 Introductory note by Walter Lippmann from the Chicago Race Rides July 1919 by Carl Sandberg. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Chicago Race Rides by Carl Sandberg. Introductory note. To record the background of an event infinitely more disgraceful than that Mexican banditry or red tarot about which we are also virtuously indignant, is sufficient reason for republishing these articles by Carl Sandberg. They are first-hand, and they are sympathetic, and they will move those who will allow themselves to be moved. Move not alone to indignation, though that is needed, but to thought. It is not possible, I think, to examine this record without concluding that the race problem, as we know it, is really a byproduct of our planless, disordered, bedraggled, drifting democracy. Until we have learned to house everybody, employ everybody at decent wages in a self-respecting status, guarantee his civil liberties, and bring education and play to him, the bulk of our talk about the race problem will remain a sinister mythology. In a dirty civilization, the relation between black men and white will be a dirty one. In a clean civilization, the two races can conduct their business together cleanly, and not until then. Certainly the idea must go that in order to segregate the races biologically, it is necessary to degrade and terrorize one of them. For those who degrade and terrorize are inevitably themselves degraded and terror-stricken. It is only the parvenu, the snob, the coward, who is forever proclaiming his superiority, and by proclaiming it he evokes imitation in his victim. Hence the peculiar oppressiveness of recently oppressed peoples in Europe. Hence the negro who desires to be an imitation white man. Hence again the determination to suppress the negro who attempts to imitate the white man. For so long as the status of the white man is in every way superior to that of the colored, the advancement of the colored man can mean nothing, but in attempt to share the white man's social privileges. From this arises that terrible confusion between the idea of social equality and the idea of social mixture. Since permanent degradation is unthinkable and amalgamation undesirable both for blacks and whites, the ideal would seem to lie in what might be called race parallelism. Parallel lines might be equally long and equally straight. They do not join except in infinity, which is further away than anyone need worry about just now. We shall have to work out with the negro a relationship which gives him complete access to all the machinery of our common civilization, and yet allows him to live so that no negro need dream of a white heaven and of bleached angels. Pride of race will come to the negro when a dark skin is no longer associated with poverty, ignorance, misery, terror, and insult. When this pride arises every white man in America will be the happier for it. He will be able then as he is not now to enjoy the finest quality of civilized living, the fellowship of different men. August 6, 1919. End of introductory note. Chapter 1 from the Chicago Race Rides, July 1919. By Carl Sandberg. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Chicago Race Rides by Carl Sandberg. Chapter 1. The Chicago Race Rides. The cold race riots in Chicago during the last week of July 1919 started on a Sunday at a bathing beach. A colored boy swam across an imaginary segregation line. White boys threw rocks at him and knocked him off a raft. He was drowned. Color people rushed to a policeman and asked for the arrest of the boys throwing stones. The policeman refused. As the dead body of the drowned boy was being handled, more rocks were thrown on both sides. The policeman held on to his refusal to make arrests. Fighting then began that spread to all the borders of the black belt. The score at the end of three days was recorded as 20 Negroes dead, 14 white men dead, and a number of Negro houses burned. The riots furnished an excuse for every element of gangland to go to it and test their prowess by the most ancient ordeals of the jungle. There was one section of the city that supplied more white hoodlums than any other section. It was the district around the stockyards and packing houses. I asked McClay Hoyn, state's attorney of Cook County. Does it seem to you that you get more tough birds from out around the stockyards than anywhere else in Chicago? Any answer that more bank robbers, payroll bandits, automobile bandits, highwaymen, and strong armed crooks come from this particular district and any other that has come to his notice during seven years of service as chief prosecuting official. As I recall that a few years ago a group of people from the University of Chicago came over into the stockyards district and made a survey. They went into one neighborhood and asked at every house about how the people lived and died. They found that seven times as many white herces, all babies along the streets here as over in the Lakeshore district, a mile east. Their statement of scientific fact was that the infant mortality was seven times higher here proportionally than a mile to the east in the district where housing and wages are different. So on the one hand we have blind lawless government failing to function through policeman ignorant of Lincoln, the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, and a theory sanctioned and baptized in the storm of red blood. And on the other hand we have a gaunt involuntary poverty from which issues the hoodlum. At least three conditions marked the events of violence in Chicago in July 1919 and gave the situation a character essentially different from the backgrounds of other riots. Here are factors that give the Chicago flare up historic import. First, the black belt population of 50,000 in Chicago was more than doubled during the war. No new houses or tenements were built. Under pressure of war industry the district already notoriously overcrowded and swarming with slums was compelled to have and hold in its human dwelling apparatus more than twice as many people as it held before the war. Second, the black belt of Chicago is probably the strongest effective unit of political power, good or bad, in America. It connects directly with the city administration decisive in its refusal to draw the color line and a mayor whose opponents failed to defeat him with the covert circulation of the epithet of nigger lover. To such a community the black dough boys came back from France in the Cantonment camps. Also it is known that hundreds, it may be thousands, have located in Chicago in the hope of permanent jobs and homes in preference to returning south of Mason Dickson's line. Third, thousands of white men and thousands of colored men stood together during the riots and through the public statements of white and colored officials of the stock market, they asked the public to witness that they were shaking hands as brothers and could not be counted on for any share in the mob, shouts and raps. Third, thousands of white men and thousands of colored men stood together during the riots and through the public statements of white and colored officials of the stockyards labor council asked the public to witness that they were shaking hands as brothers and could not be counted on for any share in the mob, shouts and ravages. This was the first time in any similar crisis in an American community that a large body of mixed nationalities and races, Poles, Negroes, Lithuanians, Italians, Irishmen, Germans, Slovaks, Russians, Mexicans, Yankees, Englishmen, Scotchmen, proclaimed that they were organized and opposed to violence between white union men and colored union men. In any American city where the racial situation is critical at this moment, the radical and active factors probably are one, housing, two politics and war psychology and three, organization of labor. The articles that follow are reprints from the pages of the Chicago Daily News, which assign the writer to investigate the situation three weeks before the riots began. Publication of the articles had preceded two weeks and were approaching the point where a program of constructive recommendations would have been proper when the riots broke and as usual nearly everybody was more interested in the war than how it got loose. The arrangement of the material herewith is all rather hit or miss, with the stress often in the wrong place as in much newspaper writing. However, because of the swift movement of events at this hour and because items of information and views of trends here have been asked for in telegrams, letters and phone calls from a number of thoughtful people, they are made conveniently available for such service as they are worth. End of chapter one. Chapter two from the Chicago Race Rides July 1919 by Carl Sandberg. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Chicago Race Rides by Carl Sandberg. Chapter two, the background. Chicago's black belt, so-called, today holds at least 125,000 persons. This is double the number that same district held five years ago when the war of war began. Chicago is probably the third city in the United States in number of colored persons. And at the lowest ranks is fifth in this regard, according to estimates of Frederick Rex, municipal reference librarian. The four cities that may possibly exceed Chicago in this population group are New York, which had 9179 at the last census. Baltimore with 84,749. Philadelphia with 84,459. And Washington with 94,466. The colored population in all these cities has increased since the last census. New Orleans, which had 89,262, has decreased instead of gaining. And the same will apply to three other large southern cities where the colored population at the beginning of the war was slightly above 50,000. And just about equal to that of Chicago. These are Birmingham, Alabama, Atlanta, Georgia, and Memphis, Tennessee. All reported to have decreased while Chicago has gained. During interviews with some 40 persons more or less expert on the question, the lowest estimate of the present colored population of Chicago was 100,000 and the highest 200,000. The figure most commonly agreed on was 125,000. There's no doubt that upward of 150,000 have arrived here. The number that have departed for other points is unknown. Under the pressure of the biggest overcrowding problem, any race or nation has faced in a Chicago neighborhood. The population of the district is spilling over or rather as being irresistibly squeezed out into other residents districts. Such as the immediately large and notable fact touching what is generally called the race problem. Other facts pertaining to the situation, each one indicating a trend of importance are the following. Local draft board number four in the district surrounding state and 35th streets containing 30,000 persons of whom 90% are colored registered upward of 9,000 and sent 1850 colored men to Cantonments. Of these 1850 there were only 125 rejections. On November 11 when the armistice was declared this district had 7,832 men passed by examiners and ready for the call to the colors. So it is clear that in one neighborhood are thousands of strong young men who have been talking to each other on topics more or less intimately related to the questions. What are we ready to die for? Why do we live? What is democracy? What is the meaning of freedom of self-determination? In barbershop windows and in cigar stores and haberdasheries are helmets, rifles, cartridges, canteens and haversacks and photographs of Negro regiments that were sent to France. Walk around this district and talk with the black folk and leaders of the black folk, ask them what about the future