The black area of the south side of Chicago was originally called as the
"Ghetto" by outsiders. However, the "Ghetto" is a harsh term, carrying
overtones of poverty and suffering, of exclusion and subordination. In the
Midwest Metropolis it is used by civic leaders when they want to shock
complacency into action. Most of the ordinary people in the black belt refer
to their community as the "south side" , but everybody is also familiar with
another name for the area ----- Bronzeville. According to Cayton and Drake
of the Black Metropolis (1945) , this name seems to have been used
originally by the editor of the Chicago Bee, who, in 1930, sponsored a
contest to elect a "mayor of Bronzeville." A year or two later, when this
newsman joined the Defender Staff, he took his brain child with him. The
annual election of the "mayor of Bronzeville" grew into a community event
with a significance far beyond that of that of the circulation stunt, in which
tens of thousands of people used to participate. In 1944 - 45, a physician
was elected mayor. It was after this in 1945 that people started to use the
term "Bronzeville" for the Black Metropolis because it seems to express the
feeling that people seem to have about their own community. Cayton and
Drake also say that the expression "bronze" when counterposed to "black"
reveals a tendency on part of the Negroes to avoid referring to themselves as
"black". And, of course, as a descriptive term the former is even more
accurate then the latter, for most Negroes are brown.
Hence in conclusion we can say that the term Bronzeville was brought
about to give the Black Metropolis the much needed upliftment and also so that people would not keep looking down on it as the "black" neighborhood.
Sharecropping system in the South
Migration: Allure of Chicago
After the Civil War, the living conditions of the blacks did not improve significantly because they continued to be dependent on the whites for their livelihoods. Systems of tenant-farming came to replace slavery, and among these sharecropping became the most prevalent. In theory this was a fair system: the black laborers were given land to cultivate by the white plantation owners; seeds, fertilizers, tools were also provided; the laborers would cultivate the land without any interference from the plantation owners. After harvesting the crop, the white landowners would sell the crop and the returns would be split between the landowners and the cultivators during what is called the 'settle'.
Unfairness of the System
In practice, this system was terribly misused to the monetary advantage of the white plantation owner. The black laborers where allowed nothing more than a small, dirty shack with no conveniences for their families; and the 'furnish', the stipend they received from the planters (the white landowners) toward living expenses for the months between the crop, was so low that the laborers invariably ended up borrowing from the planters and falling into debt. Their greatest humiliation came at the time of the settle, just before Christmas. Inspite of the hard work invested by the laborers, the planters almost always gave them an unfairly small percentage of the returns from sale of the crop, often justifying this by claiming debt money. But many times no reason was given and the black cultivator had no power to object, nor the organization to unite all the cultivators against their oppressors. The only option for the debt-ridden black cultivator was to move surreptitiously to another plantation.
Segregation in the South
Sharecropping ensured the economic exploitation of the blacks. In the social sphere, segregation (separation of the races) was strictly enforced. For example: blacks were forced to live apart from the whites, they were denied the use of public conveniences, buildings, clubs, shops, recreation areas that the whites used, they were denied civic rights and the right to vote. A more specific example illustrates the level of segregation: a black walking on a sidewalk must always make way for the white.
Reasons for segregation
The whites' reasons for imposing segregation were based on their idea of black inferiority: they thought the blacks lacked a civilized sense and were immoral. The behavior of the blacks on their sharecropping lands: the impermanence of marriage among blacks, their sexual promiscuity, frequent violence and jealousies in the poor black society, all these were used to justify the notions of black inferiority. The reasons were made out to be genuine, as if the whites' actions were for the good of the black themselves: To give the black cultivator his share of the returns was unacceptable because he would only waste his money indulging his impulses. The whites seemed to be under sincere self-delusion when it came to judging the blacks. The whites put themselves on moral heaven and thought their actions were good for the black lot. A dehumanizing way of life was forced on the blacks - they deserved it not only because of their inferiority but because anything better would only confuse their small mentalities, the whites said. As Lemann says, the argument was circular: the blacks were deliberately kept low, but were denied a chance to advance in life because of their lowness. The most important reason for segregation, however, was the whites' fear of racial mixing. This was borne out by the following: The middle-class blacks (15% of the blacks) were educated and clearly not inferior to the whites in any sense. Yet, segregation applied to them too because the social segregation that resulted from a fear of racial mixing automatically carried over to all spheres of life.
Black society on the rural cotton farms: Marriage and Family
Under slavery, the institution of marriage and family was very strong. This fact was only realized much later, however, and the loose, temporary family structures found on the sharecropping plantations were thought to have continued from the days of slavery. It is still unknown exactly how the strong family tradition changed over to the pattern observed under sharecropping. Some sociologists have explained, at least partly, the high violence among the blacks by the fact that the white police left the blacks pretty much to themselves. Others have said that the individual sharecropper's "extreme isolation from society", because of his frequent moves from one plantation to another, had allowed the development of "unique moral codes". Inspite of these problems, an extended family of aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends existed, so that single mothers, who formed a considerable number, could give their children a relatively stable environment in times of trouble.
Black Migration to Chicago and the North:
With the introduction of mechanized cotton picking in the 1940s, the large-scale black migration to the North began in earnest. Until then, 77% of blacks still lived in the South. Earlier, there had been a steady migration due to resentment, and news of a vastly improved life in the North - news brought by already migrated, visiting relatives. But the war, and the mechanized cotton picker shifted labor demand elsewhere and thus began the spread of the blacks from the South.
