— D R A F T —
Evanston Policies and Practices
Directly Affecting the
African American Community,
1900 - 1960 (and Present)
Report Compiled by:
Morris (Dino) Robinson, Jr.
Executive Director
Shorefront Legacy Center
www.shorefrontlegacy.org
Jenny Thompson, PhD
Director of Education
Evanston History Center
www.evanstonhistorycenter.org
August, 2020
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Authoring Statement
3 Historical Overview
4 Redlining
12 Segregated Practices
18 Employment
21 Services, Public and Private
23 Schools
39 Housing and Zoning Policies
35 Policing
58 Lawsuits
60 Current Protests and Policies
62 Maps
65 Conclusion
70 Resources
71 About the Authors
74 Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 2 — D R A F T —
AUTHORING STATEMENT
This document was created at the request of City of Evanston staff in order to prepare and
present evidence and factual information related to historic and contemporary instances where
the City of Evanston might have facilitated, participated, stood neutral, or enacted acts of
segregative and discriminatory practices in all aspects of engagement with the Evanston Black
community.
The intention of this report is to compile, in one cohesive document, published facts from
various works, studys, surveys, articles, recordings, policies, and resources that are freely
available for public consumption. The authors have worked to compile this information and have
cited materials in order to assist others in locating the document’s sources.
Further, the authors remain neutral and take no position as to the end use of this document and
the information contained within the document. In addition, the authors do not take any positions
other than fulfilling the fact finding assignment as requested by the City of Evanston.
This report is in progress and will have periodical updates when new information presents itself.
VERSION UPDATES
July 1, 2020
Start date
July 7, 2020
Review of initial findings and rough table of contents
July 10, 2020
First public viewing on an excerpt rough draft during Reparations meeting
Aug 27, 2020
First public viewing of the the report in its entirety
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 3 — D R A F T —
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
Illinois Historical Context: The Black Codes
(From “Slavery In The North” by Douglas Harper,
http://www.slavenorth.com/northwest.htm
):
“The new states that entered the union in the North after the gradual emancipation of northern
slaves were just as concerned as the old ones with maintaining their racial purity. To do so, they
turned to an old practice in the North: the exclusion law. Slaves could not be brought into the
Northwest Territories, under the ordinance of 1787, but slaves already there remained in
bondage. Once states began to emerge from the old territories, most of them explicitly barred
blacks or permitted them only if they could prove their freedom and post bond.
Ohio
offered the
first example, and those that followed her into the union followed her lead on race.
Both Indiana (1816) and Illinois (1818) abolished slavery by their constitutions. And both
followed the Ohio policy of trying to prevent black immigration by passing laws requiring blacks
who moved into the state to produce legal documents verifying that they were free and posting
bond to guarantee their good behavior. The bond requirements ranged as high as $1,000, which
was prohibitive for a black American in those days. Anti-immigration legislation was passed in
Illinois in 1819, 1829, and 1853. In Indiana, such laws were enacted in 1831 and 1852.
Michigan Territory passed such a law in 1827; Iowa Territory passed one in 1839 and Iowa
enacted another in 1851 after it became a state. Oregon Territory passed such a law in 1849.[1]
The evidence seems to support the theory that these rules were not uniformly enforced. But
they were invoked against ‘troublesome’ black residents, or they could be used against whole
communities when white citizens found the increase in black population had reached an
unacceptable level. Blacks who violated the law faced punishments that included being
advertised and sold at public auction (Illinois, 1853).
Like colonization, exclusion ordinances often were advanced by self-professed friends of the
black race who saw only tragedy in attempts of the races to share the same land. Robert Dale
Owen, speaking in Indiana in 1850, asked if any decent person desired ‘the continuance among
us of a race to whom we are not willing to accord the most common protection against outrage
and death.’ The rhetoric hardly is an exaggeration: during the constitutional debate in the state
that year, one speaker had frankly acknowledged, ‘It would be better to kill them off at once, if
there is no other way to get rid of them. ... We know how the Puritans did with the Indians, who
were infinitely more magnanimous and less impudent than the colored race.’
Not content with mere legislation, Illinois, Indiana, and Oregon had anti-immigration provisions
built into their constitutions. In Illinois (1848), in clause-by-clause voting, this clause was
approved by voters by more than 2 to 1. Most of the opposition to it came from the northern
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 4 — D R A F T —
counties of the state, where blacks were few. In Indiana (1851), it was approved by a larger
margin than the constitution itself. In Oregon (1857), the vote for it was 8 to 1. The Illinois act
stayed on the books until 1865. Such laws were seldom invoked, but they served blacks as
grinding reminders of apartheid intentions and legal subjugation, and they offered white
authorities and mobs excuses for harassment and violence against blacks.
The Black Codes dealt with more than just settlement. Oregon forbids blacks to hold real estate,
make contracts, or bring lawsuits. Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, and California prohibited them
from testifying in cases where a white man was a party. When the Illinois state constitution was
adopted in 1818, it limited the vote to ‘free white men’ and excluded blacks from the militia.
Indiana’s anti-immigration rule was challenged in the case of a black man convicted for bringing
a black woman into the state to marry her. The state Supreme Court upheld the conviction,
noting that, ‘The policy of the state is ... clearly evolved. It is to exclude any further ingress of
negroes, and to remove those already among us as speedily as possible.’
There was no legal segregation in Indiana’s public schools: none was necessary. The white
citizens of the state would keep the schools racially pure more thoroughly than any legal
provision could. A court upheld the white-only Indiana public schools in 1850, finding that, in the
eyes of the state, ‘black children were deemed unfit associates of whites, as school
companions.’
———
On closer examination, even the designation of ‘free state’ can be questioned in a case like that
of Illinois. Illinois, as a territory where slaves were held, had been restricting the freedom of
black residents since before it became a state. In December 1813, Illinois Territory prohibited
free blacks to immigrate to the territory and decreed all who did must leave within 15 days after
notice or receive 39 lashes. As a state, it maintained the black codes inherited when it had
formed part of Indiana, and thus continued its system of what one historian has described as
‘registered and indentured slavery.’[2]
[S]he
permitted
non-resident
slave-owners
to
hire
their
slaves
to
citizens
of
Illinois
for
a
period
of
twelve
months,
yet
not
give
the
slave
his
freedom;
and
justified
her
act
with
the
excuse
that
laborers
were
wanted
to
erect
mills
and
open
up
the
country,
and
that
salt
could
not
be
profitably
manufactured
by
white
men.
[3]
When the legislature once attempted to alter the black law to strip out the provision that allowed
slaves to be imported into the colony, the governor vetoed it.
Furthermore, Illinois wouldn't even emancipate the few old slaves who had been in the territory
since before 1787. Every person bound to service or indenture in the territory was to continue
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 5 — D R A F T —
as such under state government, though children born of such persons were to be emancipated
-- the boys at 24, the girls at 18.
The
first
General
Assembly
under
the
constitution
fastened
slavery
on
Illinois
more
firmly
than
ever
by
re-enacting
the
old
laws
regarding
free
negroes,
mulattoes,
servants,
and
slaves,
and
by
adopting
what
in
the
Southern
States
would
have
been
a
slave
code.
Thenceforth,
no
negro,
no
mulatto,
either
by
himself
or
with
his
family,
was
to
be
suffered
to
live
in
the
State
unless
he
produced
a
certificate
of
freedom
bearing
the
seal
of
some
court
of
record
of
the
State
or
Territory
whence
he
came;
nor
until
the
certificate,
with
a
long
description
of
himself
and
of
each
member
of
his
family,
had
been
duly
recorded
in
the
county
in
which
he
proposed
to
live.
Even
then
the
overseers
of
the
poor
might expel him at any time they saw fit.
[4]
As for blacks already living in Illinois in 1818, they were required to report to the circuit clerk
before June 1, 1819, register their names, show evidence of their freedom, and have him issue
a certificate. Any free black person in Illinois without such a certificate would be considered a
slave and a runaway, and was liable to be arrested, arraigned before a justice, advertised in the
newspapers for six weeks by the county sheriff. If no ‘owner’ came forth to claim the black
person, the county still could sell him or her as an indentured servant for one year.