of the colored people? The reply that comes most often and the thought that seems uppermost is, we made the supreme sacrifice. They didn't need any work or fight law for us. Our record like old glory, the flag we love because it stands for our freedom, hasn't got a spot on it. We come clean. Now we want to see our country live up to the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Soldiers, ministers, lawyers, doctors, politicians, machinists, teamsters, day laborers, this is the inevitable outstanding thought they offer when consulted about tomorrow, next week, next year or the next century for the colored race in America. There's no approaching the matters of housing, jobs or political relations of the colored people today without taking consideration of their own vivid conception of what they consider their unquestioned Americanism. They had one bank three years ago. Now they have five. Three cooperative societies to run stores are forming. Five new weekly papers. Two new monthly magazines. Seven drug stores. One hospital. All of these have come since Junius B. Woods encyclopedic recital of Negro activities in Chicago appeared in the daily news in December 1916. Also since then a life insurance company and a building and loan association have been organized in one district where there were counted 69 neighborhood agencies of demoralization. There have been established within two years under Negro auspices, a cafe, a drug store, a laundry, a bakery, a shoe repair shop, a tailor shop, a fish market, a dry goods store. All told, 24 constructive agencies entered the contest against 69 of the destructive kind. The colored people of Chicago seem to have more big organizations with fewer press agents and less publicity than any other group in the city. They have, for instance, the largest single Protestant church membership in North America in the Olivet Baptist Church at South Park Avenue and East 31st Street. It has more than 8,500 members. The miscellaneous local of the meat cutters and butcher workmen's union at 43rd and State Streets reports that upward of 10,000 colored workmen are affiliated. The People's Movement Club has moved into a $50,000 clubhouse as 2,000 active and 6,000 associate members. There is a parent and active home-buying, home-owning movement, with many circumstances indicating that the colored people coming in with a new influx are making preparations to stay. Their viewpoint being that of the bowl weevil and that famous Negro song, This Will Be My Home. In nearly all circles, the opinion in his voice that Chicago is the most liberal all around town in the country. In the Constitution of Illinois, the most liberal of all state constitutions. And so if they can't make Chicago a good place for their people to live in, the colored people wonder where they can go. Their houses, jobs, politics, their hope and outlook in the black belt are topics to be considered in a series of articles. End of Chapter 2, Chapter 3 from The Chicago Race Rides, July 1919 by Carl Sandberg. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Chicago Race Rides by Carl Sandberg. Chapter 3, The Negro Migration. At Michigan Avenue and East 31st Street comes along the street a colored woman and three of her children. Two months ago they lived in Alabama in a two room hut with a dirt floor and no running water and none of the things known as conveniences. Barefooted and bareheaded, the children walk along with the mother, casually glancing at Michigan Avenue's moving line of motorcars. Suddenly, as in a movie play, a big limousine swims to the curb. A colored man steps out, touches his hat to the mother and children and gives them the surprise of their lives. This is what he says. We don't do this up here. It isn't good for us colored folk to send our children out on the streets like this. We're all working together to do the best we can. One thing we're particular about is the way we take the little ones out on the streets. They ought to look as if they're washed clean all over and they ought to have shoes and stockings and hats and clean shirts on. Now you go home and see to that. If you haven't got the money to do it, come and see me. Here's my card. He gives her the card of a banker and real estate agent man at an office where they collect rent monthly from over 1,000 tenants and where they hold titles and fees simple to the rented properties. This little incident gives some idea of the task of assimilation Chicago took in the last five years in handling the more than 70,000 colored people who came here in that time, mostly from southern states. A big brownstone residence in Wabash Avenue, the type that used to be known as mansions, housed five families from Alabama. They threw their dinner, leaving from the back porch. And one night they sat on the front steps and ate watermelon and threw the rinds out past the curb stone. In effect they thought they were going to live in the packed human metropolis of Chicago just as they had lived down in Alabama. Now they have learned what garbage cans are for. From all sides the organized and intelligent forces of the colored people have hammered home the suggestion that every mistake of one colored man or woman may result in casting a reflection on the whole group. The theory is be clean for your own sake, but remember that every good thing you do goes to the credit of all of us. It must not be assumed, of course, that the types thus far mentioned are representative of all who come from Alabama or other states of the South. Among the recent arrivals, for example, are a banker, the managing editor of a weekly newspaper, a manual training instructor in the public schools, and several men who have made successes in business. It is possible now for Chicago white people to come into contact with colored men who have had years of experience in direct cooperation with Tuskegee and Hampton Institutes, and with the workings in southern states of the theories of Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, and others. The application of these theories is being continued in Chicago. Willis N. Huggins, an intensely earnest and active worker for the interests of the colored people, is an instructor in manual training at the Wendell Phillips High School. He came from Alabama in 1917. I was making a social survey of the northern counties of Alabama through the financial aid of Mrs. Eamon's Blaine of Chicago, he said to me. My work was discontinued because our information collected in that territory would be useless. About one-fourth of the colored people migrated to the north. There were twelve thousand colored people in Decatur, Alabama, before the war. The migration took away four thousand, judging by a house-to-house canvas I made in various sections of that one city. When they took the notion, they just went. You could see hundreds of houses where mattresses, beds, wash bowls, and pans were thrown around the backyard after the people got through picking out what they wanted to take along. All the railroad trains from big territory far the south came on through Decatur. Some days five and six of these trains came along. The colored people in Decatur would go to the train station and talk with these other people about where they were going. And when the moving fever hit them, there was no change in their minds. Take Huntsville, only a few miles from Decatur on a branch line. There they didn't see these twelve coach trains coming through loaded with immigrants, so from Huntsville there was not much emigration. In many localities the educated Negroes came right along with their people. I rode in September 1917 with a minister from Monroe, Louisiana. This was his second trip. He had been to Boston and organized a church with one hundred members of his Louisiana congregation. Now he was taking fifty, all in one coach. I hear that later he made a third trip and has now moved the whole of his original congregation of three hundred members up to Boston. He told me that the first group he took to Boston were all naturally inclined to go. The second group made up their minds more slowly. He said that probably they would not have gone at all if it had not been for fears of lynching. A series of lynchings in Texas at that time gave him examples from which to argue that the North was safer for colored people. With many who have come North, the attraction of wages and employment is secondary to the feeling that they are gone where there are no lynchings. Others say that while they know they would never be lynched in the South and they are not afraid on that score, they do want to go where they are sure there is more equality and opportunity than in the South. The schools in the North are an attraction to others. I make these observations from having personally taught with my people in Madison County, Alabama, where there were ten thousand Negroes of whom five thousand came North in two years. End of chapter three. Chapter four from the Chicago Race Rides July 1919 by Carl Sandberg. This is a LibriVox recording. While LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Chicago Race Rides by Carl Sandberg. Chapter four Real Estate. Eight bombs or dynamite containers have been exploded within the last five months on the doorsteps of buildings in the South division of the city. All of these buildings being situated in streets adjacent to the residence district, popularly called the Black Belt, where the population is about 80% colored. The eight explosions took place between February 5th and June 13th. The amount of property destroyed by each explosion varied from $50 to $600. Seven of the cases were investigated by the police of the station situated at Wabash Avenue and 48th Street. And one was investigated by the police of the Cottage Grove Avenue station. The police began their work with two theories in mind. One that the explosions were the result of race feeling. The other that there was a clash between two real estate interests. As a result of their work, the police now believe that the second theory is the more likely to be correct. Facts in this situation to be reckoned with are that practically every organization of colored people, business, political, social, and religious, is making propaganda in favor of the right of the colored people to buy real estate wherever the white man's money is good. On the other hand, the only organized and noticeable propaganda among white organizations in this respect is the movement in real estate organizations and neighborhood improvement clubs. With reference to the effect of colored residents on real estate values, there are two points of view. It is asserted on one hand that in all cases where the property owner has kept up the improvements and refused to sell to speculators, his real estate has risen in value. On the other hand, it is contented that colored residents bring down property values in a neighborhood. Both sides point to specific instances in support of their contentions. L. M. Smith of the Kenwood Improvement Association, the prominent spokesman for real estate interests, and one of those most active in opposition to the movement of colored people eastward in his part of the city, gave the writer the following expression of his views. We want to be fair. We want to do what is right. But these people will have to be more or less pacified. At a conference where their representatives were present, I told them we might as well be frank about it. People are not admitted to our society, I said. Personally I have no prejudice against them. I have had experience of many years dealing with them, and I'll say this for them. I have never had to foreclose