside the colored man and nothing further happened.

Many cases of improper advances by white men toward Negro women were reported to the Commission by Negro women, well known to the Commission, whose character is beyond question. The following are typical:

Going south on a State Street car to Fifty-third Street, I noticed a man in the aisle staring at me. He kept moving down nearer and nearer to my seat and sat down in front of me. He handed me a note written on a scrap of newspaper. I opened it because I was curious to know what his motive was. He was a young man, in his twenties, and well dressed. He had written down his name and telephone number and the words: "Call me for a date."

* * * * *

I remember one man especially, because I used to ride downtown on the same car he took every morning. The first time I ever saw him, he stared at me a great deal and when I got off the car, he got off too. As he got off he said to me, "Don't take that car, wait for the other one." I noticed then that he went over to the corner and took a car going in the opposite direction from mine. I saw him lots of times after that, and he always got just as close as he could and stared. I always arranged it so that he could not sit next to me.

* * * * *

I was on the elevated with a friend the other day. We were sitting on end seats. A man got up to give a white woman his seat and then came over and stood close to us. He stood with his legs against my friend's knees, until she jerked around and sat facing me. Then he tried standing close to me. He had me so hedged in I could hardly move, and I had to make a very abrupt movement to get away. He moved on after a while.

What may be done to prevent misunderstanding and check in its incipiency trouble which might easily and suddenly become serious, is illustrated in the action of a white woman, a resident of the Chicago Commons Social Settlement:

One evening, soon after the race riot in July, 1919, I was riding on a State Street car, going south from Grand Avenue. I had only ridden a block, when there was a general stir in the car, a young woman fainted, and I learned that the conductor had been struck and his cap knocked off. Word went around the car that a "nigger" did it. Ugly remarks were being made and I feared there would be trouble. I stepped to the back of the car and asked two colored women if they knew who struck the conductor. One said, "He looked like a colored man," the other said, "I don't know." Then I asked the conductor, in a voice loud enough so that the rest of the car could hear me, whether it was a white or a black man that struck him and why. He said: "It was a white man. I wouldn't let him bring his big drum on the platform, it was too crowded." Having learned this, I turned to two young couples who were still showing much feeling and said, "A white man struck the conductor." The whole car then quieted down, and there was no more feeling.

Most of the difficulties in transportation contacts reported and generally complained of seem to have centered around the first blundering efforts of migrants to adjust themselves to northern city life. The efforts of agencies interested in assisting this adjustment, together with the Negro press, and the intimate criticisms and suggestion for proper conduct of Chicago Negroes, have smoothed down many of the roughnesses of the migrants, and as a result friction from contact in transportation seems to have lessened materially.

E. CONTACTS IN OTHER RELATIONS

Here are included:

I. Contacts in public places, such as restaurants, department stores, theaters, and personal-service places.

II. "Black and tan" resorts, which present a much-criticized association because of the vicious elements of whites and Negroes in contact there.

III. Cultural contacts which indicate associations on a purely intellectual basis.

IV. Contacts in co-operative efforts for race betterment, which includes most of the social organizations working among Negroes.

I. CONTACTS IN PUBLIC PLACES

On the street, in public conveyances, stores, restaurants, and commercial places of amusement, contacts of races and nationalities are unavoidable and have not the supervision that is common in schools or even public amusement places.

Where large numbers of Negroes live there are theaters, restaurants, stores, barber shops, and personal-service places, which are used by Negroes in the proportion in which they predominate in the population of the area. In any or all of these places, however, white persons are served.

The business district along State Street between Twenty-sixth and Forty-seventh, and on the car-line cross-streets, is maintained partly by, and largely for, the Negro residents in the general neighborhood. Since, however, about 50 per cent of the population is white, there are personal-service places which are used almost exclusively by whites. Barber shops are wholly exclusive, and several restaurants attempt to make themselves so. For example:

At Thirty-first Street and Indiana Avenue, in the heart of the Negro residence area, a restaurant proprietor maintains an L-shaped establishment. Fronting on Thirty-first Street is a neatly arranged and well-kept dining-room, with tables for ladies, and a lunch counter with white waiters. Fronting on Indiana Avenue is a narrow, dark dining-room, with a counter served by colored waitresses. It is not kept neatly, and is not so well supplied. Both dining-rooms are served from the kitchen in the corner of the L, and patrons in either dining-room would never suspect that there were two dining-rooms with connection through this kitchen. At the time of the investigation, the dining-rooms had different names.

Negroes entering the Indiana Avenue dining-room are given prompt service. If they enter the Thirty-first Street room they are given indifferent service, are required to wait long and the service given them is reluctant and discourteous.

At another restaurant in the same neighborhood, similar means are used to discourage Negro patronage. Sometimes in addition to long waiting and discourtesy, food is spoiled. For example, egg shells are placed in egg orders, and salt is poured into the food.

In the districts where whites predominate, the measures taken to exclude Negroes are very definite. In a lunchroom near Forty-third Street and Vincennes Avenue, a well-educated, well-appearing young Negro had the following experience:

I went into the restaurant about two o'clock June 13, and sat about four seats from the front at a counter. After about ten minutes the waiter came and asked me to move to a seat at the rear of the counter. I asked him why and he told me he could not serve me where I was sitting. He said the management reserved the right to seat its guests, and pointed to a sign on the wall bearing that notice. I asked him if he could not serve me just as well where I was sitting as on the rear counter. He said maybe he could, but it was a rule of the house not to, and he would not. I left without being served.