In other matters, too, the early law of Illinois was indistinguishable from a slave state code:
To
employ
an
uncertified
negro
was
to
incur
a
fine
of
a
dollar
and
a
half
for
each
day
he
labored;
to
harbor
a
slave
or
servant,
or
hinder
his
recapture,
was
felony,
punishable
by
a
fine
of
twice
the
value
of
the
man
and
thirty
stripes
on
the
bare
back;
to
sell
to,
or
buy
of,
or
trade
with
a
slave
or
servant
without
consent
of
the
master
was
absolutely
forbidden.
If
a
slave
was
found
ten
miles
from
home
without
a
permit,
he
was
liable
to
arrest
and
flogging.
Should
he
appear
at
any
house
or
farm
without
written
permission
from
his
master,
the
owner
of
the
place
to
which
he
came
might
give
him
ten
lashes
well
laid
on.
Should
he
commit
any
offense
for
which
a
white
man
would
be
fined,
he
was
to
be
whipped
at
a
rate
of
twenty lashes for every eight dollars of fine.
[5]
‘To all intents and purposes,’ McMaster concludes, ‘slavery was thus as much a domestic
institution of Illinois in 1820 as of Kentucky or Missouri ....’ And in fact a few years later, Illinois
itself attempted to become a slave state.
After the Missouri Compromise, thousands of slave-holders migrated across the southern tier of
Illinois on their way to the new slave state across the Mississippi. The Illinois settlers scattered
across the prairie watched with envy these processions of rich, educated, ambitious men from
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 6 — D R A F T —
the east and their trains of goods and slaves, wishing the immigrants would settle in Illinois
instead, and knowing what prevented it was the ban on outright slave ownership in the state.
Many people in Illinois decided that the state should open itself entirely to slavery. The new
sentiment got a test in the elections of 1822. The governor's contest was a four-way race: two of
the candidates were outright advocates of slavery in Illinois. They got a combined 5,000 votes,
but the winner, by a small plurality, was an anti-slavery candidate, Edward Coles, who had been
born in Virginia and had freed the slaves he inherited. But the pro-slavery faction carried both
houses of the state legislature.
Coles set out to persuade the state government to free the remaining slaves in the Illinois (those
who had been in the land before the ordinance of 1787), loosen the harsh black codes, and
crack down on kidnappings of free blacks. The legislature responded by refuting Coles and
recommending instead that a referendum be put on the ballot at the next state election asking
voters to decide whether Illinois should call a convention to amend its constitution and become
a slave state.
This required a two-thirds majority in the legislature, and while the senate mustered it, in the
state house it seemed destined to fall one vote short. But the pro-slavery forces unseated a man
whose election had been disputed, and they replaced him with one who voted their way. The
convention measure passed.
Citizens celebrated in the streets, holding processions, parades, and public dinners. At one, this
toast was offered, ‘The State of Illinois: the ground is good, prairie in abundance; give us plenty
of negroes, a little industry, and she will distribute her treasures.’
The next election was Aug. 2, 1824. The political campaign that ensues was impassioned,
fractious, and intense. The subject was preached tirelessly in the pulpits and the newspapers.
The turnout on Aug. 2 was enormous. At the presidential election that fall, 4,532 voted in Illinois.
On the slavery question, 11,612 went to the polls. When the votes were counted, the slavery
faction had lost, 6,640 to 4,972.” End excerpt from “Slavery in the North.”
————————
1. Henry W. Farnam, Chapters in the History of Social Legislation in the United States to 1860, Washington: Carnegie Institution,
1938, pp.219-20.
2. John B. McMaster, History of the People of the United States, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Co., 1900, vol. V, p.186.
3. ibid.
4. ibid., p.187-8.
5. ibid., p.188.
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 7 — D R A F T —
State of Illinois, Bill 5277, “The 1853 Black Law passed in Illinois was considered the
harshest of all discriminatory Black Laws passed by Northern states before the Civil War,”
from the exhibition, “The 100 Most Valuable Documents at the Illinois State Archives.”
Evanston Historical Context
Since its platting, the city of Evanston both supported and created systems to segregate, limit,
deny, and control Black citizens. Prior to the American Civil War, the state of Illinois adopted a
set of Black Codes or laws that governed the mobility and livelihood of Black residents in the
state. In essence, the laws ensured that one could not be a free Black person in the state.
Registration was required and one was indentured to a white family. This indentured structure
restricted settlement and independent job opportunities, and severe punishment was
administered if any of the restrictions were violated. Whippings, imprisonment and being sold
back into slavery were a few of such punishments.
In Evanston, the first documented Black Evanston resident was Maria Murray Robinson.
Formerly enslaved, she was purchased from a Maryland plantation at age sixteen and later
emancipated by the Vane family who settled in Evanston in 1855. Maria worked as a domestic
servant for the family until her death in 1903. Maria married George Robinson, who settled in
Evanston in the early 1860s, and the couple made their home on Dempster Street near Forest
Avenue. There was a small and growing Black community in that area.
In the nineteenth century, several pockets of early Black settlement existed throughout
Evanston, including in the downtown area. However, beginning as early as 1900, and in light of
a growing Black population in the city, the social climate began to exhibit changes in “race
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 8 — D R A F T —
relations.” This was the beginning of systematic and institutionalized racist laws and restrictions
that governed the lives of Black residents (as well as Black visitors to the city). These laws and
restrictions evolved over the decades; the city’s government, civic institutions, recreational
facilities, and retail establishments were dominated by white residents and they maintained
control over the drafting and implementation of laws, as well as the cultural and social mores of
the city; with little public and/or published comment or justification for the laws and restrictions,
the city enacted and upheld a system of inequality and segregation.
For decades, Black Evanston residents were denied equal access to schooling, housing, retail,
recreational, and commercial facilities, and many other areas. The city’s segregational and
unequal systems were created over time and, for the most part, they were tacitly constructed
both through private and public methods, including through the actions of the city government
and its allies; while some policies were directly stated as a means to enact segregation, in most
cases, rarely were the issues of discrimination and segregation mentioned or overtly identified in
policies or practices that greatly impacted Black residents. Instead, through a variety of means,
through the use of code words, and a focus on issues such as “development” and “safety”—all
things that sounded “positive” but in truth masked the actual intentions of specific exclusionary
and discriminatory policies-- the systems of segregation and processes of discrimination were
enacted, upheld, and expanded for decades.
In 1939, Evanston’s first Black City Council member, Edwin B. Jourdain Jr., wrote one of many
letters to his friend and ally, W.E.B. DuBois, the famous historian, civil rights activist, and
co-founder of the N.A.A.C.P. Jourdain described the city he represented:
Evanston was “a town that once forced negroes
to sit in balconies only of movie
1 houses, to use only a ‘colored bathing beach’ on the lakefront, to use city owned parks
only for ball games among all-white or all-Negro teams, to stay off all city boards and
commissions, to have no colored school teachers at all.” (E[dwin] B. Jourdain, Jr. to
W.E.B. Du Bois, February 17, 1939, W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312) Special
Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries,
http://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b088-i365.)
Jourdain’s letter described just a small portion of the larger picture of the city located just North
of Chicago, the suburb known as a “city of homes,” the city that served as home to
Northwestern University, and to tens of thousands of civic-minded residents who praised their
city’s history and institutions.
1 Use of the term “negro” and other antiquated and racist terms are quoted here in their original contexts.
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 9 — D R A F T —
Jourdain’s letter was just one piece of evidence that Evanston also had another history; one not
widely told among white residents, but one that Black Evanston residents knew well. It was the
history of a segregated town.
Over the decades, policies, practices, and patterns of discrimination and segregation took place
in Evanston. These not only impacted the daily lives and well-being of thousands of Evanston
residents, but they also had a material effect on occupations, education, wealth, and property;
and for each generation that encountered discrimination and segregation in Evanston, there
was another that followed, and another. While the policies, practices, and patterns may have
evolved over the course of these generations, their impact was cumulative and permanent.
They were the means by which legacies were limited and denied. Documenting this history is
critical to understanding the precise nature and impact discrimination and segragation had in
Evanston.