a mortgage on one of them. They have been clean in every way and always prompt in their payments. But you know, improvements are coming along the lake shore, the Illinois Central and all that, and we can't have these people coming over here. Not one cent has been appropriated by our organization for bombing or anything like that. They injure our investments. They hurt our values. I can't say how many have moved in, but there's at least a hundred blocks that are tainted. We are not making any threats, but we do say that something must be done. Of course, if they come in as tenants, we can handle the situation fairly easily. But when they get a deed, that's another matter. Be sure to get us straight on that. We want to be fair and do what's right. Charles S. Duke, a Harvard graduate, former lieutenant of Company G, faith Illinois Infantry and a civil engineer in the Bridge Division of the City Department of Public Works, expresses the view of his people as follows. All attempts at segregation bring only discord and resentful opposition. The bombing of the homes of colored citizens is futile. This will neither intimidate any considerable number of them, nor stop their moving into a given district. The most certain result is bitter racial antagonism. White citizens must be educated out of all hysteria over actual or prospective arrival of colored neighbors. All colored citizens do not make bad neighbors, although in some cases they will not make good ones. It is of the greatest importance, however, both to white and colored people, that real estate dealers should cease to make a business of commercializing racial antagonisms. During the series of bomb explosions from February 5 to June 13, the police made no arrests. On June 13 they took into custody James Marshall of 4945 South State Street and James Turner of 8948 Parnell Avenue. The charges were bomb throwing, malicious mischief and carrying explosives without authorization. Their cases have been granted to continuances in Judge Gemmell's Court. Turner is a clerk in the real estate office of Dean and Meager, 320 East 51st Street. habeas corpus proceedings in behalf of Turner were unsuccessful in a hearing before Judge Pam. One continuance in the Hyde Park Court was granted on the plea of the defendant's attorney that an alibi witness had gone for a two weeks vacation in Minnesota. In the series of bombings there is little or nothing to indicate a motive to destroy life. In one case a child was killed. The police have evidence that in the flat next door an Italian girl was to be married and jealous suitors had sent threats of violence. The theory is that dynamiters put the bomb on the wrong doorstep. End of chapter 4. Chapter 5 from the Chicago Race Rides July 1919 by Carl Sandberg. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. The Chicago Race Rides by Carl Sandberg. Chapter 5. Demand for a Negro labor. The demand for colored workers took a slump when the armistice was signed and the slump went on till April. Then things began to look up. Now there has become a strong movement toward the conditions that held good while the war was on. At the office of the Chicago Urban League 3032 South Wabash Avenue where a branch of the United States Employment Services maintained the office force was finding work for 1700 to 1800 men and women each month before the armistice was signed. This figure dropped to 500 in April. In the week ended June 14th Secretary T. Arnold Hill colored man and graduate of New York University reports 249 men and 34 women a total of 285 placed. He comments, at this rate we should place 1,132 persons a month as compared with 500 or 600 during the three months period previous. The following is a specimen of the demand for colored workers on one day in June. Quartermasters Corps USA 25 men at 40 cents an hour National Malibu Casting Company 20 men at 40 cents an hour Southeastern Coal Company 40 men at peace rates CB and Q Railroad Company 10 men at 45 cents an hour Camp Custer 200 men at 45 cents an hour Road workers for the state of Washington 50 men at 45 cents an hour Turbell Ice Cream Company 4 men at $19 a week A bulletin of the office for June 25th states unskilled work is plentiful Jobs and foundries and steel mills in building and construction work in light factories and packing houses keep up a steady demand for semi-skilled laborers During 1918 there was the total of 30,000 applications for jobs and 10,000 persons were placed. It is believed a record somewhat like this will be maintained again this year that is a steady influx of colored population almost entirely from southern states will keep on coming and will be absorbed by northern industry. The amount of this influx will not be as large as in the last year or two but is expected to be steady. It will have the same steady flow according to men closely in touch with it as the stream of immigration from Europe that kept coming to America shores with such periodic certainty before the war. Among large employee interests as well as in both white and colored labor circles the expectation is that the northern labor supply will be constantly replenished from the south. The reasons for this are found in conditions described by the immigration and inspection service of the Department of Labor in a report not as yet made public from Dr. George Edwin Hayes a colored man who took a master's degree at Yale in PhD at Columbia and who is a director of Negro economics in the Department of Labor comes in advance report on these conditions as follows Among alien residents in our country large numbers intend to return to their native land. The principal causes a desire to learn what has befallen their families. Many aliens told investigators that they had not heard from their families in four years that they had sent money home but had no means of knowing whether it was received or not. Another cause is a desire to ascertain and settle estates and relatives killed during the war. Unemployment is still severe in some sections and there is also a desire on the part of many foreigners to return to the land just freed from German or Austrian domination in the belief that opportunities will be better in the new democracies than in the United States. In many cities investigation shows that fully 50% of the aliens intend to go back to Europe. A large number of these expect eventually to return to the United States but many say they will not come back. The clergy of one foreign church with 1600 parishioners expects not more than 100 will remain in this country. In an Indiana city with a large Romanian population from 40 to 50% want to return to their homeland, Transylvania. Few polls in the same city expect to return but 150 of the 600 Serbians wish to go and it was said that if unemployment became more serious this number would be increased. An investigation by a steel plant showed that 66% of its alien help were married and 74% of them had dependence in the old country. This plant 61% of all the aliens declared their intention to return to Europe and of this number 91% said they were going to stay while only 9% were planning to return to America after their European visit. A prominent Hungarian of Chicago estimated 30,000 unnaturalized Austro-Hungarians live in the city and that 50% would go back to Europe. Out of a Polish population of 15,000 there were 6,000 expected to return. Among Lithuanians there is a strong feeling that if Lithuania becomes independent there will be a large movement back to that country. These figures gathered by the investigation and inspection service of the Department of Labor show conclusively that large numbers of aliens will leave never to return. With America helping to rebuild Europe and feed its people business expansion is a certainty Dr. Haynes predicts. At the same time asking where is the labor coming from to take the place of the labor that is God never to return replying he says it isn't coming from China somebody has suggested that we bring over one million Chinese coolies unless we change the laws we passed in the last 20 years we can't do that. It is not coming from Japan because the Pacific Coast states are going to raise such a how that we cannot change the laws. Furthermore it looks as though we are going to have restriction on immigration from the European countries. So we may get a few Hawaiians, Filipinos, West Indians, but they are colored people. The only great source from which we can develop a new power of labor that is as yet undeveloped is from the great mass of 12 million Negro workers. All we are waiting for is the open gate so we may enter into the industrial and agricultural opportunities on the same terms as other workers that day has arrived. When orders come from France and Belgium and Central Europe and South America and Africa to the American factories it doesn't matter in iota what color the skin of the man whose hand or brain produces that product. The manufacturer is getting more and more to realize that when the pressure comes as it came during the war if he can get the labor he doesn't see any color mark on the bank check or the draft that he gets in payment for his goods. Most of this thing we call a race question is down at rock bottom a labor question. When the colored man can come into the labor market and bargain for the sale of his services on the same terms as other workers a great deal of what is termed today the race question is going to be settled. End of chapter 5 Chapter 6 from the Chicago race rides July 1919 by Carl Sandberg This is a LibriVox recording While LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Chicago Race Rides by Carl Sandberg Chapter 6 New Industrial Opportunities Consideration of the question of work for colored people shows that it presents three important features one the opening of doors to new occupations so that skilled men will not have to stay in the common labor group all their lives two getting men and women trained to perform skilled or unskilled labor and coaching them when on a job so that they will hold on three creating a sentiment among employers so that no colored man or woman will be dismissed merely because of race these three aspects of the colored man's labor problem are worthy of careful study they go to the root of the most perplexing immediate phase of what is called the race problem it is economic equality that gets the emphasis in the speeches and the writings of the colored people themselves they hate Jim Crow cars and lynching and all acts of race discrimination in part because back of these is the big fact that even in the north in many skilled occupations as well as in many unskilled it is useless for any colored man or woman to ask a job and so from year to year we find the organizations of colored people checking up listing the new occupations they have entered pointing to new doors opening to men on the basis of ability where color does not count one way or the other the new doors of opportunity opening in Chicago in the last two years here molders every foundry in Chicago according to the urban league employment office which chiefly handles the labor situation for colored people is ready to hire colored molders who have no difficulty in getting jobs tanneries have opened their doors to both skilled and semi-skilled colored workers colored shipping clerks have entered freight warehouses such a statement may seem to have little significance as in all of these instances however it is the record of a new precedent the door once inscribed no hope now says there is hope automobile repair shops now employ colored mechanics the two largest taxi companies make no discrimination on account