Another Negro experience in a lunchroom on Forty-third Street near the Elevated is thus described: "Service given was very poor. When protest was made, the police were called and the young man was arrested for disorderly conduct. The case was dismissed."

Fifty-ninth and Halsted streets: "Service refused in a Swedish café. No witnesses."

Near Berwyn and Broadway (North Side): "Service refused, and investigator ordered out."

In the "Loop," experiences are widely varied. In all of the following cases, carefully selected investigators were sent and asked to report in detail what happened. It is possible to gather large numbers of personal experiences, from any group of Negroes, but as the facts cannot be verified they have not been used. These instances usually go unnoticed by all but the participants, except where the parties offended may secure witnesses among the guests present, which is difficult.

At a large, popular, general restaurant on Randolph Street, two women investigators had this typical experience showing how a manager can refuse service, and still attempt to keep within the law:

Entered about 7:30 P.M. The restaurant was well filled; I counted only six vacant tables. A woman head waitress took us through the main dining-room to the annex, where another head waitress preceded us down the length of the room to a corner table in the rear. There was a vacant table on either side of us. We waited almost a half hour, with no attention, until a couple was seated at the next table. When the waitress brought water to them she also brought water to us. She took the orders for both tables. Mrs. H---- ordered steak, salad and tea. I ordered chicken salad and tea. Steak and potatoes were served to the next table in about ten minutes. The waitress came to me and said the chef said he was out of chicken. I ordered steak. After another long period of waiting, she came back and said, "The chef says he is out of small steaks." I asked, "What have you?" She said she would go and see. She did not return, but after about fifteen minutes a man came to our table, put his hands on it, leaned down and said, "Do you want to see me?" Although I suspected he was the manager, he had not said so, and I replied, "Who are you? I don't know anything about you. No, we don't want to see you." He then said, "I am the manager. What do you want?" "I came to be served with dinner." He replied, "We have nothing to serve you." I asked, "Why, what is the reason?" He replied "There is no reason; we haven't anything to serve you." He was evidently cautious to keep within the letter of the law, but was determined that we should not be served. He would give no reason, simply repeating his former statement. We left without further discussion, and without being served.

Mrs. T---- says the waitress was courteous, and evidently regretful of the embarrassment of repeated refusal to serve. None of the patrons sitting near made any protest at their presence. It has been her experience that patrons, waitresses, ushers in theaters rarely show any hesitancy in accepting the presence of colored people who are orderly and self-respecting. Almost invariably the disagreeable incidents happen through the management, or through the carrying out of orders.

An interview with the manager of this restaurant was willingly given to a white investigator who later visited the place, and questions were answered freely and carefully. He said he had a number of Negro friends and appreciated the differences in them, as he did in whites. The main points in a long discussion of restaurant management in general, and the particular problem with reference to serving Negroes, he summed up as follows:

In the past five years, only one Negro has been served in this restaurant. She came in with a southern family as maid to a small child. The family was told that she could be served at a table with them, or in a side room, but could not be served at an adjoining table, even with the child. After some discussion, the maid ate at one end of a long table with the child, while the family sat at the other end.

At the time of the recent instance, when the two Negro women came in, the manager was not in the restaurant. From what he was told of the incident, he thinks he should have asked them to come to the office, and explained the situation to them. He had no doubt they would have understood, as he has always found intelligent Negroes readily responsive to the things which might be injurious to their relations with whites.

Before he was manager, a man brought in two Negroes, seemingly to get a basis for a suit and damages. The manager offered to serve them in a side room, but refused service in the main dining-room. They left without being served, and nothing further was heard from them.

In former years he had seen dishes broken in the presence of Negroes after being used in high-grade restaurants where their patronage was not wanted.

Barring Negroes was not personal, he said. A successful restaurant must watch closely the desires of its patrons, and not allow anything to interfere with smooth running. Complaints are made after each appearance of Negroes. He did not know what he would do if Negroes insisted on being served, but was firm that no Negro could be served in the main dining-rooms. He would vary procedure to suit the circumstances.

The following case, illustrative of the witnesses and testimony necessary to a court decision, was tried before Judge Adams, and damages of $100 with costs were awarded:

In August, 1920, Miss Lillian Beale, Negro secretary to Miss Amelia Sears, white, superintendent of the United Charities, went as the guest of her employer to a candy shop and lunch room on Michigan Avenue. They seated themselves and remained for two hours without service. During this time several friends of Miss Sears came in, were served and left, all of them commenting on the apparently deliberate oversight of the party. They remained for some time and left. Suit was brought against the company, supported by Miss Sears and her friends. At the first hearing it was stated that the waitress was ill at a hospital in Cincinnati. The judge, however, was insistent, and she was produced. When placed on the stand she admitted, contrary to the expectations of the management, that she had been ordered by the management not to serve any colored persons at any time. Miss Beale was awarded and collected damages of $100 and costs.

Eight months later, in July, 1921, a test was made of the same restaurant. Two Negro women went together to the restaurant, and a white woman observer went along to watch what might happen. Their reports agree and are as follows:

Time, one o'clock. Restaurant 50 per cent filled. Mrs. L---- and Mrs. S---- came in and seated themselves at a table for two near the center of the room. Waitress followed usual routine of bringing water, taking order, etc. Service of a table d'hôte luncheon was prompt and courteous. No inattention was observed, nor any disturbance on part of neighbors. Two white women came in and seated themselves at the next table, though there were several others vacant.