Resistance
The Evanston Black community did not sit idly by as discriminatory practices were being
enacted by the city officials and white residents. Although not official city policy, Evanston’s “Jim
Crow” practices were embraced by the general white population. As early as 1903, reports
relating to segregated practices appeared in local papers:
“Evanston Blacks Fear Wave of Race Prejudice”:
The article tells of a certain
“colored” man frightening women and calls upon the colored people to keep their brother
at home. The article is headed, “A Rope Might Do,” and the colored people in Evanston
take it seriously. . . (
Chicago Tribune,
May 6, 1903)
“North Shore Towns Aroused: Influx of Negroes Alarms the Residents of
Evanston, Wilmette, Winnetka and Glencoe”: .
. . As a solution of the problem
suddenly presented, Evanston citizens are reviving the old scheme of a town for
negroes, to be located near Niles Center. To this it is proposed to deport objectionable
characters. (
Chicago Tribune,
January 22, 1904)
“Charges Stir a Post office: Race Discrimination on of accusations at Evanston –
Trouble is said to arise out of Employment of Negro Carriers”:
. . . DePugh accused
Peterson frequently of discrimination against the colored carriers and is said to have
made frequent threats that he would “tell what he knew.” Several times he was
threatened with dismissal. (
Chicago Tribune,
February 7, 1906)
“Jim Crow Cars for Cultured Evanston”:
Evanston Southern (White) Society
Successful in Jim Crow Theater, will now resort to Jim Crow street cars — The
Unwarranted segregation a blight in cultured Evanston; Where there are as many
churches as schools. The Rights of the negro citizen should be demanded and
respected; the matter peaceably adjusted, once and always— The constitution of the
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 10 — D R A F T —
United States must be respected and guarded as strictly as the “Monroe Doctrine” was in
the case of Cuba and the Mother Country. (
Chicago Defender,
August 26, 1911)
“The Segregation Equivalent at Evanston”:
. . .Whether Evanston is to continue to
maintain a clean, respectable, unbiased community such as she bears by reputation will
be watched editorially by the Defender with great interest. (
Chicago Defender,
August
26, 1911)
“Forces are Fighting Jim Crowism”:
Rev. H. S. Graves of Ebenezer AME and Rev.
E.H. Fletcher of Mt. Zion Baptist church charged against Jim Crowism from their pulpits
on last Sunday evening. . . (
Chicago Defender,
September 2, 1911)
Leaders of several Black churches, businesses, and other civic organizations actively
challenged the “Jim Crowing” of Evanston, bringing to light the issues of segregation in
restaurants, theaters, street cars, and housing. By 1918, an Evanston Branch of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was established to champion
these causes. At that time, the NAACP was a nine-year-old civic organization founded to
combat racial issues in the United States.
Oral Histories
Both the Evanston History Center and the Shorefront Legacy Center have an extensive
collection of audio oral histories from African American residents. The recordings took place as
early as 1971 through present day, capturing over 150 audio hours of lived experiences in
Evanston. In these recording, the consistent themes that presented themselves included 1)
Housing issues and discrimination, 2) Foster School and its impact, 3) the Emerson Street
Branch YMCA, a segregated branch of the Central (now McGaw) YMCA, 4) the Community
Hospital, 5) Work, social and civic life, and 6) Engagement with members in the white
community.
The oral history collections at the Evanston History Center are cataloged and many are
transcribed. Specific to the African American experience, the recordings are mostly from the
early 1970s as part of the Wayne Watson collection. Watson was employed at the Evanston
Public Library while pursuing his Doctorate at Northwestern University. His resulting work
included approximately 100 audio tapes, a transcript from a local radio station on Black issues,
and indexed newspaper listings. The others are from the early 1980s and the early 1990s.
The oral history collections at Shorefront are available at the Shorefront Legacy Center. The
bulk of the collection are in the process of being digitized. However, there is a select collection
of 38 recordings that were primarily produced during the latter part of 1990s and is available
online complete with transcriptions. (www.shorefrontvoice.org)
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 11 — D R A F T —
REDLINING
(Portions of Larry Gavin’s article,
“Developing a Segregated Town, 1900-1960,”
Evanston
Roundtable
, December 5, 2019,
appear below:)
Historical Context
“Evanston’s first African American residents arrived in the 1850s, and by 1880 there were
approximately 125 African Americans in Evanston. The number grew to 737 in 1900. At that
time, many of the African Americans in Evanston worked in domestic and personal service.
With the Great Migration of African Americans from the rural south to the urban north, the black
population in Evanston grew to 6,026 in 1940.
Unlike many suburbs that sought to exclude African Americans altogether, leading members of
Evanston’s real estate establishment played a role in the growth of Evanston’s African American
community, said historian Andrew Wiese in an article about segregation in Evanston published
in the
Journal of Social History
in 1999.
He theorizes that Evanston was different in this respect from other suburbs, because Evanston
was already home to a well-established African American community by the time of the Great
Migration that began in about 1910. In addition, he says, African American workers supplied
labor that was in demand by white elites in Evanston, and they had personal ties with white
families all over town.
There was a major caveat, though. Mr. Wiese says, ‘Evanston’s white real estate brokers
apparently developed a practice of informal racial zoning. In effect, they treated a section of
west Evanston as open to African Americans, while excluding them from the rest of town.’
Impact
Evanston banks generally refused to make mortgage loans to black households seeking to buy
homes on blocks that were not viewed as ‘acceptable’ for black people, said Mr. [Dino]
Robinson. As an example, black people who owned vacant lots near the lake were denied loans
to build on their properties, and were eventually forced to sell them.
Builders did not sell properties to black households if the homes were outside the area set aside
for black people. Builders constructed more than 1,400 new homes in northwest Evanston
during the 1920s and 1930s, none of which was sold to black households, according to Mr.
Wiese.
White homeowners at times recorded racially restrictive covenants that provided that their
homes ‘shall not be conveyed, leased to, or occupied by anyone not a Caucasian (servants
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 12 — D R A F T —
excepted).’ These were effective until 1948, when the U.S. Supreme Court held them
unenforceable.
South of Church Street and west of Asbury Avenue, white homeowners formed the West Side
Improvement Association ‘to preserve [the neighborhood] as a place for white people to live.’ As
part of the plan, they formed a syndicate to buy homes that were at risk of being sold to a black
family. At times, white homeowners got together and offered to buy back homes that had just
been sold to a black household.
African American families were also displaced from neighborhoods outside the west side of
Evanston. In 1921, the City passed a zoning ordinance that zoned for commercial use almost
every block where black people lived outside of the west side of town. As these areas were
converted to commercial use, ‘black families were dislocated to the west,’ said Mr. Wiese.
The effect of all these practices was stark. ‘Between 1910 and 1940, there was not a single area
of African American expansion outside of west Evanston, in spite of black population growth of
almost 5,000,’ said Mr. Wiese. ‘To the contrary, public and private actions reduced the number
of African American housing units outside these boundaries.’
By 1940, census data showed that 84% of black households in Evanston lived in the triangular
area that is shaded light red in the map below. This area was highly segregated – 95% black.
Beyond these bounds, black families lived on Garnett Place (then called Ayars) and in a few
pockets of older homes purchased before 1900.
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 13 — D R A F T —
While black people were segregated into the triangular area (pictured above), Mr. Wiese points
out that black Evanstonians ‘were almost as likely to own their own homes as middle class and
elite whites.’ Some white members of the Evanston and the Chicago real estate establishments
and some financial institutions from Evanston and Chicago provided mortgages and
construction loans to black people who were building or purchasing homes in the triangular area
and on Garnett Place.
To help with the purchase of their homes, many black households shared housing costs with
extended families or rented rooms or apartments for extra income. In 1920, about 30% of black
households in Evanston included multigenerational and extended family members. The
percentage grew to about 50% by 1940.
As in Chicago, segregation had the effect of limiting the supply of housing available to black
families in Evanston. This resulted in over-crowding and higher housing prices. Mr. Wiese
summed up the racial transition in Evanston through 1940 as follows:
‘Ironically, evidence suggests that racial segregation in Evanston facilitated black
suburbanization. Although the development of residential segregation in the suburb testifies to
the unease local whites felt about black migration, the establishment of clear geographic limits
to black community building appears to have calmed white fears. Race relations in Evanston
were structured by a high degree of inequality that favored (and flattered) local whites and
minimized conflict through patterns of paternalism and deference symbolized by the relationship
of domestic service. Separated as they were by income, occupation, and power, as well as clear
geographic barriers, such as railroad tracks and a wide sanitary channel, African Americans
posed little threat to the social status or perceived property values of Evans-ton’s economic
elite. Meanwhile, as workers, they provided services that were in high demand. As a result, the
dynamics of local race relations combined with the aspirations of black southerners to shape a
housing market that both supported black home ownership and accommodated the growth of a
large black community in an otherwise affluent and white suburb.’
