In migrating to the North, blacks left behind the segregated South
and its Jim Crow laws, which were in full effect by 1900. Such laws prohibited
the the use of public accomodations open to whites. In contrast,
Illinois struck against school segregation in 1874 and desegregated public
accomodations in 1885 (164 Grossman).
Desegregration, though, was not enforced and segregation was found in various forms in Chicago. The most evident form was in city housing. Charles Johnson's interview of migrants show their concern of their housing condition:
The desire to exclude blacks led whites to form
segregation organizations.
"
Prominent
among these was the Kenwood-Hyde Park Property Owner’s Improvement Association,
as well as the Park Manor Improvement Association. Early in June the writer,
while in Chicago, attended a private meeting of the first named at the
Kenwood Club House, at Lake Park Avenue and 47th Street. Various plans
were discussed for keeping the Negroes in “their part of the town,” such
as securing the discharge of colored persons from positions they held when
they attempted to move into “white” neighborhoods, purchasing mortgages
of Negroes buying homes and ejecting them when mortgage notes fell due
and were unpaid, and many more of the same calibre. The language of many
speakers was vicious and strongly prejudicial and had the distinct effect
of creating race bitterness."
("Chicago and Its Eight Reasons": Walter White considers the causes of
the 1919 Chicago Race Riot)
Whites attempted to scare off new black neighbors by the threat of bombing
their houses.
"From
March, 18, to the outbreak of the riot, 25 bombs rocked the homes of blacks
and the homes and offices of realtors of both races...Another was addressed
to the black tenants on Vincennes Avenue: 'We are going to to BLOW these
FLATS TO HELL and if you don't want to go with them you had better move
at once.'" ("Contested Neighborhoods and Racial Violence: Prelude to
the Chicago Riot of 1919", by William M. Tuttle, Jr. Journal of Negro
History © 1970)
Segregation was also practiced within the school system. The ten Chicago elementary schools that were more then 30 percent black consisted of four without bathrooms. "Although the Defender disagreed, some black parents complained in early 1916 that the instruction their children received compared unfavorably with what was available in white schools." (247 Grossman)
The law of desegregation was not enforced on the public beaches. "We find that the beaches on the lake front in the south division of the city of Chicago have heretofere been used by white and colored people, but by common consent, segregated..." (Cook County (Ill.). Coroner) An altercation over the use of public beach sparked the 1919 Chicago Race Riot.