of color one large mattress factory has opened the doors to colored workers at the central soldiers and sailors bureau 120 west adam street are available for employment colored men who served with the 8th infantry regiment in the argon and the st. miel sectors in front line action there are 50 chauffeurs 21st and 2nd cooks 30 miscellaneous kitchen helpers 5 alays and 10 butlers of experience 5 shipping clerks 5 actors 5 sales clerks 2 stationary engineers 2 firemen 2 night watchmen and 5 elevator men according to sergeant H. J. Canasius in charge of the division dealing with colored labor a considerable proportion of the men are justified in refusing to take jobs at heavy labor these men were gassed or otherwise wounded in service in the argon or in the st. miel actions he sent we sent one who had been gassed to take a job as porter in a shoe store in st. street it was in a basement trying to handle a big box of goods this was the first approach to heavy work he had tackled since he was mustered out he keeled over and was taken to a hospital and it was four days before the doctors would let him go men who were gassed in france we found her sensitive to dust or fumes we tried a number in the cement works at buffington indiana we came back after a few days at coal shoveling and at work in coke and coal at gas houses or around vats and retorts where there are fumes these men can't stand up to the work they come back almost with tears saying they tried to hold out but couldn't the north western railroad dining car service has employed a number of ex-soldiers as waiters some restaurants and hotels have taken porters at 11 dollars a week and board we would have no trouble filling calls for more workers in this field a call came today for a colored bookkeeper to go to a normal school at elizabeth north carolina some of the return men of the 8th infantry went to see about getting places as sleeping car porters they found they would have to stand an initial fee of 35 dollars for uniforms and as they had no money they gave it up three of our applicants can fill positions as interpreters or secretaries who are required to know the chief south american and european languages it is noticeable that some whose homes are in the south say they are going to stay in chicago and under no consideration will they go back to mississippi, georgia and other states that draw the color line hard and fast we have five or six applicants a day new ones coming in and saying they have chosen the north to live in they pound on my table and say i'll be stiff as this table before i go back south sergeant canaceus told the story of edmund berke of 3632 of ensigns avenue berke volunteered for naval service in california before the draft and became chief commissary steward on the ship mauban he was discharged at norfolk the best position he could get that a first cook on a dining car english french, german, italian, spanish portuguese practically all languages spoken in south america or in central or western europe are fluently spoken by berke his aspirations are toward a position as interpreter or secretary but thus far destiny bids him fry eggs and stew beef with his many languages the chicago whip a new weekly newspaper voices appreciation of two utility corporations that have opened the doors of employment to colored men the people's gas company breaks precedent by employing four meter inspectors at salaries of a hundred dollars per month and four special meter readers who are boys sixteen years old at salaries of fifty five dollars per month says the paper the experiment of the gas company moves so successful that the commonwealth Edison company immediately followed suit by placing six colored men in the meter installation department end of chapter six chapter seven from the chicago race rides july 1919 by Carl Sandberg this is a LibriVox recording while LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the chicago race rides by Carl Sandberg chapter seven after each lynching chicago is a receiving station that connects directly with every town or city where the people conduct a lynching every time a lynching takes place in a community down south you can depend on it that colored people in the community will arrive in chicago inside two weeks says secretary Arnold hill of the chicago urban league 3032 south wabash avenue we have seen it happen so often that now whenever we read newspaper dispatches of a public hanging or burning in texas or a mississippi town we get ready to extend greetings to people from the immediate vicinity of the scene of the lynching if it is arkansas or georgia where a series of lynchings is going on this week then you may reckon with certainty that there will be large representations from those states among the colored folks getting off the trains at the illinois central station two or three weeks from today better jobs the right to vote and have the vote counted at elections no jim crow cars less race discrimination a tolerant attitude on the part of the whites equal rights with white people and education these are among the attractions that keep up the steady movement of colored people from southern districts to the north opportunity not alms is the slogan of the educated while the same thought comes over and over again from the illiterate in their letters saying all we want is a chance where as one spells it please hundreds of letters written to the chicago defender the newspaper and to the urban league reflect the causes of the migration charles johnston an investigator for the carnegie foundation a lieutenant from overseas with the 803rd infantry believes the economic motive is foremost he says there are several ways of arriving at a conclusion regarding the economic forces behind the movement of the colored race northward the factors might be determined by the amount of unemployment or the extent of poverty these facts are important but may or may not account for individual action set in a few localities of the south there was no actual misery or starvation nor is it evident that those who left would have perished from want had they remained large numbers of negroes have frequently moved around from state to state and even within the states of the south in search of more remunerative employment the migrations to arkansas and oklahoma were expressions of the economic force the striking feature of the northern migration was its individualism motives prompting the thousands of negroes were not always the same not even in the case of close neighbors the economic motive was foremost a desire simply to improve their living standards when opportunity beckoned a movement to the west or even about the south could have proceeded from the same cause some of the letters reveal a praise worthy solicitude for their families on the part of the writers other letters are an index to poverty and helplessness of home communities in this type of migration the old order is strangely reversed instead of leaving an overdeveloped and overcrowded country for undeveloped new territory they have left the south backward as it is in development of its resources for the highly industrialized north out of letters from the south we listed 79 different occupations among 1000 persons asking for information and aid property holders, impecunious adventurers, tradesmen entire labor unions business and professional men families, boys and girls all registered their protests mildly but determinately against their homes and sought to move from Pensacola, Florida in May 1917 came a letter saying would you please let me know what is the price of boarding and rooming in Chicago and where is the best place to get a job before the draft will work I would rather join the army a thousand times up there than to join it once down here what I want to say is I am coming north road another and I thought I would write you and list a few of the things I can do and see if you can find a place for me anywhere north of the Mason and Dixon line and I will present myself in person at your office as soon as I hear from you I am now employed in the railroad shops at Memphis I am an engine watchman one cup man, pipe fitter oil house man shipping clerk, telephone lineman freight caller an expert soaking vat man who can make dope for packing hot boxes on engines I am capable of giving satisfaction in either of the above named positions I wish very much to come north road in New Orleans man anywhere in Illinois will do if I am away from the lynchman's noose in the torchman's fire we are firemen machinist helpers practical painters in general laborers and most of all ministers of the gospel who are not afraid of labor for it put us where we are I want to ask you for information as to what steps I should take to secure a good position as a first class automobile blacksmith or any kind pertaining to such is an inquiry from a large Georgia city I have been operating a first class white shop here for quite a number of years and if I must say the only colored man in the city that does any charges why notify me but do not publish my name please don't publish this in any paper and I would not like for my name to be published in the paper I request that accompany two letters from communities where lynchings had occurred a girl wrote from Natchez I'm writing you to oblige me to put my application in the papers for me please I'm a body servant or a nice housemaid my hair is black and my eyes are black and I have smooth skin clear and brown good teeth and strong and good health my weight is 136 pounds here's a sample of the kind of letter that is handed around and talked about down south it was written by a colored workman in east chicago june 1917 to his former pastor at union springs alabama it is true that colored men are making good pay is never less than three dollars per day for ten hours this not promise I do not see how they pay such wages the way they work laborers they do not hurry or drive you remember this three dollars is the very lowest wage piece work men can make from six to eight dollars a day they receive their pay every two weeks I'm impressed my family also they are doing nicely I have no right to complain whatever I often think so much of the conversation we used to have concerning this part of the world I wish many times you could see our people up here as they are entirely in a different light I witnessed decoration day on may 30 the line of march was four miles eight brass bands all business houses were closed I tell you the people here are patriotic the chief of police dropped dead friday buried him today the procession about three miles long people are coming here every day and find employment nothing here but money and it is not hard to get oh I have children in school every day with the white children enterprise must be the first name of another who wrote back to Georgia you can hardly get a place to live in here I am wide awake of my financial plans I have rented me a place for borders I have 15 sleepers I began one week ago I am going to some kind of business here soon the colored people are making good they are the best workers I have made a great many white friends the church is crowded with baptists from Alabama and Georgia 10 and 12 join every Sunday he is planning to build a fine brick church he takes up 50 and 60 dollars each Sunday must be noted that all the foregoing letters were written with no intention of publication and with no view at all of explaining race migration or factors in housing employment in education end of chapter 7 chapter 8 from the Chicago race rides July 1919 by Carl Sandberg this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the Chicago