Two other Negro women and a white observer were sent to another restaurant operating under the same firm name. It was reported by the white observer as follows:

Restaurant two thirds filled--12 o'clock. Mostly women patrons, though a fair number of men alone, and of couples use this restaurant. Mrs. T---- and her friend came in through the long passage by the candy counter, and crossed to a table for two in the middle of the room. The manager, who is a young woman of considerable poise and ability, came at once and gave them water, took their order, and later served them. Two young white women at an adjoining table moved, but it may have been because they were sitting with strangers and preferred a table for two. After finishing my lunch, I joined Mrs. T---- and her friend, and the manager kept us under observation, but nothing was said.

In a subsequent interview with the manager at the general office of this chain of tea rooms cautiously worded replies were made to questions, with constant reiteration of the statement, "But you know we must serve them." In general it was said:

Negro patrons are infrequent, and there has been no noticeable increase. After many cases, complaint is made by white patrons, either in person or by letter, to the effect that if the tea room caters to Negroes, the white patrons will no longer use it. They had never known of a case of objectionable conduct but whites simply objected to their presence.

No instructions were given waitresses, but each case was handled by the head waitress as it occurred. Some girls made no objections to waiting on Negroes, and some refused to do it, but each attitude is individual, and not from instructions. No question that Negro patronage would hurt any high-grade place, as white patrons would be likely to leave. Rights did not enter into the problem--simply a matter of profitable business.

Interviews with managers of tea rooms in department stores brought out uniformity of attitude and of practice, as is shown in the following reports:

The manager of one tea room is a young woman of considerable experience. She was emphatic in saying that Negroes were not wanted, and that every effort would be made to discourage their coming. Considerable personal feeling was manifested in her statements.

Not enough Negroes can afford to pay the prices in high-grade restaurants to make them a real problem, and stray cases are handled as they appear. The effort was made to make them feel uncomfortable so they would not return. Slow service, indifferent attention were given, but there was no overcharging, and no spoiling of food.

Had never observed any objectionable conduct. Objections of white patrons was only reason. Especially difficult in summer, when many southern white people come to Chicago as a summer resort.

Waitresses are largely young married women with spare time. Manager finds them more unwilling than regular waitresses to give service to Negroes.

At another tea room practically the same statements were made, and the following instance was given: "Last winter a telephone reservation was made for a large luncheon party--about forty. When the group arrived, it was a club of colored women. Screens were placed around the tables, and luncheon served. A rule was then made and enforced that no telephone reservations would be made."

Following are reports from investigators seeking to learn at which restaurants, tea rooms, and lunch counters, service would be given to Negroes:

We had been shopping down town, and went into ----'s on State Street to get a light lunch. There were vacant tables and we sat down. No one came to wait on us. After waiting until several persons who had come in after us had been served, I went to one of the men who appeared to be the manager, and asked him why we were not served. He did not respond very cordially, but sent a girl. We ordered several dishes from the card, and were told that they were "just out." Although orders were being served, the girl stated that they were "just out" of everything we ordered. To cover our embarrassment, we practically begged her to serve us cups of chocolate. She gave us the chocolate and our check; we paid it and left.

* * * * *

Mrs. T---- and Mrs. -- were served promptly and without incident in a well-known candy store in the shopping district on State Street. Mrs. T---- says that for many years this place has been known for its courtesy to colored people. Soon after it was opened, about World's Fair year, Mrs. ----, a Negro woman, was refused service by a waitress. She reported the fact to the owner, who investigated, and finding her statement correct, discharged the waitress. He made the rule that every patron was entitled to prompt, courteous service, and that discharge would follow any justified complaint. Although the store has been under other management for many years, later adding light luncheons to candy and soft drinks, the tradition has continued. Mrs. T---- says neither waitress nor patrons paid any attention to the serving of two colored women.

This case, involving three races, was reported from one of the Chinese restaurants on South Wabash Avenue:

About 7:00 P.M. we entered a Chinese restaurant. There were three or four white couples eating in the main dining-room, and two in booths. A Japanese waiter ushered us toward the furthest booth at the rear of the room. "I prefer sitting in the main dining-room," I said. He replied, "I can't serve you here." "Why?" "These seats are reserved. I will serve you in there [pointing to the booth] but not out here." We left.

One of the largest chains of cafeterias in Chicago is noted for the fairness of its treatment of Negroes, but even here there are exceptions. One of the Commission's staff observed two incidents within a short time in the same cafeteria of this system and reported them as follows:

Just in line before me was a small, quiet, well-dressed colored woman. She passed the checker, carried her tray to an unoccupied table, and then counted her check. She took her tray back to the checker, and made complaint of overcharge. The checker did not recount, or explain, simply saying, "That is our price." The woman went back to her table, ate, paid, and went out without further protest.

A few nights later, I noticed two young, well-mannered colored girls at a nearby table. As I went out I met the manager and said to him, "Do many Negroes come here to eat?" He said, "No, occasionally they come in, but they don't come back more than once, or at most twice." "How do you manage it?" "Well, under the law, we can't refuse to let them eat, but we can charge them any price we like. The first time we charge them enough to keep them from coming back. Then if they persist and come again, as soon as they go down the line, I see to it that something is put in their food which makes it taste bad--salt or Epsom salts. They never come back after that." After a pause he added, "You know we are within the law. We can't have them coming here--it would ruin our trade."

In the inexpensive restaurants on the edge of the "Loop," various practices are followed, as indicated by the following reports:

Miss B. S. met a friend and went into the ---- Cafeteria on Lake Street, near State, upstairs. They were served, but the waiter put screens around their table while they were eating.