In 1940, the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC), an arm of the Federal Loan Bank Board,
prepared a map showing the risk of making mortgage loans in different neighborhoods in
Evanston (pictured below). A portion of HOLC’s Evanston map is shown below. The HOLC
prepared this and similar maps for more than 200 cities in the United States to show the risk of
making mortgage loans in different neighborhoods in these cities. The process took into account
the age and quality of housing, the racial and ethnic makeup of the neighborhood and other
factors.
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 14 — D R A F T —
The Home Owners Loan Corporation prepared the above map of Evanston's neighborhoods
in 1940. The core black area of the City - shaded red by HOLC was graded "D."
Areas were given one of four grades: “A” areas – shaded green – were deemed “homogeneous”
and in demand as residential areas; “B” areas – shaded blue – were “still desirable;” “C” areas –
shaded yellow – were characterized as old and at risk of an “infiltration of a lower grade of
population;” and “D” – shaded red – were said to have detrimental influences and an
“undesirable population or an infiltration of it.”
Black neighborhoods ‘were invariably rated’ in the D category, said researchers Kenneth
Jackson and Jacob Krimmel.
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 15 — D R A F T —
HOLC’s map of Evanston rated the segregated black triangular area of Evanston in the “D”
category.
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 16 — D R A F T —
The HOLC also wrote a narrative description of the area shaded red in the Evanston map it
prepared. The narrative … said: ‘ This neighborhood houses the large negro population living in
Evanston. It is somewhat better than the average negro district for this class of population. Here
live the servants for many of the families all along the north shore. There is not a vacant house
in the territory, and occupancy, moreover is about 150 per cent, for most houses have more
than one family living in them. Sales have been very good where liberal financing terms are
available, but on other sales mortgage financing is virtually impossible to obtain. This
concentration of negroes in Evanston is quite a serious problem for the town as they seem to be
growing steadily and encroaching into adjoining neighborhoods. The two-family structures are in
most cases converted singles and they likewise are overflowing with occupants; these buildings
are rented as unheated units. The number of persons on relief in this district is probably heavier
than in any other area along the north shore. Altho the area is unattractive to other than the
class of occupants already here, it is difficult to say that the section is declining, for it is in
constant demand because of the limited number of areas available for negro occupancy in the
north shore towns.’
HOLC’s description highlights several adverse economic impacts of segregation. It severely
limited the supply of housing available to black people, which increased overcrowding to the
point where occupancy was 150%. In addition, the demand for housing and the steadily growing
population meant that the black population was, in HOLC’s words – the words of a federal
agency – ‘encroaching into adjoining neighborhoods.’ ” (End excerpt from
“Developing a
Segregated Town, 1900-1960.”)
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 17 — D R A F T —
SEGREGATED PRACTICES
City Facilities
Transportation:
As early as 1911, Black Evanston residents reported widespread experiences
of discrimination both on city streetcars and “L” trains. (David Kenneth Bruner, “A General
Survey of the Negro Population of Evanston,” Northwestern University, May 1924, 31). That
year, a lengthy article appeared in the
Chicago Defender
with the headline “Jim Crow Cars for
Cultured Evanston,” addressing issues of segregation in seating and the growing adoption of
Jim Crow systems:
Evanston southern (White) society successful in Jim Crow theater, wil now resort to Jim
Crow street cars - the unwarranted segregation a blight in cultured Evanston, where
there are as many churches as schools. (
Chicago Defender
, August 26, 1911, page 1)
Beaches:
Evanston beaches were free prior to the early 1930s. However, they were
segregated. Blacks could go to a small section of the beach off of Lake Street. As city council
member Edwin B. Jourdain, Jr. began challenging Evanston’s segregated practices during the
1930s, one of his focuses was allowing public access to all beaches for all taxpaying residents
without discrimination. To circumvent/control the beaches, the City had begun a “beachfront
beautification program” to renovate some of the city beaches. To pay for this, beach tokens
were sold beginning as early as 1932 through city agencies, thus allowing the city to screen
Black residents and block them from purchasing the tokens. The Black community still had
access to the free beaches in the segregated sections. The institution of beach tokens was one
workaround that did not require written policies. The exclusion was maintained by the use of
tokens to help maintain the “beautification” of some of the beaches, and to keep Blacks - and
other “undesirables” out. (Source: conversation with Edwin B. Jourdain, Jr’s youngest son,
Spencer Jourdain, summer of 2018 with Shorefront)
Public Parks:
Evanston, as a social policy, bought into the concept of Jim Crow and applied it
to housing, schools, civic engagement and public spaces. In the issue of parks, integrated
activities were not allowed. Alderman Jourdain used baseball games as a visible challenge.
Parks and Forestry would deny public park use permits to any group attempting to have
integrated games. As permits were generated, this would allow the Parks department to
question the uses and activities proposed by residents. If they were not deemed “socially”
acceptable, permits were denied. Jourdain challenged the notion by organizing by hosting
integrated games. He would attend wearing his aldermanic badge and challenge police who
would come and attempt to end the games. He further took it up at the City Council and penned
letters to the federal government arguing that public parks were supported by residential taxes
and to put restrictions on them was illegal and unconstitutional. (Source: Shorefront Archives
Edwin B. Jourdain Jr. collection, memos to city parks and recreation and to the mayor.)
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 18 — D R A F T —
Business Districts
Section of the Black Business Dist. along West Railroad (Green Bay Road) c1924. Photo by David Bruner
Retail and Restaurant Patronage:
“Practically every restaurant in Evanston refuses to serve Negroes who, when they go to
even the less respectable ones, are simply ignored,” the
Daily Northwestern,
the
university’s student newspaper, reported in 1936. (Editorial, reprinted in “Score
Northwestern Officials for Attitude on Race Students,”
Pittsburgh Courier
, December 26,
1936.)
“Refusal to serve Negroes in eating places and discrimination in stores seemed to be rather
frequent,” reported David Bruner in his 1924 survey of Black Evanston residents. (Bruner, 31)
Evanston’s Cooley’s Cupboard restaurant, a popular place for collegiate students, regularly
refused service to the Black community. Early sit-in protests were held at the establishment.
One interviewed resident remembered an instance where he went into the establishment,
“...when we got our food, my milkshake was loaded with salt. And my hamburger was loaded
with salt, where it wasn’t edible…” (Louis Mosley, Shorefront oral history collection,
www.shorefrontvoice.org
)
In regards to retail businesses, one Black resident commented that “It was understood that we
do not go downtown Evanston to shop. If we did, no more than two at a time would enter a
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 19 — D R A F T —
store. We would purchase what we need and leave immediately… Most everything we needed
could be purchased within our own community.” (Shorefront oral history collection)
Theaters:
In 1911, the
Chicago Tribune
reported the opening of the New Theater of Evanston
(on Sherman Ave) which featured a “ ‘Jim Crow’ ” section. Black patrons were forced to use a
separate stairway and sit only in a “reserved block of seats” in the balcony. “Without friction of
protest,” the paper reported, the theater “segregated the black and white races.” (
Chicago
Tribune
, August 22, 1911.)
This was one of several incidents that were reported in the local newspapers. Other headlines
covering multiple instances included:
“Colored People Admitted in All Parts of Evanston Theater”:
The management of
the Evanston theater came into camp with a flag of truce begging mercy of the butler of
the Northwestern railroad president, Dr. and Mrs. Garnett, and Attorney Auter for trying
to keep them out of a decent place to sit in their playhouse… (
Chicago Defender,
September 9, 1911)
“Evanston Theater Sued by Mrs. Garnett”
: Mrs. Helen W. Garnett, wife of Dr. Garnett,
who lives in Evanston. The suit was brought for $500 in the circuit court. Hon. E.H.