Blacks who migrated to Chicago in the 1940s found jobs aplenty, jobs that paid far more than those on the sharecropping farms of the South. It was wartime and the subsequent post-war economic boom ensured a vibrant blue-collar job-market into the fifties. Black migrants to Chicago took up residence in the Southside of the city; they found jobs as laborers in one of the industrial establishments, or as cleaners in offices of the downtown, or in establishments within the black community of the Southside itself: in nightclubs, restaurants and so on. The strip of land in Chicago's Southside that was settled by black migrants came to be called Bronzeville.
The hard existence of migrants in Bronzeville; cultural richness of Bronzeville
The idea that segregation did not exist and that blacks had equality with whites in the North was, however, untrue, as the new migrants saw for themselves. Nevertheless, Chicago afforded jobs and a good salary for the hard working, and an urban recreational lifestyle that was nonexistent in the South. In other words, the blacks, provided they did not fall into vices, could save enough to move up in economic status, and move out of the slums. But there seemed to be a limit to how high a black could progress in society: most could not hope to rise to anything above a wage earner. Conventional wisdom attributed this to the educational backwardness of the blacks of immigrant background, but over and above this, the prejudice of the dominating white society worked against their further advance by denying them opportunities. The only major avenues for advancement were either to open a business, or to become a member of the clergy in their community - the latter was a popular occupation as many blacks opened and preached at their own storefront churches. The first residences of new immigrants were kitchenette apartments - apartments converted so that many residents could share a common living space, kitchen and toilet facilities. Families and individuals moved out of these kitchenettes into better housing at the very first opportunity. However, the tide of poor black migrants was far greater than the exit out of the slums of previously settled, now better off, migrants. This resulted in more apartments being converted into slummy kitchenettes by their landlords - a trend that led to overcrowding, a decrease in average incomes in the Southside, and an increase in individual and collective frustration. Socially, this lead to increased delinquency among blacks in the Southside, and at the family level, adults took out the frustrations of a stagnating life on their spouses. As in the South, this undermined the family system and encouraged frequent divorces, out-of-wedlock children, and other social ills. With a slowdown in the demand for unskilled labor in the fifties, but with no corresponding letup in the flow of migrants from the South, these problems of the urban black community of Chicago were exacerbated.
Racism and Urban segregation
The blame for this backward trend in the Southside in the forties and fifties lay with the prejudiced attitude of the rest of the city. The city police, composed of only whites as it were, did not deem action against crime within the black community as their prerogative. The Southside black slums were bursting at their seams. Blacks of the middle-class - those who wanted to and could afford to move out - had to move to help alleviate the conditions. Where else could they go but to a white neighborhood? When they tried, the whites fiercely opposed such moves. A racial crisis was looming large: continuing migration together with customary segregation was causing overcrowding of the Southside and creating attendant social problems. The Chicago Housing Authority took the first step towards a solution when it tried to move a few black middle-class families into white neighborhoods in 1946. The whites agitated and took to rioting, and although the Mayor condemned the rioters, they were ultimately successful in keeping the blacks out. Subsequent efforts at integrating blacks into existing white neighborhoods ended similarly. The Federal Housing Act of 1949 provided funds for urban renewal, the building of new housing for the poor, but because of the whites' opposition to the use of vacant land on their neighborhoods for construction, the CHA had to withdraw its original plan that was approved by the Mayor. The alternative, the one adopted by the CHA as the only recourse, was to construct new housing projects in already black areas by tearing down existing slums. Inspite of a ruling by the Supreme Court in 1948 that "racial restrictive covenants" were unenforceable, continuation, and indeed the furthering of social segregation now became the official response to the problem of black slums.
Political forces against integration
Two powerful Chicago politicians who had the power to raise some consensus against segregation instead chose not to do so to further their own ends of maintaining control and remaining in power. These were: Congressman William Dawson, the leading black politician of Chicago, and Mayor Richard Daley, who became Chicago's mayor in 1956. They benefited in two ways from housing segregation: first, by going against integration they made themselves favorable to the whites; and second, by territorially restricting the black populace they achieved consolidation of their black voter base. Such a consolidation allowed them to easily wield political control: they could, and did, manipulate the blacks for their votes by promising them new public housing, more jobs, education and upward mobility in society.
Public housing, CHA projects in Bronzeville
Public housing projects inevitably came in the shape of high-rise apartments. Since the CHA had restricted itself to constructing housing within the Bronzeville, the choice of high-rise housing allowed a greater density of people to reside within the limited space. Also, since Bronzeville was a developed area with higher land prices than vacant land, high-rises were as cheaper alternative. These twin complementary advantages reinforced the notion that high-rises represented the future of urban housing.
Organizations fighting for integration and development of slums
Although Chicago officially gave up the cause against segregation, a few individuals believed that racial integration could be achieved gradually. The Woodlawn Organization, founded by Saul
Alinsky, Nicholas Von Hoffman and Robert Squires, took up the political cause for the improvement of a black neighborhood in the Southside, Woodlawn, which was fast turning into a slum.
Drawbacks of a segregated society
Mayor Daley's vision for segregated public housing contained the idea that blacks, while being kept apart, could still be made progressive by providing them with education and jobs. By denying them full participation in society, however, they were deprived the benefits and opportunities enjoyed by the white society. An example that illustrates this is school segregation: schools for blacks were overcrowded and were forced to run on two shifts, whereas schools for whites usually had half the strength. If the City officials had worked for an integrated society, resources such as schools could have been shared amongst all. In Chicago, segregation appeared like the last resort, and perhaps it was undertaken with the intention the some good could still come out of it. But it only made blacks feel like second-class citizens