race rides by Carl Sandberg chapter 8 trades for colored women a colored woman entered the office of a northside establishment where artificial flowers are manufactured I have a daughter 17 years old she said to the proprietor all places filled now he answered I don't ask a job for her came the mother's reply I want her to learn how to do the work like the white girls do she'll work for nothing we don't ask wages just to learn so it was arranged for the girl to go to work soon she was skilled in drawing wages with eyes in the shop other colored girls came in and now the entire group of 15 girls that worked in this northside shop have been transferred to a new factory on the southside near their homes at the same time a number of colored girls have gone into homework in making artificial flowers such as the casual intermissed incidents by which the way was open for colored working people to enter one industry on the same terms as the white wage earners doll hats, lampshades, millinery these are three branches of manufacturer where colored labor has entered factories and has also begun homework colored workers with their bundles of finished goods on which the entire family has worked going to the contractor to turn in the day's output are now a familiar sight in some neighborhoods in one residence a colored woman employs seven girls who comes to the house every day and makes lampshades which are later delivered to a contractor the first week in July 30 girls were placed in one millinery shop a notable recent development partly incidental to conditions of war industry is the entrance of colored women into garment factories particularly where women's and children's garments are made in Chicago on the last year they had been assigned to the operation of power machines making children's clothes children's apparel, overalls and rompers out of the 170 firms in Chicago that employed colored women for the first time during the war 42 or 24% were hotels or restaurants which hired them as kitchen help 21 or 18% were hotels or apartment houses which hired them as chambermaids 19 laundries 12 garment factories 7 stores and 8 firms hiring laborers and janetresses make up the rest of the 170 the packing industry of course leads all others in employment of both colored men and women as workers occupations that engaged until others during the war were picture framers, capsule makers candy wrappers tobacco strippers noodle makers, nutshellers furniture sandpaperers corset repairers paper box makers ice cream cone strippers poultry dressers and bucket makers in a building near the public library is a colored woman who conducts a hairdressing parlor for girls all the patrons are white the prior test herself could easily pass for a Brazilian banana planters widow of Spanish Caucasian blood but as she frankly admits that she is one eighth African and seven eighth Caucasian she has been refused admission to other buildings when she wished for various reasons to change the location of her establishment here and there are slowly the line of colored discrimination breaks a large chain of dairy lunch rooms in Chicago employs colored bus girls cooks and dishwashers and depends almost entirely on colored help to do the rougher work more notable yet is the fact that a downtown business college informs employment bureaus that it is able to place any and all colored graduates of the college in positions as denographers and typists and a few loop stores colored sale girls are employed in one shoe store beginning this policy a white girl filed a complaint the manager investigated and found that there was no objection except for this one white girl who was there upon dismissed the mattress factory opened wage earning opportunities to colored women in the last year two taxicab companies now hire women as cleaners the foregoing list of occupations just about completes the recital of progress in this regard in Chicago in the last year colored women were occupied during the war in various cities in making soldiers uniforms horses gas masks belts patees leggings razor blade cases gloves veils embroideries raincoats books cigars cigarettes died furs candy artificial feathers buttons toys and women's garments the comment of a trained industrial observer on the colored women as a machine operator is as follows few as yet are skilled as machine or hand operators because of their newness to industrial work the majority had been put on processes requiring no training in small manual ability they're employed at repetitive hand operations and occasionally run a foot press or a power sewing machine in one millinery shop however the superintendent said that every colored worker in his shop preferred machine operation to hand work replacement for colored women however does not mean advancement in the same sense as for white women because the white woman has been in industry for a long time and is more familiar with industrial practices she is less willing to accept bad working conditions the colored woman on the other hand is handicapped by industrial ignorance and drifts into conditions of work rejected by white workers colored women are found on processes white women refuse to perform they replace boys and men at cleaning window shades dying furs and in one factory they were found bending constantly clumsy 160 pound bails of material inquiries as to the general attitude of white workers toward the introduction of colored women brought conflicting reports about half the employers claim that their white workers had no objection to the colored women that they were either cordial or entirely indifferent toward them of the other half some said their white workers objected when the colored workers were first hired but felt no prejudice now other white workers prefer to have the two groups segregated still others were willing to let the colored workers do unskilled work but refuse to allow them on the skilled processes at the time of the greatest labor shortage in the history of this country colored women were the last to be employed they did the most menial and by far the most underpaid work they were the marginal workers all through the war and yet during these perilous times the colored woman made just as genuine a contribution to the cause of democracy as her white sister in the munitions factory or her brother in the trench she released the white woman for more skilled work and she replaced colored men who went into service the report of a study jointly directed by representatives of the consumers Lee YMCA by WCA Russell Sage foundation and other organizations recommends that greater emphasis be placed on the training of the colored girl by more general education and more trade training through apprenticeship and trade schools and also that every effort be made to stimulate trade organizations among colored women by education of colored women working toward organization education of colored workers leadership and keener understanding of colored women in industry among organized and unorganized white workers and lastly an appreciation and acceptance of the colored woman in industry by the American employer and the public at large is urged a creed of cleanliness was issued in thousands of copies by the Chicago Urban League during the big influx of colored people from the south it recognized that the woman always the woman is finally responsible for the looks and upkeeps of the household and made its appeal in the following language for me I'm an American citizen I'm proud of our boys over there who have contributed soldier service I desire to render citizen service I realized that our soldiers have learned new habits of self-respect and cleanliness I desire to help bring about a new order of living in this community I will attend to the neatness of my personal appearance on the street or when sitting in the front doorway I will refrain from wearing dust caps, bungalow aprons house clothing and bedroom shoes when out of doors I will arrange my toilet within doors and not on the front porch I will insist upon the use of rear entrances for coal dealers and hucksters I will refrain from loud talking and objectionable deportment on streetcars and in public places I will do my best to prevent defacement of property either by children or adults two photographs went with this creed one showed an unclean messy front porch the other a clean well-kept front porch such as the propaganda of order and decency carried on earnestly and ceaselessly by clubs churches and leagues of colored people struggling to bring along the backward ones of a people whose heritage is 200 years of slavery and 50 years of industrial boycott as an aside from the factual and the humdrum of foregoing here is a letter vivid with roads and by-pats of spiritual life written by a colored woman to her sister in Mississippi it is a frank confession of one sister sold to another the life has brought and as a document is worth more than stacks of statistics my dear sister I was agreeably surprised to hear from you and to hear from home I am well and thankful to say I am doing well the weather and everything else was a surprise to me when I came I got here in time to attend one of the greatest revivals in the history of my life over 500 people joined the church we had a holy ghost shower you know I like to have run wild it was snowing some nights and if you didn't hurry you could not get standing room please remember me kindly to any who ask of me the people are rushing here by the thousands and I know if you come and rent a big house you can get all the rumors you want you write me exactly when you were coming I'm not keeping house I'm living with my brother and his wife my son is in California but will be home soon he spends his winter in California I can get a nice place for you to stop until you look around and see what you want I'm quite busy I work for a packing company in the sausage department my daughter and I work in the same department we get $1.50 a day and we pack so many sausages we don't have much time to play but it is a matter of a dollar and I feel that God made the path and I am walking therein tell your husband work is plentiful here and he won't have to loaf if he wants to work I know unless old man A changed it was awful with his soul well I guess I have said about enough I will be delighted to look into your face once more in life pray for me for I am heaven bound I've made too many rounds to slip now I know you will pray for me for prayer is the life of any sensible man or woman goodbye end of chapter 8 chapter 9 from the Chicago Race Rides July 1919 by Carl Sandberg this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Chicago Race Rides by Carl Sandberg chapter 9 Negros and Rising Rents one of the best known club women in Chicago sold in an apartment house on Wabash Avenue last month it cost her 26,000 she sold it for 14,000 her agent advised her to make the sale because as he said the colored people were coming into the neighborhood and the property surely was going to take a slump that is chapter 1 of the little story chapter 2 opens with the rent of each apartment taking a jump from $35 to $50 in this identical apartment house that had apparently taken such a drop in value in the open market the fact is that it wasn't an open market it was a panicky market sold openly so that all prospective buyers might have had opportunities to bid the place would have brought a higher price than was originally paid for it in two other instances in the same neighborhood properties at one time were $15,000 dropped to $8,000 and $6,000 respectively in a market so managed that there was no competitive bidding