* * * * *

In May, 1921, I went to a lunchroom on Van Buren Street to get a lunch at noon. Six or seven men were at the counter, and were served as fast as they came in. Finally all seats were filled and three waiters were doing nothing, so I asked to be served. The waiter pretended not to hear me, then said roughly, "What do you want?" I said, "I do not know until I get a bill of fare." He pitched it at me and I asked for some baked beans. He stuck his head through the chef's window and gave my order. He brought me a plate on which were fourteen beans, and one small roll. I asked for a glass of water and he brought me a half-glass. I asked for butter (which had been served with two rolls to white patrons) and he said it would cost me a nickel. He said with emphasis, "It will cost _you_ a nickel." I said, "You give me the butter, and then watch me and see if I pay for it." I asked for some pie and he gave me a piece about half the size he was serving the others. Then he said again, "Remember that butter will cost you a nickel extra." I said, "I won't pay it." He said, "You will pay for that dinner before you eat a bite of it." I said, "No chance, because I am not going to pay you at all, either before or after I eat. After I have finished I will pay the cashier at the desk." He looked at me hard and I kept on eating. Then he threw me down a check for 25 cents. I said, "Brother, you are wrong. My bill is only 20 cents. Your menu says beans are 15 cents and pie is 5 cents, and you gave me only one roll when to all of the others you served two." He said again, "I told you your butter would cost you a nickel." I said, "Now, you watch me right close when I go out and see if I pay for it." I told the cashier that my check called for 25 cents when it should be 20, "beans 15, pie 5, and if you can make 25 out of that all right." She said, "You know I have to collect what the check calls for, or else make good myself." I told her I appreciated her position but would not pay 25 cents for a 20-cent lunch. Then my waiter stepped up with an iron tap in his hand, and said, "I told you that butter would cost you a nickel, and now you pay it or else----." I said, I will "else," and laid down twenty cents and walked out. At the door he gave me a push but did not strike me.

The white proprietor of a drug-store in a residence neighborhood volunteered this story to a member of the Commission's staff:

Several years ago, there was a fine old colored man who used to come in frequently to buy drugs, supplies, etc. One day he came in with his wife, sat down at one of the little tables, and asked for soda water. My clerk refused to serve them, and the idea occurred to me that I would serve them myself in such a way that there would be no possibility that they would ever come back. I compounded a vile concoction and served it to them. They tasted it, paid for it, thanked me, and went out without making any complaint. I have never got over feeling mean about it. I not only humiliated them, and insulted them, but I cheated them out of their money.

An instance of unusual absence of friction in contacts under conditions which might be expected to produce it was given by a white woman who visited a restaurant patronized by many whites and Negroes:

In talking with Mr. O---- he asked me, "Would you consider it possible that you would voluntarily go into a restaurant and eat your lunch where you might have a Negro sitting on the next stool, or perhaps one on either side of you at a table?" I answered promptly, "No, I can't imagine it." He said, "A year ago I wouldn't have imagined such a thing possible myself, but now I do it quite frequently. There is a restaurant across the street from my office, right here in the heart of the Negro district, which a few years ago was a very good one, with regular table service, excellent food, and all the rest. Last year it was changed into a sort of a cafeteria, with a lunch counter down one side, and some tables. You get your knife and fork, go to the serving counter, and a man gives you on a plate whatever you order. The other day I found myself between two colored men, and took a good look at the restaurant. There is absolutely no disturbance, or even consciousness of any reason for disturbance."

Today I decided I would try it myself. The restaurant has no frills; it is simply an eating-place. I chose a corner seat at a table, because I could see all over the room. As I sat down, a courteous arm reached across the table to shove back the used dishes. I looked up to say "thank you," and found a good-looking young colored man opposite. No further attention was paid to me, nor was there any consciousness in his face, other than courtesy. In a few minutes, two young white truck drivers took the other places at my table. They were in working jeans, and except that the color was blue instead of khaki, looked just like the young soldiers in transport service who used to come into my canteen in France. At the next table was a quietly dressed young colored girl eating her lunch in a business-like way. A young white father brought in his little daughter. At the long lunch counter were neighborhood business men, white and colored, some professional men, each taking whatever stool happened to be vacant. Occasionally a truck driver or roughly dressed working man came in. Even the white dandy, immaculate in linen and with a cane hooked over his arm, took his cup of coffee to the counter and sat between a laborer and a business man.

In theaters, as in restaurants, there are petty evasions of the law, disagreeable encounters, and small but insistent snobberies. A colored investigator reported the result of a test of the purchase of tickets for a play which had had a long run, as follows:

On July 5 I went down to the ---- theater and asked the ticket seller if I could get two seats for Thursday or Friday night between the third and ninth rows, center. She hunted out two seats in the ninth row for Thursday. I said, "If you have them I would prefer them for Friday." I asked the price, paid her, and she thanked me.

Friday, I went to the theater, and handed the doorman my tickets. He tore off the coupons, and directed me to the main-floor door. The lady usher seated us three rows from the back on the aisle. I counted and found that I was in the seventeenth row. I went to the usher and said, "I beg your pardon, but you seated me in the wrong place." She took the coupons, said, "Wait a second," and started out with them. I followed to see that she did not exchange my coupons. She went to the lobby and talked with the manager. He looked at me and said, "Well, seat them; there is nothing else to do now." She went back, gave my coupons to another usher, who asked her if I was to be seated in the seats the coupons called for. She answered, "I guess so." Then we were shown to the correct seats. There was no protest from those around us.

