Dear Blogger,
So right now I’m doing research on the background of the Civil Rights Movement in Chicago. Still looking for credible sources on the nazis, though I’m going to a library on the North Side for a video.
At the center of the Civil Rights Movement in Chicago was the call for Open Housing. It’s an interesting topic, and at the center of both of my projects.
At this point in history, the mid-sixties, because of the two waves of migration of African-Americans to the north from the south, there was a growing black population in the city of Chicago. And wherever there is a significant population, there is always a middle-class that wants to separate itself from the lower-class. At this time, the black ghetto was from around Roosevelt Avenue, east to Kedzie, and south to 63rd street, and was slowly growing west during the 1950s. (South of the loop, and stretching south of Hyde Park, and towards the West Side of the city.)
As the black middle-class was moving away from the ghetto, they were moving into neighborhoods that had previously been white neighborhoods. Pretty soon the white people began to move away, to the suburbs, or further into the Southwest Side of the city.
At this time, white realtors were known for buying property from white families that were in such a hurry to leave the neighborhood that would sell for cheap. These real-estate agents would then sell these houses for nearly double the prices to the black families. There were even segregated advertisements for the whites with houses looking to sell, and advertisements for blacks looking to buy those same houses.
As these black families were paying hugely inflated prices for regular sized homes, which they couldn’t necessarily pay for, the families began having trouble supporting themselves, financially.
So at what point does this sort of thing stop being a series of racist actions by a select number of racist people, and at what point do these actions become something that happens by regular people who are only keeping their heads above the financial sea level? Keep in mind that the average American family holds much of its wealth in property value (I’m not sure the exact number. Len Berkey would be so disappointed with me…). Why would you stick around when you’re losing your money and your home, and just ignore what’s happening to everyone else? Most importantly, how can anyone justify aligning themselves with the Nazis?
In 1971, a series of ordinances attempted to allow the placement of For Sale signs in neighborhoods, although the Illinois Supreme Court eventually prohibited this. It was an attempt to stabilize white neighborhoods. But how exactly was it going to stabilize these neighborhoods? Was it going to keep whoever was buying houses in a neighborhood a mystery until someone moved in, to keep white people around, when it was too late for them to leave? Or was it a masked attempt to keep black people from moving in by keeping them from knowing which houses were For Sale?
Dr. Martin Luther King said the fight for Open Housing was “the most clear-cut form of discrimination which exists in the North.”
So right now I’m doing research on the background of the Civil Rights Movement in Chicago. Still looking for credible sources on the nazis, though I’m going to a library on the North Side for a video.
At the center of the Civil Rights Movement in Chicago was the call for Open Housing. It’s an interesting topic, and at the center of both of my projects.
At this point in history, the mid-sixties, because of the two waves of migration of African-Americans to the north from the south, there was a growing black population in the city of Chicago. And wherever there is a significant population, there is always a middle-class that wants to separate itself from the lower-class. At this time, the black ghetto was from around Roosevelt Avenue, east to Kedzie, and south to 63rd street, and was slowly growing west during the 1950s. (South of the loop, and stretching south of Hyde Park, and towards the West Side of the city.)
As the black middle-class was moving away from the ghetto, they were moving into neighborhoods that had previously been white neighborhoods. Pretty soon the white people began to move away, to the suburbs, or further into the Southwest Side of the city.
At this time, white realtors were known for buying property from white families that were in such a hurry to leave the neighborhood that would sell for cheap. These real-estate agents would then sell these houses for nearly double the prices to the black families. There were even segregated advertisements for the whites with houses looking to sell, and advertisements for blacks looking to buy those same houses.
As these black families were paying hugely inflated prices for regular sized homes, which they couldn’t necessarily pay for, the families began having trouble supporting themselves, financially.
So at what point does this sort of thing stop being a series of racist actions by a select number of racist people, and at what point do these actions become something that happens by regular people who are only keeping their heads above the financial sea level? Keep in mind that the average American family holds much of its wealth in property value (I’m not sure the exact number. Len Berkey would be so disappointed with me…). Why would you stick around when you’re losing your money and your home, and just ignore what’s happening to everyone else? Most importantly, how can anyone justify aligning themselves with the Nazis?
In 1971, a series of ordinances attempted to allow the placement of For Sale signs in neighborhoods, although the Illinois Supreme Court eventually prohibited this. It was an attempt to stabilize white neighborhoods. But how exactly was it going to stabilize these neighborhoods? Was it going to keep whoever was buying houses in a neighborhood a mystery until someone moved in, to keep white people around, when it was too late for them to leave? Or was it a masked attempt to keep black people from moving in by keeping them from knowing which houses were For Sale?
Dr. Martin Luther King said the fight for Open Housing was “the most clear-cut form of discrimination which exists in the North.”
You're Beautiful,
Steve
2 comments:
Stephen -- I just read those posts about your research project. It excites me.
It's only gonna get better...
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