the sellers were filled with panic then the rents took a high jump after the sales were made there seems to be certain preposterous axioms of real estate exchange governing this district and no others in Chicago these axioms might be stated thus 1. Sell it a loss and the rent goes higher and 2. The larger number of colored persons ready to pay higher rentals the lower the realty values slump to quote a paragraph from the housing the schools of civics and philanthropy it is a matter of common knowledge that house after house flat after flat whether under wider black agents comes to the Negro at an increased rental the only available argument it would seem which will ever dispel the public impressions is for instances to become just as numerous as charge downward as they now are of charge upward a Negro woman recent purchaser of a modern six flat building on the south side inform the investigator that she had been import tuned by numerous white agents and by two Negro dealers one of whom she named to allow them to rent her flat for her at a substantial increase above the rent she is now receiving acting as her own agent the reports is further counter charges are made against the Negro tenant by dealers of both races it considers these charges in extensive detail and then declares it is established that despite the low rents which are immaterial in the light of circumstances the general housing condition of Negroes in the area lying between state street in the railroad track stretching for several blocks north and south of 27th street is reprehensible a menace to health and constitutes kindling would sufficient to keep Chicago in constant danger of disastrous conflagration whatever may be the contributing causes demand and supply overbidding for coveted places on the part of tenants inconspicuousness of the Negro as an economic factor guaranteed rentals or what not the Negro in Chicago paid a lower wage than the white workmen and more limited opportunity does pay a relatively higher rent the Negro real estate agent man is much fairer generally speaking than is supposed and could means be found whereby he and the tenant could get together and come to an understanding on many things each about the other regarding which they are now diluted the first step would have been taken to the improvement of the lot of the Negro renter 20 years ago fewer than 50 families of the colored race were homeowners in Chicago today they number thousands their purchases ranging from $200 to 20,000 from tar paper shacks in the steel district to brown stone and gray stone establishments with wealthy or well-to-do white neighbors in most cases where a colored man has investments of more than ordinary size it is in large part in real estate realty investment in management seem to be an important field of operation among those colored people who acquire substance in a manner of home buying there is something radically abnormal about the situation of the colored people in Chicago the last census computed 22.5% of the homes occupied by colored citizens in the United States as owned by the occupants in Illinois 23% of the colored householders owned their premises but in Chicago the survey of the schools of civics and philanthropy in 1917 reported that in the south division only 4% of the apartments in houses occupied by colored persons were owned by the occupants and on the west side only 8% in south Chicago and in the stockyards district where the highest percentage of ownership was found 18% of the colored families owned their homes so it is evident that the percentage of home owners in the district around 35th and state streets is desperately low as compared with other Chicago districts and as compared with the country at large it is easy to understand how the doubling of population during the late war made a live real estate situation not only was it difficult for the newcomers to buy houses if they so desired but it was hard at times for them even to get a place to sleep the urban league canvassed real estate dealers one day and found 664 colored applicants for houses on that day and only 50 supplied the demands for quarters the higher rentals paid by colored people and other factors were responsible for 36 new localities being opened up within 3 months these localities having formerly been exclusively white this increase in rents was from 5 to 30% and in a few cases 50% today we are beginning to realize that to become a good citizen it is necessary to own a home and that those who are renting cannot be considered other than floaters is the comment of Jesse Bingo banker the oldest established colored real estate dealer in Chicago when Bingo bought one corner on south state street it was valued at $300 of front foot it is now worth $500 of front foot 6 saloons did a fast business in that neighborhood when he entered there and it was said of it you could get anything you wanted from a foot braced to a murder now it is a quiet, ordinary and in behavior and cleanliness it ranks as one of the best in Chicago though there are 249 building and loan associations in Chicago there was none for the colored race until the pyramid building and loan association finance and officer by colored men came into existence this year there have been 690 shares sold to 105 persons housing surveys of colored residents districts varying in scope and purposes are being conducted by the Cook County real estate board and the city public welfare department one of the best publications on this subject is a pamphlet by Lt. Charles S. Duke a colored man, a Harvard graduate and an engineer in the bridge division of the public works department at the city hall it was published last April and it summarizes proposals for immediate action under two heads first are things that Chicago owes her colored citizens which are stated as follows one, the privilege of borrowing money easily upon real estate occupied by colored citizens living on the south side and in the same amounts as can be borrowed upon property located in other parts of the city two, better attention in the matter of repairs and upkeep premises occupied by colored tenants three, making an end of the neglect of neighborhoods occupied principally by colored people four, abandonment of all attempts at racial segregation five, prohibition as far as possible of the commercializing of race prejudice in real estate matters six, recovery from hysteria incident to the advent of the first colored neighbors seven fewer indignation meetings and more constructive planning eight, better school houses and more modern equipment in schools and districts where colored people live in large numbers nine, more playgrounds and recreational centers on the south side ten, a beautiful branch library in the center of the colored district corollary are presented these things that colored citizens owe Chicago one, better care of premises occupied by them either as tenants or as landlords two, formation of improvement clubs for the beautification of the neighborhoods in which they may live three, practice of thrift and economy in the spending of income four, keeping the expenditures within the income five, the buying of beautiful sanitary homes six, spending less money for amusements and expensive clothing seven, check-making of the real estate broker who makes it his business to capitalize race prejudice in his dealings eight, reduction of the larger evil nine, ending of the practice of taking on real estate in the city ten, a continual demand for all the civic benefits that a beautiful and progressive city like Chicago can confer upon its citizens end of chapter nine chapter ten from the Chicago race rides July 1919 by Carl Sandberg this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Chicago Race Rides by Carl Sandberg chapter ten unions and the color line at the Saddle and Sirloin Club there sat in conference one day a few months ago represented us from two groups on one side of the table were men speaking for the most active organizations of colored men in Chicago in matters of employment and general welfare on the other side of the table were men speaking for the packers who employ at the stockyards upwards of 15,000 colored men and women interests that are today and are expected to be in the future the largest employers of colored labor four points to constitute a guiding policy and employment were offered by the color representatives with a statement that the principles embodied the general sense of the leaders of social industrial welfare and religious groups of the colored race in Chicago after discussion the representatives of the packers agreed to accept the four points and they are regarded by the colored people as in force and effective until further notice the four points as phrased in the conference at the Saddle and Sirloin Club are one that whenever we are attempting to introduce Negro workers into trades in which white workers are unionized we must urge the Negroes to join the unions two that when we are introducing Negro labor into industries in which the white workers are not unionized we advise Negroes in case the effort is made to unionize the industry to join with their white comrades three that we strongly urge the organizers of all the unions in industries which may be open to colored labor not only to permit but actively to assist in incorporating Negroes into the unions and four in cases where Negroes are prevented from joining the unions the right is reserved of complete liberty of action as to the advice that will be given to Negro working men with these points in force the men concerned felt they had taken all steps humanly possible to avert any such disasters came to east St. Louis where labor conditions were a factor estimates as to the number of colored workers who have joined the trade unions of the Stockcruits Labor Council vary from 6,000 to 10,000 the organizers say that they are too busy to make even an approximate count they say further that the organizations are mixed colored and white an account of membership is not as easy as it would be if all colored members were segregated in one local such a segregation is not being thought of men who work together and mix gangs of white and colored workers believe their trade union ought to be organized just like the work gang a colored man whose craft is that of hog killer and who is secretary of local 651 of the amalgamated meat cutters and butcher workmen of North America if you ask me what I think about race prejudice and whether it's getting better he said I'll tell you the one place in this town where I feel safest is over at the yards with my union button on the union is for protection that's our cry we put that on our union wagons in trucks traveling the stockyards district and signs telling the white and colored men that their interests are identical we had a union ball a while ago in the Coliseum annex in 2000 people were there the whites dance with their partners and the colored folks were theirs the hog butchers local gave a picnic recently and they came around to our people with tickets to sell and the attendance at the picnic was cosmopolitan whenever you hear of that race ride stuff you can be sure you're going to start around here here they are learning that it pays for white and colored men to call each other brother local 651 has a comodious well kept office at 43rd and state streets it is known as the miscellaneous local taking in his members the common laborers and all workers not qualify for membership in the skilled craft union one advantage for colored workers according to organizers is that the seniority rights of such workers are now courted the head