The manager of this theater was later interviewed. He had been in Chicago only a few months and was not at all interested in the general question of race relations, but was decided in his opinion that the attendance of Negroes in any high-class theater was not desirable. His views were about as follows:

Not many Negroes buy seats down stairs. Usually the ticket seller gives them tickets in the balcony or gallery and on the side aisles. Usually had complaints from white patrons if they found a Negro seated near them, especially if there were ladies in the party. It was not that the conduct of the Negroes was objectionable, but their mere presence was objectionable. If Negroes present tickets for the best main-floor seats, ushers try to put them in less conspicuous places. If they insist on taking their seats as shown on tickets, nothing can be done. If white patrons object, every effort is made to change their seats. Usual objection is offensive odor and proximity.

In making the study of theaters, certain tests were established. A Negro would ask at the box-office for seats on the main floor within certain rows and on the aisle. In the preceding report it will be noted that seats were sold readily, but some difficulty was found in using them. In the next report, conditions were reversed:

Mr. J----, Negro, asked for tickets, and was told that there was nothing on the main floor further in front than the twenty-third row. Miss H----, white, who was standing by him as he made the request, and heard the answer, moved up to the window and was immediately and without any remark, sold tickets in the seventeenth row on the aisle.

These tickets were presented by Mr. and Mrs. S----, Negroes. They report:

We arrived at 8:15, five minutes before the opening of the performance. The ticket taker tore off our stubs and returned them to us without any hesitancy. The ushers, who were women, glanced at the seat numbers and directed us to our seats, which were in a very conspicuous location on the first floor. They were in the seventeenth row, on the aisle. The people around us, even the ones immediately next to us, were not in the least concerned at our presence. The treatment accorded us in general could not have been surpassed.

A different report comes from another "Loop" theater, which has always been rather conservative in the standard of plays which it presents:

My husband and I wished to see a play at ---- Theater, and bought seats several days in advance that we might have a choice. When we were shown to our seats, however, we were surprised to find that our tickets called for seats in the gallery, and in a corner which did not afford a view, and made them more than undesirable. We noticed that there were several vacant seats in the balcony, also on the first floor. My husband went to the box office and tried to exchange the seats. The ticket seller refused to make the exchange and also became insulting in his remarks to us. Afterwards we made the attempt to secure seats on the first floor of this same theater several days in advance of the performance which we wished to attend. We were told there were no seats on the first floor which we could get.

A contrasting experience follows:

On Tuesday I went to the ---- Theater, and applied for two tickets on the main floor, center aisle, between the third and eleventh rows. The ticket seller stated politely that he had two tickets in the ninth row on the left. When we attended the performance, nothing unusual occurred. Other patrons made no comment, and in no way could we observe any objection made to our presence. There were no other Negroes at the performance.

Reports of investigators indicate that the managers of movies are convinced that their main floors, at least, should be guarded against Negroes. In most of the commercial amusement places, Negroes seldom have difficulty if they are willing to sit in the balcony, though attempts are frequently made to seat them on the aisles next to the walls, even when there are center seats empty. It is rare that any report is obtained of objections by white patrons to the actual presence of Negroes when they are well-mannered, well-dressed, and appreciative auditors.

As a rule movie theaters do not sell reserved seats, general admission entitling any patron to any seat in the house. But the following detailed report of the experience of two intelligent, well-dressed, quiet-mannered Negro women at a new movie theater on State Street is typical:

Purchased tickets, and entered the large lobby which extends across the front of the house. From this lobby there are closed doors at the entrance of several aisles, so that patrons are directed by ushers to different aisles, supposedly wherever there are vacant seats. We followed directions, and went to the extreme left of the lobby. We opened the door, and the usher in charge of this aisle started down toward the front to show us seats. We saw at once that the narrow section of seats next to the wall was empty except for one colored woman sitting about the middle of the section. Instead of following the usher down the aisle, and taking seats indicated to the right of this section, we turned through a row of empty seats on the left-hand section, and sat next to a woman in the aisle seat. This put us two rows from the rear in a side middle section, instead of in the section which seemed to be reserved for colored patrons, next to the wall. As the usher returned to his station he said, "We have some lovely seats in the balcony; wouldn't you prefer sitting there?" He was courteous, and I thanked him, telling him that we were quite satisfied with the seats we had taken.

Later, seeing two vacant seats further front in the center section which gave us a much better view we decided to take them and see what would happen. As we rose, the usher tried to block us by putting his hands on the back of the seat in front, and saying, "I am sorry that you can't take those seats." I brushed by him and took one of the seats. He tried the same thing with Mrs. H----, and she also brushed by and joined me. There were scattered vacant seats both in the section we left and the one to which we moved. We remained until the end of the show without embarrassment.

The manager of this theater has had many years of experience in Chicago, and was quite willing to discuss race contacts. Nothing in his words would indicate any strong prejudice against Negroes, even when expressing his conviction that they should keep to places intended especially for them. He said, in substance:

Not many Negroes buy tickets--perhaps ten or a dozen a day. An effort is made to seat them in one section of the house, preferably the balcony, to which they are directed by ushers. Reason is the complaint by white patrons who object to sitting next to them for an hour, or hour and a half. Offensive odor reason usually given. White patrons often complain to manager as they go out if Negro has been sitting near them.