Morris is the man behind the law. (
Chicago Defender,
February 10, 1912)
“Evanston Theater Still Bars Negroes”:
On last Saturday evening the Evanston
Theater company again showed that it did not want and would not have Negroes sitting
on the ground floor. . . Mr. Vance informed her that they would not tolerate Negroes on
the first floor. (
Chicago Defender
), June 22, 1912
“Demands Right to Choose Seat”:
Evanston, IL, May 5—John Smith, who was
arrested after he had refused to take a seat to which he was directed in an Evanston
movie show, today prepared to make a fight against the “Jim Crow” rules which are
enforced in a number of similar places. . . (
Chicago Defender,
May 6, 1916)
The practice of segregating theaters (and other establishments) would continue into the 1930s
when Alderman Jourdain led the fight against the practice. The issue of whether or not to allow
theaters to open on Sundays was before the City Council. Jourdain spoke out against allowing
Sunday openings, arguing that it would only add another day that Black residents would
experience segregation in theaters.
Jourdain had a deciding vote on the issue of Sunday openings for theaters. Jourdain challenged
the theaters that he would not be in support of Sunday shows if Evanston theaters continued
segregated seating arrangements and related “Jim Crow” practices. (Source: Edwin B. Jourdain
Jr. collection, correspondences between Alderman Jourdain and movie theaters)
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 20 — D R A F T —
EMPLOYMENT
Black Evanston residents were limited in the kinds of employment they could find in Evanston
and largely worked in domestic and blue collar jobs. Based on an informal survey of Black
residents conducted by David Bruner in 1924: “Common laborer, janitor, chauffeur, and
expressman head the list for the men in the order named, and indicate very well the occupations
most common. Among women, the occupations heading the list are laundress, day laborer,
hairdresser or beauty parlor operator, and caterer. As a matter of fact domestic service is the
most common employment for women.” (Bruner, 27). According to City Council member Edwin
B. Jourdain, Jr., for many years, the City of Evanston did not hire Black teachers for the public
schools, and there was a complete absence of Black employees in city government, save for
one or two Black residents employed in the police department.
In 1915, white city employees were reportedly “aroused” when a rumor circulated that Mayor
Pearsons might appoint W.H. Twiggs, a Black man, to serve as head of the city’s general
information department. In 1889, Twiggs had run unsuccessfully for Village Clerk. (“Negro
Appointment Rumor Stirs Evanston City Hall,”
Chicago Tribune
, December 29, 1915;
“Evanston,”
Inter-Ocean
, April 21, 1889.) Earlier, Twiggs had also been appointed to the
position as “city sealer” as “a concession to the colored voters.” (“Patten Names His Aides,”
Chicago Tribune,
April 22, 1901). In January 1916, Twiggs was indeed appointed head of the
general information department, the “first of race to hold office in Evanston.” (
The Day Book,
January 4, 1916). Two months later, after he “failed to pass examination,” he was forced to
resign from his position. (
The Day Book,
March 1, 1916). (See also: Dino Robinson, “William H.
Twiggs: Early Pioneer,”
Shorefront Journal
, October 2013.)
It was not until 1931 that Evanston would elect a Black City Council member: Edwin B.
Jourdain, Jr. Shortly afterward, however, Jourdain was dramatically unseated from office,
“deprived of his seat by the Evanston City council” after having been charged with
(unsubstantiated) election “irregularities” by his opponent. (“Colored Alderman Loses Seat in
Evanston Council,”
Chicago Tribune
, February 2, 1932.) In April 1932, Jourdain ran again for
City Council and won, again, and thereafter, he would serve as a leader in the fight to end
discrimination at Northwestern and in Evanston.
At Northwestern University, Black Evanston residents had “long been de facto excluded from
the university in terms of employment.”
(Thompson,
The Takeover 1968,
16). Those who did find
jobs on the campus were largely relegated to positions of menial labor, including cleaning and
garbage collecting.
Classified advertisements (reprinted from
The Takeover 1968
) over the years, serve as
evidence of discriminatory hiring practices:
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 21 — D R A F T —
Such ads were reflective of the broader environment of discriminatory employment in Evanston.
Classified Ads,
Evanston News Index
, January 4, 1922.
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 22 — D R A F T —
SERVICES, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE
Community Hospital. Shorefront Photographic Collection
Community Hospital
For years, Evanston’s two hospitals, the Evanston Hospital and St. Francis Hospital, restricted
access to Black residents and employed no Black doctors on their staff. As a result, in 1914, two
Black doctors, Arthur Butler and Isabella Garnett, opened a hospital for Black patients at 1918
Asbury Ave, known as the Evanston Sanitarium.
Over the next 15 years, the Sanitarium served Evanston’s Black population from a converted
residential home. The operating room was next to the furnace room, separated by a door. After
Dr. Arthur Butler's untimely death, the Sanitarium was renamed Butler Memorial. At the same
time, a new committee (interracial) formed to plan for the future of the hospital. The committee’s
goal had a dual purpose: to provide a new facility to serve the growing Black community and to
keep Black patients away from both Evanston and St. Francis hospitals.
In 1951, an article in the
Alabama Tribune
appeared with the headline: “Illinois Town to Get New
Jim Crow Hospital,” (
Alabama Tribune,
May 18, 1951). The Sanitary District Board of Chicago
(now known as the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago) agreed to grant
a 99-year lease on two acres of Evanston property located on the east bank of the North Shore
Chanel (between Brown and Gray Aves) for the site of a new 56-bed hospital to serve the
“Negro population of Evanston.” Eugene Beck, Evanston City Council member representing the
fifth ward, said that the hospital was “sorely needed.” The Evanston City Council endorsed the
deal. Dr. J. B. Martin, the sole Black trustee on the Sanitary District Board of Chicago, voted
against the deal stating that it would “promote segregation.” (“Lease Sanitary District for
Hospital,”
Chicago Tribune,
May 11, 1951.)
The new “Community Hospital of Evanston” was promoted as being “interracial.” When it
opened in October 1952, six of the 21 doctors on staff were Black.
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 23 — D R A F T —
Father and Son Banquet c1922 at the Emerson Street YMCA. Shorefront Photographic Collection
Emerson Street Branch YMCA
The Evanston YMCA, established in Evanston in 1885, did not allow membership from the
Evanston Black community. The historical evolution of a separate and segregated facility
demonstrated the Evanston paternalistic viewpoint of its own history.
As a result of being denied membership in c. 1907, James Rayford Talley enlisted the
assistance of a small group of leaders and businessmen to organize its own spiritual and
outdoor recreational outlets for Black male youth just off of West Railroad (now Green Bay
Road) and Foster Street and continued there for several years. Talley’s efforts attracted an
influential supporter of the Evanston Y.
Comes Dr. Harris, Negro’s Friend
Now started, at the instance of an Evanston philanthropist, Dr. Dwight J. Harris, a
movement of incalculable consequence in inter-racial responsibility. This city
needed a Negro branch of Y.M.C.A. Central. There met, August 20, 1909—a
good date to remember—at the headquarters of the big friend of all Evanston,
seventy young Negro men who were addressed by sponsors of the project and
by W. A. Hunton, International Secretary of Colored Y.M.C.A. work. Forty-two
persons subscribed $165 and developments were committed to Dr. Harris, three
Negro pastors and Mr. Dale. (“Half Century of Building Health and Character
1885-1935”)
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 24 — D R A F T —
Dr. Harris continued his involvement as sort of a liaison between the Evanston YMCA and Rev.
Talley. What was clear in the general social makeup of Evanston at that time was the notion of
social responsibility for the less fortunate, in particular, the Black community. Many sources of
early Evanston history had, in most cases, prescribed itself to paternalism. This notion is
exemplified in several reports and studies and, in regards to the YMCA, in the pamphlet “A Half
Century of Building Health and Character 1885-1935”.
Much work in garnering support of the branch YMCA brought graduates from the Hampton
Institute to the site on December 27, 1913. Following a speech by Robert S. Abbot, founder of
the
Chicago Defender
, presentations about the importance of education and trades offered at
Hampton were facilitated by graduates of Hampton (
Chicago Defender
, Dec. 27, 1913, p. 2.)
The Emerson Street Department YMCA was formally dedicated on Sunday, July 5, 1914 with
James R. Talley as Department Secretary. The event was covered in the
Evanston Daily News
and the
Chicago Defender
. (
Evanston Daily News
, February 5, 1914.)