of a work gang quits for any reason and a colored man is the oldest in point of service in the gang or department he is automatically advanced when an organization meeting was held recently on a Sunday afternoon in a public schoolyard at 33rd street and Wentworth avenue the police directed that the parade of the colored workmen from their hall at 43rd and state street must not march down state street through the district most heavily populated with Negroes the union officials are still mystified by the police explanation that it was safer and better for the colored procession to take a line of march where there were the smallest number of Negro residents on the streets Margaret Bonfield fraternal delegate from the British trades union congress spoke to the audience which numbered about three thousand probably two thousand stood in the hot sun three hours while the American giants colored played in the next lot in the white socks game was only two blocks away John Riley and C. Ford organizers carrying authorizations from the American federation of labor were speakers Ford his personality rides roughshod over English grammar but wins his crowd with homely points such as these I had any prejudice against a white man in this crowd any more than I've got against a colored man then I jumped down here off this platform and break my infernal neck right now you boys know about Rasslin you know if you throw a Rassler down you know you got to stay down with him if you're going to keep him down you don't stay down with him they'll get up and you got to throw him again you notice there ain't no Jim Crow cars here today that's what organization does the truth is there ain't no Negro problem any more than there's a Irish problem or a Russian or a Polish or a Jewish or any other problem there's only the human problem that's all all we demand is the open door you give us that we won't ask nothing more of you was a curious equation of human races that stood listening to this talk Lithuanians Poles, Slovaks, Italians and colored men mingled in all sections of the crowd and every speaker touching the topic of prejudice got the same kind of response from all parts of the crowd so they stood in the July afternoon sun listening as best as they could to what they could hear from their orators while the noisy cheers and laughter of two ball games came on the air and great gusts there were two thousand men for whom the race problem is solved their theory is that when economic equality of the races is admitted then the social housing real estate transportation or educational phases are not difficult we all know there are unions in the American federation of labor that have their feet in the 20th century and their heads in the 16th century said secretary Johnstone of the Stark labor union council as applause swept the sunburn 2000 he was referring to the unions that draw the color line the Reverend L.K. Williams of Olivet Baptist church which has a membership of 8500 and the Reverend John F. Thomas of the Ebenezer Baptist church at 35th and Dearborn streets besides other clergymen have voiced approval of the campaign for the organization of colored labor in affiliation with the trade union movement there was dissent to organization spoken by a few ministers at one time but that is said now to change to approval a unique memorial was circulated among all colored clergymen in Chicago by five labor unions in which the colored people have a large representation in order that each copy should bear proof of its authenticity was embossed with a seal of each of the five unions and signed by the officers the memorial read whereas God is the creator of all mankind and has endowed us with certain inalienable rights that should be respected one by the other so that peace and harmony will reign and hell on earth be subdued and whereas the unscrupulous white plutocrats aided by corrupt politicians have usurped even the rights of the workers guaranteed by the constitution and supplanted oppression and discord by propagating race hatred discrimination and class distinction and whereas the credulous common people white and black have been the maltreated tools of these financial master mechanics and their fallacious teachings have kept us divided and made their throne more secure and whereas the power of the united front and concerted action of all toilers is the only medium through which industrial and political democracy can be obtained wage slavery and unjust legislation destroyed and whereas the executive board of the American federation of labor on April 22nd 1918 in Washington DC was met by a committee of recognized race leaders who adopted plans thoroughly to organize the colored workers in industry putting them on the same economic level with other races therefore be it resolved that we appeal to the conscientious race leaders intellectuals and other God fearing men of influence who believe in human rights justice and fair play and our desirous of conveying light and plenty where darkness and want predominate colored members of the American federation of labor and fostering and encouraging members of our race to affiliate with a bonafide labor movement to the end that we will have a larger representation in this industrial army which will exemplify to the white progressives as well as autocrats that we are straws in the new broom of reconstruction that will sweep clean American institutions ridding them of discrimination and corruption with the official union seals were the signatures of George A. Swann President U. Swift Vice President and R. E. Copeland Secretary of the Musicians Protective Union Garrett Rice President A. L. Johnson Vice President and A. Welcher Secretary of the Railway Coach Cleaners Union NS Wimms President and P. D. Campbell Vice President of the Sleeping Car Porters of America Annie M. Jones President Isabel Case Vice President and Mabel Kinglin Secretary of Local 213 of the Butcher Workmen's Union Henry Papers President J. W. Smith Vice President and A. K. Foot Secretary of Local 651 of the Butcher's Workmen's Union There is odd humor in the fact that Dr. George C. Hall a colored surgeon in real estate proprietor to the extent of $100,000 has been for years an honorary member of the meat cutters in Butcher Workmen's Union Dr. Hall always contended that organization is one route away from race discrimination End of Chapter 10 Chapter 11 From the Chicago Race Rides 1919 by Carl Sandberg This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Chicago Race Rides by Carl Sandberg Chapter 11 About Lynchings Eleven persons joined our church the other Sunday and they were all from Vicksburg, Mississippi where there had been a lynching a few weeks before said Dr. L. K. Williams colored pastor of the largest Protestant church in North America in address to the Baptist Ministers Council of Chicago Tuskegee Institute records of lynchings the first six months of this year show the following numbers Alabama 3 Arkansas 4 Florida 2 Georgia 3 Louisiana 4 Mississippi 7 Missouri 1 North Carolina 2 South Carolina 1 Texas 1 The total 28 is 7 less than in the corresponding period of 1918 and 14 more than the period of 1917 Not only in Chicago a receiving station and a port of refuge for colored people who are anxious to be free from the jurisdiction of lynch law but there has been built here a publicity or propaganda machine that directs its appeals or carries on an agitation that every week reaches hundreds of thousands of people of the colored race The block south of 31st street are a newspaper row with the defender, the broad axe the plain dealer, the search light the guide, the advocate the whip as weekly publications and there are also illustrated monthly magazines such as the half century and the favorite The defender is the dean of the weekly newspaper group and is said to reach more than 100,000 subscribers in southern states The Carnegie Foundation investigator records his belief that the defender, more than any other agency was the cause of the northern fever in the big exodus from the south in the last three years It advocates race pride and race militancy and exhausted the vocabulary of denunciation on lynching disfranchisement and all forms of race discrimination At some post offices in the south it was difficult to have copies of the defender delivered to subscribers A colored man caught with a copy in his possession was suspected of northern fever in other so called disloyalties Thousands of letters poured into the defender office asking about conditions in the north The situation had a curious political reflex A rumor arose It traveled to Chicago and Washington It said that sinister forces were operating to prevent Negroes in the north and particularly in Chicago from returning to their former homes in the south Down south the rumor traveled and was published to the effect that thousands of colored men and women were walking the streets of Chicago, hungry and without shoes begging for transportation to Dixie The home of the cotton blossoms that they were longing to see again Lieutenant W.L. Owen of the Military Intelligence Service at Washington was sent to Chicago to investigate He went to Dr. George C. Hall a leader in several colored organizations and asked what is this undercurrent that is keeping the Negroes in the north? Dr. Hall answered there isn't any undercurrent Everything is in the open in this case The trouble started when the Declaration of Independence was written says that every man has a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness So long as the colored people get more of these three things in the north than in the south they are going to keep coming and they are going to stay Dr. Hall told the intelligence officer that the situation reminded him of the reply of the colored to Liza Johnson who asked what was the occasion of the brass bands parading the streets one evening The reply was Lord he lies that don't you know we don't need no occasion The Declaration of Dr. Williams to the Baptist Ministers Association that 11 new members came from Vicksburg has a direct connection with the lynching story which is being widely circulated by the publicity or propaganda batteries of South State Street reaching at least one million of the illiterate colored people to the south The story for ingenious cruelty and with relation to the kind of barbarism that is worse for the practitioners than the victims equals anything recited in recent European war atrocities or anything in the Spanish Inquisition or more ancient days In Vicksburg in the third week in June of the 18th century in the city of San Francisco a colored man accused of an assault on a white woman was placed in a hole that came to his shoulders Earth was tamped around his neck only his head being left above the ground A steel cage five feet square then was put over the head of the victim and a bulldog was put inside the cage Around the dog's head was tied a paper bag filled with red pepper to inflame his nostrils and eyes immediately lunged at the victim's head Further details are too gruesome to print Whatever may be the truth about this amazing story it is published in newspapers of the colored people and is attested as a fact by Secretary A. Clement McNeil of the National Association for Advancement of the Colored People whose local office is at 3333 South State Street The last named organization most militant in activities against lynching will hold its annual convention next year for the first time in the southern city We'll go to Atlanta on invitation of the mayor of that city and on request of Governor Dorsey of Georgia This is one of several indications that the