Conduct of Negroes is not often objectionable--runs about the same as all patrons. Occasionally one tries to "start something." Recently two Negroes came to manager in crowded lobby after they had attended the show and objected to their seats on the balcony to which they had been sent by ushers, saying there were vacant seats on the main floor. Wanted to know why they were discriminated against. Manager did not want an argument in the presence of other patrons, and told them that as they had seen the show, heard the music, and shared everything with other patrons, he did not see they had any real cause for complaint. Called attention to the notice printed on almost every theater ticket in some form or other to the effect that the management reserves the right to revoke the license granted in the sale of the ticket, by refunding the money paid.

The same two women bought tickets the next day and attended a movie in an older and very popular "Loop" theater. They reported that they had no difficulty of any kind.

On a test made of a new and popular movie theater in an outlying section the investigator reported:

There were four of us in the party on June 5. We were told by the usher that there were no seats on the first floor, and that we would find seats in the first balcony. I think he was right, for there were white people also sent to the balcony. We were ushered in promptly, but another usher met us and said, "Right on up to the second balcony." We said we preferred seats in the first balcony, and walked by him. He went and got two more ushers and stood in front of us to prevent us from going into the first balcony, insisting that there were no seats there. One of the young ladies stepped around the usher, and saw three vacant seats. She called them to the attention of the usher, and he then said he meant there were no seats for four. Two of our party took those seats, and the other two waited about twenty minutes till they could get the seats they wanted. After getting into the first balcony, we saw vacant seats in at least four rows, two, three, and four seats together into which we might quietly have gone had the usher been courteous.

On June 18, 1920, a well-known Negro employed in the City Hall was denied admission to a movie theater at Halsted and Sixty-third streets. There is a small but long-established Negro colony about a mile west of this location.

In business places of various kinds, contacts are determined largely by the kind of service offered. Department-store managers questioned by investigators concerning their Negro patronage and the use of Negro girls as clerks, stated that the public had definite preferences, and probably would not willingly tolerate Negroes either as patrons or as clerks. In stores selling general merchandise, courteous treatment is, as a rule, accorded to Negro patrons, although there are occasional annoying incidents. The attitude then taken is determined by the standing and influence of the Negroes discriminated against. For instance:

At one of the largest department stores, two Negro women, both school teachers, were refused service in the basement shoe department. The clerks refused to fit shoes for them. A Negro alderman became interested in this case, and because of refusal of service, canceled his account.

The wife of a prominent Negro attorney went into a State Street candy store and was flatly refused service. Her husband brought suit and got damages.

Miss V---- was refused service at a large State Street department store by one of the clerks. The manager was interviewed and the clerk reprimanded and transferred. On the second visit, Miss V---- received attention.

In residence areas which are largely white, certain stores practice a peculiar subversion of the law in the effort to regulate contacts. A Negro resident of Woodlawn stated that his seven-year-old daughter had gone to the store to purchase goods for a costume to wear at a school entertainment. She was given material for which she had not asked, which she did not want, and for which she was overcharged. Frightened at the manners of the clerk, she took it. When it was returned, the clerk was extremely abusive, and told her that colored people were not wanted in the store. The little girl had, according to her parents, made a mistake in entering the store. Her parents were acquainted with the attitude of the management and avoided the place. In the following reports, there is evident the sense of injustice felt by both whites and Negroes concerned in the contacts:

Miss S. T---- wrote a prominent musical college and made arrangements for taking the summer normal-training courses. Her tuition fee was accepted, and the classes arranged. On her arrival, the manager received the balance of her money for the entire course, but told her the classes she wanted were full, and she would have to take private lessons with another teacher. The teacher of the desired classes told her the manager had not been frank, and that he feared the objection of southern white girls in the classes. Miss T---- made repeated attempts to get into the classes, but each time was told to apply again. This she did until it was too late to catch up with her back work. Other pupils were given prompt admission to the classes.

Two investigators were instructed to go to a public restroom in a large office building on State Street where there are many small shops selling women's wearing apparel. Their experience follows:

On July 6, at one P.M. with Mrs. H----, I visited the public restroom in the ---- building. It is on the eleventh floor, on the main hall, and the door to the suite of rooms stood open. On one side of the entrance hall there is a small room used for a shoe-shining, with a Negro in attendance. Next on the same side is a large lavatory. Facing the outside door is the entrance to the restroom proper, which is large enough for ten or fifteen women, and is fitted up with wicker chairs, lounge, table, etc.

As we were about to enter the restroom, the woman in charge stood with her arm across the door, and said, "You are not to go in there; you may go into the lavatory." We asked why, and she said, "Those are the orders of the office." We went into the restroom, and she did not offer any opposition, but a little later came to us and said, "You are not allowed in here. You will have to see the manager."

I asked the attendant for the manager's name and room number, which she gave me. I related the incident to him. He told me that the attendant had informed me correctly, that the eleventh-floor restroom was reserved for "white folks" and that "colored folks" were not allowed to use it. They could use a restroom on the nineteenth floor set aside for colored employees of the building, and for any "colored folks" who might come into the building. He said it was one of the "iron-clad rules of the man who owned the building," and that "the attendant had it down in black and white."

Difficulties of this sort which confront Negroes and the efforts by Negroes to share equal treatment in public accommodations as well as the experiences met with when cases reach the courts were commented upon by Judge Cook, of the municipal court, in testimony before the Commission. He said:

During the earlier part of 1918 I sat in what was known as the criminal jury branch. That is the branch to which were assigned all criminal cases in the municipal court where the defendants demanded a trial by jury and were not tried at the police station. Among them were cases involving violations of what is known as the civil-rights law, where a colored man had a druggist or the proprietor of a moving picture or legitimate theater arrested for refusing to serve him soda water or refreshments at the drug store or to furnish him admission by ticket at a movie or legitimate theater, or if he did furnish him admission by selling him a ticket, limiting the ticket which he would sell to some undesirable portion of the house or to the gallery and not to the main floor, claiming that the theater was crowded downstairs and that there were no seats.