The immediate years that followed the opening of the Emerson Street Branch YMCA proved its
importance and, soon, it was already too small to service the rapidly growing Black community.
In 1910, the Black population was 1,160. By 1920, it grew to 2,522 and by 1930 to 4,938 (U.S.
Census data). Within a city that was facing the increasing presence of Jim Crow policies, the
Branch provided needed services, a meeting place and networking for the Black community,
and housing for Black Northwestern University students who were barred from campus housing.
Thus, the Branch Y maintained a system paralleling “separate but equal” services.
By the mid 1920s, it was evident that the Emerson Street Branch needed bigger facilities. The
Branch turned away 155 applications from young men competing for the eight available dorm
rooms. It suffered a fire in the gym on March 8, 1924 which resulted in $5,390 damages, hosted
its largest turn-out for the Father and Son Banquet in 1926, and closed out the same year
without a deficit, all within a $9,600 allocated budget.
As the Evanston YMCA made plans to relocate its facility from the immediate downtown area of
Evanston into a newly-built building, made possible by a major fundraising campaign, a portion
of the funds raised were slated for the expansion of the Emerson Street Branch. In reviewing its
options, the Evanston YMCA Board considered incorporating the Emerson Branch into the
proposed new location of the Evanston YMCA at Grove Street, more than15 years before the
national effort of integrating facilities began to take shape. The idea apparently was abandoned.
“At first we thought the Emerson branch might be moved and made a part of the
new Grove Street building, but we received so many requests from Negro
members to keep the branch at its present location, at 1014 Emerson St., that we
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 25 — D R A F T —
acceded to their wishes and made no plans for its removal.” (George R. Folds,
“Plan New Building to House Negro Y,”
Evanston News Index,
Oct. 11, 1928, 2.)
The push for a larger facility that encompassed both the Evanston YMCA as well as the
Emerson Street YMCA raised more than one million dollars. Of that fund, $941,283.05 was
marked for the new construction of and contents of the central Evanston YMCA, while
$106,471.54 was slated for the Emerson Street Branch for both the building’s expansion and its
contents. This included an appropriation of $17,500 from the Rosenwald Fund (
A Half Century
of Building Health and Character 1885-1935
).
At this time, Northwestern University did not allow Black students to live in any campus
dormitories. Students, if they did not commute, took up residence in the homes of local Black
residents or at the Emerson Street Y. Students continued to room at the Emerson Branch until
Northwestern fully desegregated its campus dormitories in the 1960s. (
Northwestern University,
A History, 1850-1975
, 238-239; Thompson,
The Takeover 1968
.)
After the rededication of the expanded Emerson Street Branch in 1930, commissioned reports
and surveys still suggested its facilities were inadequate, further demonstrating a very serious
need for services, space and funds. Even with these inequities, the Emerson Branch continued
to enjoy its heyday period pre and post-World War II.
By 1940, the Evanston Black population reached 6,026 and the Emerson Street Branch boasted
a significant membership accomplishment. It was estimated that four out of five Evanston Black
boys of eligible age were members of the Emerson Branch in 1941. There were 1,095 members
recorded in 1942. (Norman J. Weston, “YMCA Reports New Records,”
Evanston Review
,
January 2, 1941.)
Exemplifying the need and use of the Emerson Street YMCA, it was utilized as a meeting place
by other organizations within the Black community. Throughout the branch’s history, clubs,
organizations, religious groups and other initiatives had their beginnings within its walls. Black
high school students held their swimming classes at the Emerson Street Branch as well as their
prom. ETHS did not allow the Black student body to attend proms or swim in the pool. Sports
and intramural sports were segregated, with nearby high schools barring Black and white
students from playing together.
It should be noted that an active committee of women also oversaw the girls activities at the
Emerson YMCA since the local YWCA also has segregated policies in place.
Desegregating Facilities
“I remember when I came back from California in 1945 - 1946, and wanted to go
swim in the Y pool. Not thinking twice about where to go, I went to the Grove
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 26 — D R A F T —
Street YMCA. There I was politely told that my membership was for the Emerson
Street Branch only.” (Fred Hutcherson, III, Shorefront Interview, Dec. 2004)
The National YMCA began in earnest to desegregate all of its YMCAs across the United States
in 1944. In two issues of the
National Council Bulletin
, (Vol. 28, No. II, Dec, 1954 and Vol. 29,
No I, Jan, 1955) it was announced that areas in Philadelphia, PA, St. Louis, MO, and Brooklyn
and Queens, NY, had completed integration processes.
The Board of Managers of the West Branch YMCA believes that the West Branch
YMCA is the best place in our community where white people and Negroes can
maintain a socio-religious movement together. We deal with community needs.
We serve youth. We are a cooperative enterprise. We can help you, and you can
help us. We all believe in, and we all invest in the youth of West Philadelphia.
(“Interracial Policy Becomes Practice”,
National Council Bulletin
, Vol. 28, No. II,
Dec, 1954)
Recognizing the trend, the Evanston YMCA began to address the issue of desegregation. On
December 21, 1954, the first interracial committee was formed in Evanston to address major
developments between the two YMCAs (YMCA board minutes, December 21, 1954).
From these minutes it is clear that the serious matter of the financial stability of the Emerson Y
was also at question. The interracial committee was appointed to address the financial and
managerial concerns of the Emerson Street Branch YMCA. The minutes from the December
1954 meeting strongly suggest the beginning of the demise of the Emerson Street Branch
YMCA. At the end of the meeting, the board asked for the resignation of Thomas Hummons
after eleven successful years serving as the executive secretary of the Emerson Branch. A later
public announcement indicated that Mr. Hummons himself resigned and took a position as “a
Field Representative with the Chicagoland Clearance Commission'' (
Evanston Review
, April 28,
1955).
One outcome of the interracial committee’s work was the formulation of a plan to desegregate
the Evanston Y on Grove Street. In 1957, the Evanston YMCA implemented its desegregation
plan beginning with the 4th grade level, with each consecutive year desegregating each of its
age groups. By December 18, 1963, the Grove Street location announced that it had fully
desegregated its facilities with the 7th and 8th grade levels, the last levels to be integrated.
Within 12 months, the nation passed its revised Civil Rights Act in 1964. Several youth from the
Black community began to frequent the Evanston YMCA on a regular basis as a show of
inter-racial cooperation.
The seven-year process was not an easy goal to meet and it was met with opposition, mostly
from the Evanston YMCA membership. In all of the board minutes during this time period, it
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 27 — D R A F T —
became clear that there were many board, staff and members of the Evanston YMCA that were
against integrating the Evanston YMCA.
While most of the teen groups submitted written letters approving integration, the young
women’s group was adamantly against desegregation, especially for social events. Even though
many groups and members submitted letters of approval, the general off-the-record accounts
leaned toward a general un-acceptance of the idea of desegregation. Many members
suggested that they would cancel their memberships and/or donations to the organization if
integration within the Grove Street YMCA were to happen. A survey was issued soliciting
thoughts to “the issue” to board members, group leaders and staff. In the following years,
debate and heated discussions in open and closed board meetings tackled the response gained
from the survey (see appendix “1960 Staff Retreat Notes”). In the later years, the interracial
committee was referred to as the “special committee” and the “liaison committee.”
Additionally, throughout the years, there was continued concern about the Emerson Branch’s
financial stability. Between 1954 and 1961, the Branch reported an average “subsidy” (new term
introduced from “budget”) of $20,000 per year. In these years, the total income had consistently
come in at 45 percent of the budgeted expenses. Financial resources from the Black
community, donations to the facility and corporate backed donations were in stark contrast to
those of the Evanston YMCA.
The closing of the Emerson Street Department YMCA brought on an assortment of feelings
within the Black community. Anger, resentment and abandonment were the resulting feelings of
many in the local Black community. Others felt that the closing was long overdue. Not for what it
offered, but for its symbol of racial prejudice and Jim Crow — an unwanted center in
contradiction of the Black Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s. As the greater community
was invited to join membership of the Y on Grove Street, it was met with mixed emotions from
not feeling a part of a family represented in the negative symbolism of the Grove Street Y teen
hang-out area, the Plantation Room. The room included a painting that depicted enslaved Black
people working in a field.
