1920 boundaries, the same as in 1910, except on the south, 115th Street. Negro population, 695.
THREE MINOR COLONIES IN THE SOUTHERN DIVISION OF THE CITY
South Chicago in the vicinity of the steel plants bordering on Lake Michigan at Ninety-first Street: 36 Negroes in 1910 and 117 in 1920.
Burnside, in the vicinity of South State and Ninety-first streets: 2 Negroes in 1910 and 205 in 1920.
Oakwoods, in the vicinity immediately east of Oakwoods Cemetery, between Sixty-seventh and Seventy-first streets: 52 Negroes in 1919 and 58 in 1920.
WEST SIDE
1910 boundaries: On the north, Austin Avenue; on the west, Western Avenue; on the south, Lake Street to Racine to Washington to Halsted; on the east, Halsted Street. Negro population, 3,379. This includes a scattering of Negroes living immediately southwest of this area.
1920 boundaries: On the north, Austin Street; on the west, California Avenue; on the south, Washington Boulevard; and on the east, Morgan Street. Negro population, 8,363, including scattered residents as far south as Twelfth Street.
NORTH SIDE
1910 boundaries: On the north, North Avenue; on the west, Larrabee Street; on the south, Chicago Avenue; and on the east, State Street. Negro population, 744.
1920 boundaries: The same as in 1910. Negro population, 1,050.
RAVENSWOOD
1910 boundaries: On the north, Lawrence Avenue; on the west, Ashland Avenue; on the south, Montrose Avenue; and on the east, Sheridan Road. Negro population, 105.
1920 boundaries: The same as in 1910. Negro population, 175.
The total Negro population in the north division of the city, including the part designated "North Side," the Ravenswood colony, and scattered residents in other parts, was 1,427 in 1910 and 1,820 in 1920.
B. NEIGHBORHOODS OF NEGRO RESIDENCE
While the principal colony of Chicago's Negro population is situated in a central part of the South Side, Negroes are to be found in several other parts of the city in proportions to total population ranging from less than 1 per cent to more than 95 per cent. In some of these neighborhoods whites and Negroes have become adjusted to one another; in others they have not. There are numerous degrees of variation between the two extremes. In this study the term "adjusted neighborhood" indicates one in which whites and Negroes have become accommodated to each other, and friction is either non-existent or negligible; "non-adjusted neighborhood" is one where misunderstandings, dislikes, and antagonisms resulting from contacts of any degree between whites and Negroes express themselves in racial hostility, sometimes involving open clashes.
I. ADJUSTED NEIGHBORHOODS
1. THE SOUTH SIDE
The most striking example of "adjusted neighborhoods" is the district known as the "Black Belt." Because 90 per cent of the Negroes of Chicago live within this area, it is usually assumed that the district is 90 per cent Negro. This, however, is not the case. The area between Twelfth and Thirty-ninth streets, Wentworth Avenue and Lake Michigan, includes the oldest and densest Negro population of any section of its size in Chicago. However, the actual numbers of whites and Negroes living there are 42,797 and 54,906 respectively. In this area the Negro population has increased gradually and without disturbance for many years. Although for a long period Negroes were confined to the area bounded by State Street, Wentworth Avenue, Twelfth, and Thirty-ninth streets, their movement into the neighborhood east of State Street was ultimately looked upon as a natural and expected expansion. Within the whole of this territory a relationship exists, which, although perhaps not uniformly friendly, yet is without friction or disorder. During the riot few white persons living or engaged in business there were attacked by Negroes, who were in the majority in many parts of the area. Many whites remaining in the area, which was formerly all white, are small property owners who for sentimental reasons prefer to live there. Numbers of family hotels and large apartment houses there continue to be occupied by whites, who are apparently little affected by the presence of 10 per cent more Negroes than whites around them. Michigan Avenue and Grand Boulevard are the streets into which Negroes have moved most recently. The only recorded bombing within this area occurred on Grand Boulevard. The Grand Boulevard district is affiliated with the Kenwood and Hyde Park Property Owners' Association. Although the bombing was an expression of resentment against Negroes because they moved into this block, there are circumstances which indicate that the resentment did not come from the neighbors. For example, the wife of a Negro physician owning and living in a house in the same block was asked by her white neighbors to serve as chairman of a committee to keep up the property in the neighborhood.
RACIAL CONTACTS AMONG CHILDREN IN AN ADJUSTED NEIGHBORHOOD
The first Negro family to move into the Vernon Avenue block immediately south of Thirty-first Street bought its residence in 1911. It was five years before another Negro family came. White neighbors, who were and are very friendly, said this family's good care of its lawn was an example for the whole block.
When an apartment house in which a Negro family lived on South Park Avenue near Thirty-first Street was burned, white neighbors took them into their home and kept them until another house was secured. At a meeting of the City Club of Chicago a white man who had lived in this area for forty years thus characterized the relations between whites and Negroes living there:
Having lived on the South Side in what is now known as the "Black Belt" for forty years, I can testify that I have never had more honest, quiet, and law-abiding neighbors than those who are of the African race, either full or mixed blood. In the precinct where I live we have several families blessed with many orderly and well-behaved children, of Caucasian and African blood. They seem to get along nicely, and why should they not? … There is no race question, it is a question of intelligence and morality, pure and simple.
Occasional minor misunderstandings have resulted from contacts in this area, but they have not been conspicuously marked by racial bitterness. Objections, sometimes expressed when the tradition of an "all white" neighborhood was first broken, disappeared as the neighbors came to know each other. Long residence is apparently one condition of the adjustment process.
Expansion and adjustment.—The first noticeable expansion of the Negro population following the migration in 1917 and 1918 was in the area extending south from Thirty-ninth Street to Forty-seventh Street on Langley, St. Lawrence, and Evans avenues. Negroes began moving into this area early in 1917, first a few and finally in large numbers. There is yet no compact group, for these Negro families, while numerous, are well distributed. The experiences of some of the first families there are interesting.
A Negro woman bought a piece of property on Langley Avenue, near Forty-third Street, when every other family in the block was white. The courtesy shown her by them was all that could be desired, she declares. There are still six or eight white families in the block, and they continue on the most friendly terms with her. A Negro woman in another block has white neighbors all around her, but there has been no racial objection or friction. Another, who owns her property on Evans Avenue, has had no trouble with white families that remain in the block. So with a Negro who rents from the Negro owner of a flat on East Thirty-sixth Street. A Negro who has bought a home on St. Lawrence Avenue near Forty-seventh Street declares that the white families living thereabouts "treat my family right." In one block on St. Lawrence Avenue a Negro family is surrounded by white neighbors, but no trouble has been experienced. In a block on Langley Avenue another family of Negroes has had no clashes with the white neighbors who compose most of the neighborhood.