I suppose I tried during the early part of 1918 and the summer of 1919 probably a half-dozen of those civil-rights cases. In every one of them that I tried, there was virtually a clear case against the defendant. The jury in every instance was practically a white jury, or may have had one or two colored men. Notwithstanding that I gave very positive and clear instructions as to what the law was--to wit, that they were entitled to equal rights and privileges in public places and that if the jury believed from the evidence that the plaintiff was not accorded such right, there was a violation of the law and the defendant should be punished, and after elaborate argument by counsel for both the prosecution and the defendant (and by parenthesis I may say in all of these cases the state's attorney prosecuted vigorously), the jury, notwithstanding the plain evidence and the instructions of the court, went out and in about such time as it would take them to sign the verdict and return to court, would bring in a verdict of "Not Guilty."

Of course in the criminal court in a case of that kind, the jury is the judge of both the law and the fact. Therefore, I was not in a position to grant a new trial. The white jury simply say that law was not the law in Illinois or they would not convict under such circumstances, and having once acquitted the man the court and the state were without any remedy. Now I have always thought that was unjust.

It was his opinion that those Negroes who did bring cases into court made a mistake in prosecuting them from a criminal standpoint. It seemed to be, in his opinion, hopeless for Negroes to assert their rights through the criminal courts.

Another judge of long experience in the Chicago courts expressed the view that few Negroes brought in cases involving discrimination. He thought that especially the better class of Negroes would not bring them because of the unpleasantness involved and because the damages obtained in most cases would not pay the attorney's charges. "Most Negroes," he said, "have found out by experience what the actual feeling is and act accordingly, trying to avoid unpleasant experiences as much as possible. Although there would be no trouble in getting a verdict in any clear case, the amount obtained would not compensate for the trouble involved." He did not believe that any jury would convict a white defendant on a criminal charge of discrimination. A prominent Negro attorney, who formerly held a responsible state office, in giving his general experience said:

In cases involving only Negroes on each side, both judges and juries will act squarely between them; in cases involving white defendants and Negro plaintiffs, the tendency is to give considerably less credibility or weight to Negro testimony; in cases involving Negro defendants and white plaintiffs, the tendency is to give more weight to white testimony.

He stated further that in discrimination cases, where the law had been clearly violated, there was usually no difficulty in getting a verdict and damages for $25 and up, but that he did not care much about handling such cases and Negroes did not care to push them, because they were unpleasant and expensive.

II. "BLACK AND TAN" RESORTS

The intimate association of Negroes and whites in the cabarets of the South Side has occasioned frequent and heated protests. Negro men are there seen with white women and white men with Negro women. Although mixed couples constitute somewhat less than 10 per cent of the patronage, this mingling is used to characterize all of the association there. These resorts, with their liquor selling and coarse and vulgar dancing, are highly dangerous to morals and established law and order, and a nuisance to the neighborhoods in which they are located. They are used as amusement places, both by white couples living in other sections of the city and by Negro couples who live near them. In fact, although many of the resorts are patronized by an equal number of whites and Negroes, the actual mixed couples are few. The habitués of these resorts are usually of an irresponsible type of pleasure seekers, and frequently they are vicious and immoral. Newspapers and several of the civic agencies have violently criticized these places as a menace, but in their attacks the emphasis has usually been shifted from the menace to morals to that of arousing sentiment against the mingling of races. The police on numbers of occasions have been urged to close the places in which this form of association took place. In most cases they have not done so, stating as their reason that, although mingling was undesirable, there was no law prohibiting such contacts, and that evidence of violations of such laws as those concerning liquor selling or decency would be necessary to warrant their closing.

During 1920 the Negro press began a series of attacks on violations of law and against the immoral resorts in the Negro residence areas, including the so-called "black and tan" cabarets, some of which were the most notorious violators. This was followed by similar attacks from the white local newspapers. The emphasis in the white papers, however, was on the race mingling. An extract from one of the articles in a white paper is given:

"LID" A JOKE AS PEKIN SHIMMIES DEFIANCE OF LAW

LIQUOR, SIRENS, JAZZ, RACE RAINBOW RIOT IN CAFÉ

"Lawless liquor," sensuous "shimmy," solicitous sirens, wrangling waiters, all the tints of the racial rainbow, black and tan and white, dancing, drinking, singing, early Sunday morning at the Pekin café, 2700 South State Street....

"BLACK AND TAN AND WHITE"

The crowd began to arrive. In came a mighty black man with two white girls. A scarred white man entered with three girls, two young and painted, the other merely painted.

Two well dressed youths hopped up the stairs with two timid girls. Seven young men--they looked like back o' the Yards--came with two women, one heavy footed, the other laughing hysterically.

Two fur-coated "high yaller" girls romped up with a slender white man. An attorney gazed happily on the party through horn rimmed glasses. The waiters called, shouted, whistled when each party arrived--a full table meant big tips.

At one o'clock the place was crowded. Meanwhile a syncopating colored man had been vamping cotton field blues on the piano. A brown girl sang.... All the tables were filled at two o'clock, black men with white girls, white men with yellow girls, old, young, all filled with the abandon brought about by illicit whisky and liquor music.... The Pekin is again the Pekin of years ago. Only more so.