Dozens of Black residents who have been interviewed and who have participated in past
activities or who were employed at the Emerson Street Y, had nothing but fond memories of the
Y. They shared times of dances, parties, club meetings, church activities and recreation. They
also shared feelings on the closing of the Emerson Street YMCA in 1967. There were attempts
to purchase the building for alternate community use (attempts that were rejected). In 1980, the
Emerson Y building was demolished after the City of Evanston gave the building to the fire
department for training. The building was set on fire before it was demolished.
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 28 — D R A F T —
SCHOOLS
“Fortunately,” wrote David Bruner of Evanston’s school system in 1924, “it has been possible to
have one school district which is largely Negro and ever more becoming so.” (Bruner, 57) For
years, no Black school teachers taught in the city’s schools. Grammar and middle schools were
segregated, and the majority of Black students attended a single school, Foster School.
Although Evanston Township High School was integrated, there were a variety of practices
deployed to separate Black and white students, from enrolling Black students in basic, rather
than advanced, courses to barring Black and white students from sitting together in the
classroom.
Foster School c1910
Foster School
Between 1905 and 1967, Foster School provided all younger Black generations with education
and by the 1940s, it was the predominant school where Black students were encouraged to
attend and where Black teachers could find employment. This was a result of Evanston’s
participation in the segregated societal system of Jim Crow.
Transfer of Pupils, Causes Vigorous Protest in Evanton
The Transfer of 42 pupils from the North Evanston schools to the Foster School …
caused an indignant protest from residents of the Fifth ward of Evanston. … “If they
are not trying to get rid of the Negrop pupils,...it certainly is a curious coincidence
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 29 — D R A F T —
that the entire overflow was 100 percent black.” (
Chicago Defender
, March 30,
1918, p. 13)
On April 18, 1903, a vote was cast approving the construction of a new school building in the
amount of $30,000 in bonds and an additional $20,000 tax levy. On July 1, 1903, School District
75 received a building permit to construct a two-story brick building at 2010 Dewey Avenue by
architect Ernest Woodyatt. Also in 1903, Ellen Foster, who previously operated her own school
at 1319-321 Emerson Street, was elected principal of Foster School. Named after a
Northwestern University president, Randolph Sinks Foster, the school opened in 1905 with a
student body nearly 100% White and faculty and staff 100% White. By 1945, the student body
was nearly 100% African American.
Evanston’s plan to segregate the Black community resulted in, and conveniently made, a
segregated school. By the end of 1930, most Black residents resided in the Fifth Ward of
Evanston and Foster school was centrally located in that ward. To ensure that Black students
and not white students attended Foster School, boundary lines which determined the school
zone for Foster were drawn down the middle of major streets and through alleys.
“... when a street on the border of a school district has noticeably changes in racial
composition, a redistricting is made, presumably for the benefit of both races. If a
street bounding the Foster district becomes solidly colored in population, it is placed
entirely in the Foster district...” (Alice Orian Rood, “Negroes in School District 75,
Evanston, Illinois”, 1926)
The few white students who were caught within the boundary were encouraged to attend other
District 75 schools. Black students living outside the Fifth Ward and able to attend closer
schools were often “persuaded” to attend Foster. Although the majority of the students who
attended Foster before World War I were white, by 1928, 85% of the students were Black. By
1945, Foster had a 99% Black student body. A “testing-out” program enabled Black students
who scored above a certain percentage to attend other predominantly white schools in
Evanston.
Prior to the 1940s, a certified Black teacher could not be employed in Evanston as a teacher.
The first known Black “teacher” at Foster was Mr. Charles Bouyer, who was employed as a
physical education instructor during the 1930s. He is also believed to have been the first Black
public school teacher in Evanston and the only Black teacher in either District 75 or 76.
As a response to much protest from the Black community between 1940 and 1950, Black
teachers were hired. Foster School was the designated school where Black teachers could
teach. Patsy Sloan was the first Black teacher hired to work within the school districts. Lorraine
Morton was the first Black teacher hired who taught outside of Foster School at Nichols Middle
School.
On October 30, 1958, a serious fire destroyed most of Foster School with estimated damages at
roughly $500,000. The north wing of the building was usable after being repaired, and a new
south wing was built and dedicated in December 1960. During the reconstruction, the displaced
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 30 — D R A F T —
Foster school students forced a semblance of integration in surrounding schools. Instead of
being incorporated into the existing classrooms, however, the Foster students were kept
separate and met in the gyms, libraries or other makeshift accommodations.
In an effort to confront the pending mandate of a national desegregation plan, School District 65
implemented an experimental school in 1966. Based at Foster School, the Laboratory School
(Lab School) involved bussing white children from several overcrowded schools via a lottery,
adding classes each year. Classrooms were composed of equal numbers of Black and white
students. Innovative curriculum programs were developed in partnership with Northwestern
University.
By 1969 the Lab School, and Foster School, was renamed to the Dr. Martin Luther King
Laboratory School. By 1979, the school was relocated to the former Skiles School and the
Foster building was shut down.
The shuttered Foster School was met with further protest and the local NAACP chapter filed a
racial bias lawsuit against the school district citing that the Black community wants “equity and
parity in education.” (
Evanston Review
, Pioneer Press, June 21, 1979)
Evanston Township High School (ETHS)
Evanston Township High School is the only public high school in Evanston. Historically, it was in
the high school where Evanston’s Black and white students would interact with each other for
the first time in a public school setting, with some limitations. Black students were subjected to
racial biases; they could not fully participate in intramural activities, swim in the pool, join certain
clubs, or attend prom. Expectations in classes were not balanced. Black students were
prevented from academic earned recognition.
“I guess the only thing that I have any bad memory about [ETHS] is my math teacher
telling me I couldn’t get an ‘A’ because I was Black.” (Helen Cromer Cooper, Shorefront
oral history collection, www.shorefrontvoice.org)
Social restrictions were enforced and inter-racial dating was not approved. Black students who
were caught were often suspended from school.
“Evanston High School was very racial then and there was like a separation. We had
one school, and Dr. Michaels was the principal. And he and I had our problems about
out-of-race dating at that time or going out with people. We had our problems. I think I
was suspended a couple of times for it.” (James Burton, Shorefront oral history
collection, www.shorefrontvoice.org)
In 1929, ETHS officials cancelled the junior prom which was scheduled to be held at the
all-white Evanston Country Club. The cancellation was made after a group of Black students
insisted on their right to attend the dance. Thomas Lord, the country club’s president,
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 31 — D R A F T —
announced that the dance could not be held at the club if Black students were allowed to attend.
(“Cancel Evanston H.S. Prom Because of Negro Dispute,”
Chicago Tribune,
June 8, 1929.)
It was not until Federal legislation was passed in the 1960s that Evanston began efforts to
desegregate schools. In 1965, several schools were targeted for desegregation, including
Foster school (which had one hundred percent Black student enrollment) and Dewey school
(which had sixty-seven percent Black student enrollment). School superintendent Oscar M.
Chute announced the goal of achieving an “even mix in every school” within the district’s fifteen
schools (which also included several schools in nearby Skokie, IL). (“Evanston Plan Given to
Integrate Schools,”
Chicago Tribune,
May 18, 1965; Casey Banas, “O.K. Evanston School
Quota,”
Chicago Tribune,
November 22, 1966). Chute retired before the desegregation process
was implemented. His successor, Gregory Coffin, became the focal point of many angry critics
as he sought to carry out desegregation efforts, including bussing students and transferring
teachers to other schools. Evanston residents were divided over his efforts and they packed the
school board meetings that became increasingly tense. Two years into his job, Coffin was all but
fired by a divided school board. (His contract was not renewed.) (Seth S. King, “Affluent
Evanston, Ill., Divided Over Move to Drop School Integration Leader,”
New York Times,
August
24, 1969.)
Northwestern University
While Northwestern University did not have an official policy banning Black students from
enrollment, for years the miniscule number of Black students enrolled there, along with almost
no Black faculty and administrators, meant that the university operated as a “predominantly
white institution,” a fact that the Northwestern University administration formally admitted in May
1968.
Evidence of discrimination at Northwestern is voluminous. In 1906, for example, Northwestern
President A. W. Harris made his view on the desirability of school segregation known when he
stated that he was “shocked” whenever he saw Black and white students enrolled at the same
school, arguing that separate schools were far more “wholesome.” (“Harris Favors Separate
Schools for the Negroes,”
Chicago Tribune,
November 11, 1906.)
