Kansas City : Divided Racial Segregation

By this time Detroit had become the epicenter of the American automobile. Detroit’s grand boulevards, were now lost in this ever expanding industrial Mecca. Detroit was home to some of America’s biggest names in automotives, including Walter Chrysler, The Dodge Brothers, and the outspoken Henry Ford. Workers in these factories often earned more in wages than many unskilled labor positions around the country. As news of the high-wage jobs in the up-and-coming motor city made its way around the country, migrants began to flood the city in hopes of a better life. Overcrowding among blacks and the have-nots of society was a harsh reality in Detroit’s inner city ghetto, which went by the name of Black Bottom. Several families would cram into single family flats, often grateful to even have a place to stay. Many made due without luxuries like running water, and disease ran rampant along the dirty over-crowded streets. This migration was not often welcomed among white Detroiters. A message of “One Hundred Percent Americanism” was being spread and upheld by the Ku Klux Klan, and Negroes were not Americans. Many white Detroiters, whether they were with the KKK or not, felt that segregation was the way it should be. They feared that if blacks were to breach the color line into white neighborhoods then property values would plummet, real estate agents would not show the houses and the neighborhood would be ultimately

In the years subsequent to the Civil War, African-Americans experienced little advancement in American society and remained on the bottom of the social pyramid. Immigrants as well as African-Americans believed cities would solve their problems of poverty. As a result of their poor background, an image of inferiority was created by the Anglo- Americans for the ethnic minorities. Document C discusses how the urbanization of Birmingham, Alabama, a southern city, demonstrates the old confederacy as the New South. Suburbs were created in close proximity to the city and this suburbanization established further class distinction between the wealthy elite and the working class, particularly African-Americans. As the wealthy white class moved to suburbs, the African-Americans remained in the industrial city. The purpose of this document is to exemplify such segregation through the suburbanization of southern cities such as Birmingham, which became the most segregated city in

During the mid-20th century there was much racial discrimination, specifically in home ownership. During this period there was mass immigration of Southern blacks to the north. In Lawndale Chicago, there was adverse reactions to this. As the

A number of states experienced decades of Black population decline, especially across the deep South known as the “Black Belt” where cotton had been king identifier. In 1920 however a large percentage of the African American population was concentrated in Chicago, Detroit, New York, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. By 1910 African Americans constituted more that half the population of South Carolina and Mississippi and more than 40 percent in Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana by 1970. Mississippi was the only state that maintained an African American representation above 30 percent. Today, the effects of the Great Migration can be seen in the Music we hear, the food we eat, and even the look and feel of cities throughout the

Imagine living in a town that was once thriving with successful businesses to a community that barely exist. As you travel down the deserted roads of your community you are surrounded by boarded up memorable buildings, deteriorating homes, and empty storefronts. The water tower that stands tall for all to see is now covered by rust. While the streets in which you are traveling on show signs of frequent patchwork in an effort to salvage the road. As you pass by what once was your favorite mom and pop’s restaurant you began to reminisce on the time you spent there with loved ones. This has become the story of residents in Boley, Oklahoma; one of the first all black towns in the state.

Specifically, white efficiency expert Dwight Thompson Farnham said, “A certain amount of segregation is necessary at times to preserve the peace” (Doc. 3). This reveals how despite the popular belief in the south, the north also had segregation and racism prevalent. To further support this idea that segregation was still prevalent in the North is Document 7. Specifically, the black population grows over time, but the blacks scattering throughout the city does not change at the same rate. Even though black population is growing, they still are in a part of town they is predominately black only (Doc. 7). Next, a white-owned newspaper discusses the topic of the poor quality of life for Negros in the north: “…the decent, hand-working, law-abiding Mississippi Negros who were lured to Chicago by the ball of higher wages, only to lose their jobs, or forced to accept lower pay after the labor shortage because less acute” (Doc. 4). This reveals how African Americans did not have jobs where they had sustainable income, appreciation, and reasonable hours, which was the complete opposite of what they expected. In all, from the perspective of white men in the north, white men believed that black men should be separated and be working in poor and unbearable conditions. The black individuals had an ideal picture of life in the north, but the white men clearly explain the difference between expectations and