The reply of a Negro newspaper to the series of articles in the white press on these resorts expresses the reactions of Negroes to this view:

BLACK AND TANS AND RACE RIOTS

It is an established conviction that the so-called "intermingling of races" in the cabarets of the South Side is a fruitful source of riots. To those whose minds are bent in this belief, the fact that no riot has ever yet started in one of them is of little importance. Men believe, as a rule, most readily what they earnestly wish to believe. It matters little how absurd the proposition, if it expresses a desire they will make of it an everlasting verity even though it costs them the kingdom of heaven. And so it happens that we are told that the Abyssinians burned a flag and almost precipitated a race riot because they happened be to standing in front of the Entertainers' Café where Negroes and white persons dance on the same floor and occasionally together.

To carry further these deductions the United Cigar Store also should be closed because one of the fanatics shot into it and killed a white man. The connection of both of these places with the incident is just about the same, if not a little worse for the cigar store.

The fury back of complaints like that, for instance, of one Mr. Farwell of the Law and Order League invites suspicion. In all seriousness what is this crime of association for which Mr. Farwell would have these places closed? If demoralization of character is more certain in mixed places or liquor sold more openly can it be urged that race contact is responsible? It cannot. The sore point is the contact. These places are located in the most densely populated Negro neighborhoods. Attendance is voluntary and so is whatever amount of association that follows. There is no manhandling of white innocents to force them into the society of Negroes. Neither do Negroes go snooping around the high lights of the West or North sides seeking white companionship. But that is not the point. When this antipathy is analyzed it becomes apparent that there is a well defined intention to prove that any relationship varying too sharply from the master and servant type is wrong. It is the yelp of tribal jealousy. It is the gaunt denial of a fallacious orthodoxy which proclaims that certain instincts will keep certain persons eternally apart. It is that complex of emotion into which all discussions of race relations resolve themselves.

The resentment of Negroes at the poorly veiled thrusts is perfectly justifiable. However unwholesome to morals these places may be they refuse to join in the chorus of hate against amusement places just because they put no restraints upon their associations. They feel that they are human and at liberty to seek pleasure if they so desire where contacts are mutually agreeable. Those who do not care for this contact will stay away. Because a white woman will dance with a colored man or a white man with a colored woman there is no argument that a riot will follow. Persons who dance together are not so likely to fight as persons who stand at a distance and call each other bad names.

Rationally considered there is no ground for these contentions. They are insulting. If danger is ahead for the city when the Irish and Italians visit the same places of amusement or the Swedes and Lithuanians, then some thought will be given by Negroes to eliminating their dangers. There is no point to calling the patrol because Mr. Farwell and the News think it complicates the race question.

This paper condemned all of these places because they were nuisances to the neighborhood--the blacks, the black and tans and the whites--it did not by this condemnation imply that color affects morals.

III. CULTURAL CONTACTS

Contacts of whites and Negroes in institutions of learning, general cultural agencies, and meetings ordinarily involve no friction and are frequently directly beneficial to race relations. Many Negroes visit and use the public libraries. In fact, instances of objections on the part of the public in this institution appear to be extremely few. In the reading-rooms Negroes sit where they wish, and no objections to their presence are noted. At a branch library on Oakwood Boulevard over 70 per cent of the patronage is of Negroes, and, the director says, very cordial relations exist. The civil-service system has made a number of Negroes eligible for positions in the direct public-service branches of the city government. No apparent difficulties or objections have resulted.

The University of Chicago and Northwestern University have for many years had Negro students. There were in 1921 more than sixty at the University of Chicago, and, although many southern white students attend, there have been no conspicuous difficulties resulting from the associations. On the contrary, certain individual Negroes have been very popular with the student body. During the 1920 football season two Negroes were members of the football squad, and for several years the favorite of the "track" was Binga Dismond, a Negro runner.

There is no Negro member of the City Club or of the Woman's City Club, although the question of admitting Negroes has occasionally been discussed. The Chicago Woman's Club has two Negro members, one for more than fifteen years. Negroes, however, have been welcomed to meetings and in some instances have themselves held meetings there.

A few white churches have several Negro members, usually of long standing. There are instances of white churches accepting particular Negro members, with some apprehension that they might bring friends. The Catholic and Christian Science churches welcome the presence of Negroes at their services. There is no Christian Science church exclusively for Negroes, and several hundred Negroes attend the various services of this church.

Many of the more definitely intellectual agencies like the Chicago Ethical Society, the Chicago Rational Society, and the Sunday Evening Club have regular Negro attendance. At the Chicago Rational Society one of the young hostesses is a Negro.

In these forms of contact it is seldom, if ever, that Negroes are discourteously received. This may be due to the relatively high class of whites and Negroes who share these associations.

IV. CONTACTS IN CO-OPERATIVE EFFORTS FOR RACE BETTERMENT

Most of the important social organizations and agencies of the city which aim definitely at the improvement of the Negro group have mixed boards of control and supervision. The philanthropy, business ability, and influence of white members is combined with the influence of Negro members and their intelligent understanding of their own group problems.

The Young Men's Christian Association, the Young Women's Christian Association, the Chicago Urban League, Community Service, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the Inter-racial Committee organized by the Chicago Woman's Club are examples of this form of joint effort. The sentiments of both groups in contact may be discussed and, on the basis of represented group conditions and sentiments, programs are formulated and carried out. This association and exchange of sentiment provide a means of breaking down the isolation between the groups and at the same time offer a means of extending the representative thought of Negroes through their white associates to circles in which contacts are either prohibited or restricted by custom and tradition.