southern states are actively considering steps to be taken to retain their Negro populations and to lessen the violence which threatens to become a habit in a number of communities End of Chapter 11 Chapter 12 From the Chicago Race Rides July 1919 by Carl Sandberg This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Chicago Race Rides by Carl Sandberg Chapter 12 Negro Crime Tales Outbreaks of race warfare reported from Washington DC cause leaders of the colored people in Chicago to place emphasis on two points One that Washington has had a large inflow of southern white population during recent years while the regular army is known to have a larger proportion of whites from the southern states than from any other section Two that the reported clashes may be something else than racial hostilities and perhaps may be traced back to the same antagonisms as those which caused the sectional war from 1860 to 1865 John Hawkins formerly with the Federal Department of Justice and more recently in the Second Deputy Superintendent's Office of the Chicago Police Department gives this view The newspaper reports of what is happening in Washington have most frequently indicated that the cause of the outbreaks were attacks by colored soldiers on white women Though this is a serious and sinister charge to repeat day after day in dispatches that go to the entire nation the fact is that there have been no supporting details no particulars of knowledge or information such as any court of law or any intelligent person requires before arriving at an opinion or a conviction In one instance a dispatch contained the following three sentences Even while the rioting was at its height early today reports of another attack upon a white woman came frightened away once her assailant hid and seized her as she left her house she escaped only when all but stripped of her clothing Here we have the gravest sort of a charge no names are given, no locations no witnesses a wild inflammatory tale sent out on the swift wings of rumor engabbled and tattled for the consumption of a nation of people struggling to set an example to the rest of the world on the value of self control during a great world crisis In all cases where the old and familiar statement is made that a negro attacked a white woman let there be something more than this vague allegation it is too often served to screen ulterior purposes unless such a statement is accompanied by names, dates and locations and has at least a semblance of such facts as are required when a white man is similarly involved should be assumed that the vague allegations are camouflaged behind which men are working to defeat the intent of the emancipation proclamation men who hold to the feudal south's theory that the negro is biologically inferior to the white man The anti-vilification society has been organized by color men in Chicago who believe that the United States as a republic is headed in the right direction but that there is being carried on persistent propaganda that can bring no good to the nation Lieutenant Charles S. Duke colored a graduate of Harvard University and Edward H. Morris an able colored lawyer who were reported to have a fortune close to a million dollars are among the officers of the organization Few days ago there was a lynching in a Mississippi town says Lieutenant Duke One New Orleans newspaper reported that the victim had confessed while another newspaper said it was reported that he had confessed to a crime on so vitally important a matter as whether a man to be burned by a mob had confessed guilt the mediums of public information did not agree The committee representing a number of organizations of colored people called on the Illinois State Council of Defense one day while the late war was on They carried copies of a front page newspaper story wherein it was stated that at a north shore society event the hostess took particular pains not to shake hands with the members of the colored jazz orchestra The members of the State Council of Defense recognized that the article was a gratuitous insult to the colored people and the continuance of such a news policy during the war might seriously affect the colored fighters and workers Equality is a big word in the various public movements among the colored people The following program adopted recently by the National Association for the advancement of the colored people contains in brief a statement of the kinds of equality they are seeking One, a vote for every equal man and woman on the same terms as for white men and women This is a court hit in practically all northern states but not in the states south of Mason and Dixon's line Two, an equal chance to acquire the kind of an education that will enable the Negro everywhere to use his vote wisely Three, a fair trial in the courts for all crimes of which he is accused by the judges in whose election he is participated without discrimination because of race Four, a right to sit upon the jury which passes upon him Five, defense against lynching and burning at the hands of mobs Six, equal service on railroads and other public carriers This is to mean sleeping car service, dining car service Pullman service at the same cost and on the same terms as other passengers Seven, equal right to the use of public parks libraries and other community services for which he is taxed Eight, an equal chance for a livelihood in public and private employment Nine, the abolition of color hyphenation and the substitution of straight Americanism End of chapter 12 Chapter 13 from the Chicago Race Rides July 1919 by Carl Sandberg This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org The Chicago Race Rides by Carl Sandberg Chapter 13 Colored Gamblers In South State Street in blocks near 35th Street there are colored men who stand on the sidewalk and pick out faces from the human stream flowing by They saunter carelessly out and meet these faces and speak words addressed to the ears adjusted behind the faces These words usually are Try your wrist today Try your wrist The immemorial game of craps calls for wrist play Of course it is entirely a matter of luck or fate unless the dice are loaded But the sidewalk cappers in South State Street assume that it takes a skill of the human wrist to throw the requisite 7s and 11s that are necessary to what is technically known as a killing So they ask, try your wrist Billy Lewis for months has been running a place between 3510 and 3512 South State Street called the Pioneer Club where craps and poker are the attractions The entrance is between two store buildings A capper is usually in front day and night From early in the afternoon till far in the morning players dribble in and out of this passageway usually one customer at a time occasionally two or three customers together to see everything looking quiet and orderly Though the attendance of the Pioneer Club in the rear goes as high as 75 and 100 men when the going is good This is not the only craps and poker enterprise conducted by Billy Lewis He has another at 14 East 35th Street where the second and third floors are used as a temple of the gods of chance Also he has another at 37 West 22nd Street Louis Joe presides over craps at a place in the 3000 block on South State Street 2nd floor front Mexican Frank has his establishment at 34 36 South State Street 2nd floor front Wiley Coleman is in the same block on South State Street 2nd floor front Should be stated here that in most cases the neighboring shops and flat dwellers do not enjoy the proximity of the poker and craps enthusiasts In every instance where inquiry was made the neighbors said that they wish the police would stop the games W. M. Bass has been operating craps and poker games night and day in the rear of a real estate office on East 31st Street near Cottage Grove Avenue From an alley entrance at 35 12 South State Street 1 may enter a temple of chance conducted by 1 McFallon 2 men known as Williams and Kennedy maintain a laboratory for the study of the laws of chance on South State Street near 35th Street entrances front and rear T. Jones has a similar laboratory on South State Street near 39th Street 2nd floor front and rear entrances From 22nd Street to 39th Street on South State Street there is some kind of game going here and there usually craps and poker and often day and night said an informant who knows the district from constant residents in it and wide acquaintance I'm no reformer he commented further I don't want to have the duty of changing what is in men's natures but you can take it from me I'm going too far out here now there aren't many places where the game is square the working man who falls for a capper and thinks he is going to try his wrist he don't try his wrist at all he goes up against dice that are fixed and cards that are marked and they take his money away from him now for the contrast take a look at the buildings where live some of the victims of the gamblers who are naturally also the victims of the police who let the gamblers run the kind of games that are run a house to house canvas was made by a colored newspaper man of two blocks of residences or tenements in Dearborn Street adjacent to the South State Street craps and poker games the figures jotted down in the notebook of this investigator of a special significance when it is recalled that it is from these tenements that the gambling houses get part of their customers within two blocks were found a total of 83 families where 90% of the boys were truants from the public schools and 72% of these boys were retarded at least one year by reason of truancy in most cases the parents were away from home so much that they were out of touch with the children at 62 homes the condition of furniture, walls and ceilings was classified as dilapidated in five instances there was water dripping into a living room from a toilet room in bad order on a floor above in 31 cases the father had deserted which means he is tired dead sick or gone wrong from unknown causes in 19 cases the father of the family was dead and the mother was struggling with a variously sized brood of young ones in 28 cases the father was a heavy drinker three of the fathers were in jail and 11 homes were motherless 40 mothers worked all day 20 mothers were heavy drinkers to use the classification employed by this investigator 42 refused to answer questions the following sweeping summary was noted 51% of the cases revealed home broken death, desertion, divorce drink promiscuous living or degeneracy in cases where the deserted mother was found living in open shame before her children or where a father who is a widower was living in open shame before his children such are fragmentary notes of a district in which a Chicagoan might pick up as many broken blossoms as Thomas Burke found in one quarter of London at the corner of 34th and South State Streets the Reverend W. C. Thompson of the Pentecostal Church of Christ ended a street meeting that was rich and vibrant with melody explained that the police sometimes run him in singers off the street but the meetings would be kept up until the next time the police took such action new things is coming altogether diverse from what they has been said this preacher in a rush of eloquence and 20 voices of men and women shook out irresistible and magnetic melody to a song called After a While the last stanza ran like this Our boasted land and nation is plunging in disgrace with pictures of starvation in almost every place while plenty of needed money remains in horrid piles but God's going to rule this nation after a while after a while God's going to rule this nation after a while End of Chapter 13