Recent events that have highlighted racial tension in the United States have had even a larger number of opinions that vary regarding why the nation continues to struggle with such a challenging issue. In our text Chapter 6 titled “The City/Suburban Divide” (Judd & Swanstrom, 2015, p. 136) identifies a subject that very well may contribute to the tension. A reference to the “urban crisis” describes a landscape that is littered with “high levels of segregation, inequality and poverty, along with racial and ethnic tensions.” (Judd, et al., p. 165) Many scholars argue that the crisis was a result of the demographic changes the nation experienced following World War II as advancements in technology and infrastructure aided White Mobility. The term “White Flight” has been used to describe a massive relocation early in the twentieth century when the White Middle-Class population left the cities for suburban areas following the great migration.

Trotter, Joe William Jr., ed. The Great Migration in Historical Perspective: New Dimensions of Race, Class, and Gender. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991. A collection of essays examining the role of black social networks in spurring the exodus from the South.

By the 1920’s the amount of African Americans in New York City had more than doubled. Meanwhile the roadways and subway system had just begun to reach Harlem, where some of the most influential Blacks had situated themselves. Soon after, Harlem became known as “The Black Mecca” and also as “The Capital of Black America”.

Housing and racial discrimination of the 1950's and 1960's can not start without the discussion of the great migration of African Americans. African Americans left the south and moved to the north to large cities like Portland, Detroit, Seattle and topic at hand Chicago. In search of new lives and to avoid tough segregation laws blacks flooded the Chicago area. According to online reports more than 6 million African Americans moved up north from 1916 to 1970. The mistreatment of the southerners and segregation alone was a huge incentive for African Americans to leave the south.

Before the Great Black Migration, the anti-black sentiment was already prevalent in the North. “Initially the residential color line was enforced by white-on-black violence,” (Massey 572) and African Americans would be beaten or shot if they entered a white neighborhood because they were viewed as bad people, due to the stereotype of criminal, rapist, and mentally inferior attached. In order to maintain order in cities, legislatures in different states, such as Baltimore City Council in 1910, institutionalized racial segregation by assigning certain areas to African Americans and leaving the rest to the white majority. (Massey 572) Since the enactment of dividing neighborhoods up to separate the African Americans from whites was not an authoritarian decision but the public opinion, we can now see the deep rooted racism is what caused the stable racially segregated urban

In response to the Jim Crow laws, a massive stream of over a million African American migrants moved up north and out west during the 1910’s and 1920's, in search for high paying jobs during World War One and the chance to escape disenfranchisement and racism. However, when many blacks arrived up north they were introduced to new obstacles. Many migrants found themselves segregated into the ghettos of Chicago, Detroit, and Harlem.

Following the Reconstruction Era, Jim Crow laws were legislated between 1876 and 1965 which implemented segregation in all public facilities in mostly southern states in the United States. As a result, the first wave of the Great Migration occurred – of African-Americans from the South moving North. Chicago, Illinois was one of northern cities that experienced a high influx of southern African-Americans. Compared to other cities, Chicago was considered a more liberal city since it prohibited many segregation laws. In the year 1874, school segregation was outlawed in Chicago and in 1885 segregation in public facilities was outlawed. According to the U.S. census, in 1910, 44,103 African-Americans made up Chicago’s population. By 1920

Segregation proved to be powerful in the city as to this day the South Side still shows remnants of the “Black Belt.” Figure [2] below shows racial demographics of a recent census of Chicago and the resemblance to the map of covenants in figure [1] can clearly be seen. Chicago’s role as a home for it’s residents proved positive for some but problematic for most. A system that always favored the wealthy and white was true for the city and while some areas were strong enough to fight this trend, as a whole Chicago was

The terms Bronzeville and Black Metropolis can be used interchangeably to signify the interdependence between the two as an emblematic space for blacks that attempted to construct a sustainable all black utopia in Chicago. The Black Metropolis began as a black community instituted from forced segregation that eventually cultivated the imagined neighborhood of Bronzeville, where black Chicagoans asserted their collective agency to legitimize their race for complete integration. The geographic imaginary of Bronzeville relied heavily on a unified [all black] community, but intr-racial antipathies stemming from cultural and socioeconomic class differences undermined true racial solidarity leaving a neighborhood and faction of the black population dispossessed.