For decades, the small number of Black students faced discrimination in almost all aspects of
their lives as students: they were barred from using the university bathing beach and swimming
pool. Black female students were not allowed to take physical education classes, despite a
university requirement that all students take gym in order to graduate.
Black students were
barred from joining the basketball and swimming teams (part of widespread discrimination
against Black student athletes at predominantly white universities).
And some amenities, such
as the Goodrich Grill, a campus dining facility, reportedly refused service to Black students. And
like at the high school, academic achievement was often derided:
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 32 — D R A F T —
“I had the same thing in my French class. I should have gotten all ‘A’s, and the kids used
to come to me and say “I know you got an ‘A’ this time.” But he told me right flat out that
I could -- that a black could not earn an ‘A’.” (Helen Cromer Cooper, Shorefront oral
history collection, www.shorefrontvoice.org)
From 1903 to 1947, (with one exception) no Black students or visitors were allowed to live in
any campus housing facilities at Northwestern University. Black students were forced to find
lodgings elsewhere and for years students reported the difficulty and hardship of looking for
housing in a deeply segregated city.
Poet, author, and professor Margaret Walker Alexander (1915-1998) was born in Birmingham,
Alabama. She earned a BA from Northwestern in 1935. Forced to live off campus since the
university would not allow Black students to live in campus housing, Alexander was one of 40
Black students who confronted a climate of discrimination and segregation of 1930s
Northwestern and Evanston. On campus, Alexander recalled, “racism was rampant,” with
professors telling “darky jokes openly in the classroom.” When white students laughed, she
wrote, “you burned with shame but you could do nothing about it.” (quoted in
The Takeover
1968,
27).
In 1943, Northwestern’s Business Manager, Harry L. Wells, offered one of the clearest
statements on the university’s policy on housing: “It is the policy and the unwritten law of
Northwestern University to prohibit all Negroes from living in any dormitory or house on the
university campus,” he said. (“Northwestern Sued For $50,000 in Dorm Ban,”
Chicago
Defender,
December 11, 1943.)
In March 1964, the
Daily Northwestern
published information drawn from an interview with a
former admissions office employee who revealed that during the time she worked in the office,
from 1959-1961, one of her duties “had been to designate the religion and race of applicants.”
She explained the procedure: A numerical code was used on each application: Number 1
designated a Protestant applicant, 2, Catholic, 3, Jewish, and 4, “Negro.”
“If the applicant were
either of the last two numbers,” Scarritt said, “they were circled.” In April 1964, Albert J. Weiss,
head of the Anti-Defamation League of Chicago’s B’nai B’rith Foundation, revealed that he had
“evidence that, as recently as the spring of 1964, Northwestern University was coding applicants
as to whether they were Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, or Black,” thus limiting the enrollment of
Black, Jewish, and Catholic students, who, for decades, had only been admitted in very small
numbers. (
The Takeover, 1968,
58-59). University officials pledged to reform and cease using
the process of coding applicants (for years, they had also required applicants to state their
religion on their applications for admission and to include a photograph of themselves.) Not too
long after, the university removed its admissions director, hired a new director, and began
efforts to integrate the university.
----
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 33 — D R A F T —
Opal
, an organization that tracks current racial disparities in Evanston who distilled data on their
website cite the following data:
●
Suspensions –
Although Black students made up only 22.4% of the District 65 student
population, they made up 58% of suspension incidents. (Source: SY2018-19 Discipline
Report, page 5.)
●
Discipline –
Only 6% of White students received 1 or more Office Discipline Referral
(ODR) for a major infraction, compared to 23% of Black students. (Source: SY2018-19
Annual Discipline Report, page 6)
●
Hiring
–
Despite research showing positive impact of Black teachers on Black student
achievement, the District's percentage of Black educators consistently lags behind its
percentage of Black students and has barely changed since 2014. (Source: State Report
Cards 2010-2019.)
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 34 — D R A F T —
HOUSING AND ZONING POLICIES
Housing
:
Until the 1910s, the majority of Black residents in Evanston lived in neighborhoods throughout
the city. In the years just prior to World War I, the city’s Black population began to expand and
soon rapidly increased.
The increase in the Black population was part of the Great Migration (1910-1970), a movement
of what amounted to over six million people leaving the South for cities and towns in the North,
West, and Midwest. Many Black southerners moved to Evanston, with promises of a better life
away from the violence and oppression of the Jim Crow South.
During the first years of the Great Migration, white Evanston residents began to enact some of
the policies (both public and private) that would create a deeply segregated city, and whose
patterns and effects are still apparent in 2020. These policies evolved over time, and while there
was some degree of opposition to them and in some cases public outcry, the opposition did not
represent the majority of white city residents.
As early as 1918, there was evidence of a segregated Evanston. The
Chicago Tribune
referred
to Evanston’s “negro section” which it identified as: west of the Chicago and Northwestern
railroad. (“Evanston Negroes Plan to Be Neighbors of Evanston Elks,
Chicago Tribune,
February 6, 1918.) Indeed, this section was precisely located in the area that would be home to
the vast majority of Black residents by 1940, the fifth ward. This was not by accident; it was by
design.
In January 1918, the
Evanston News-Index
published an article with the headline: “Negroes
Unable to Secure Homes Here.” The article reported that a Black real estate firm had conducted
research into the housing conditions of Evanston’s Black residents. “With more than 400
tenantless residences in Evanston,” the article read, “ insanitary conditions are developing in the
negro sections here because of the congestion in many homes.” Nearly fifty Black families were
crowded into too small residences because they were “unable to rent any of the hundreds of
empty houses” in the city. The report explained that “owners and agents of vacant property plan
to prevent the negroes from spreading from their own quarters.” There was an “alleged plan to
‘freeze out’ the negroes from all parts of Evanston except their own neighborhoods.” And this,
the article stated, was done owing to “race prejudice.” (“Negroes Unable to Secure Homes
Here,”
Evanston News-Index
, January 2, 1918.)
By 1940, Evanston had the largest Black suburban population in Illinois, with 6,026 Black
residents in a total population of 64,000. “In response to black migration white Evanstonians
erected a wall of segregation in public and private life, including the market for housing,” as
historian Andrew Weise observed (436).
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 35 — D R A F T —
Black residents were steered toward buying and renting housing in the city’s Fifth Ward;
attempts among Black residents to occupy areas beyond that ward were met with strong
opposition.
“Classic Evanston will be invaded by Negroes” read the headline of the
Indiana Gazette
in 1918.
The paper reported on the plan of a Black membership organization in Evanston to move into a
clubhouse at 1326 Chicago Avenue because club members were unable to find appropriate
accommodations in the “Negro section” of the city. The clubhouse was planned to be built in the
so-called “white” section of the city, and thus Evanston would be “invaded,” as the paper
reported. White residents responded that they would “not permit the invasion.” (
The Indiana
Gazette,
February 23, 1918; “Negroes Plan to Be Neighbors of Evanston Elks,
Chicago Tribune,
February 6, 1918)
Between the 1910s and 1940, as historian Andrew Weise has documented in great detail, as
more Black people moved into the city, real estate agents working in Evanston developed a
practice of informal racial zoning, which offered Black residents housing largely on the city’s
west side, largely excluding Black residents from residing in all other parts of Evanston.
“Evanston is growing!” one Evanston bank proclaimed in an ad in an Evanston newspaper in
1922. “Plans are now underway for extending boundaries and developing the open land to the
west.” (Advertisement,
Evanston New Index,
January 4, 1922). For developers and realtors,
steering Black residents to the west side was a financial boon, especially because that area had
more vacant land and housing could be built there on land that had previously been considered
undesirable (i.e. the land was on a floodplain and relatively far from the city’s downtown and
transportation). And thus a Black section of Evanston began to “spread out to the west into a
remote and undeveloped portion of municipal territory.” (Bruner, 47). For many Black residents
this was the only choice for a place to live since many white landlords and realtors blocked
access to housing in other areas of Evanston.
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 36 — D R A F T —
1924 Ward map of Evanston
Between 1920 and 1929 more than 400 new homes were constructed in this area and they
were built “explicitly” for Black residents (Weise, 442). As a result, by 1924, Black Evanston
residents had a fairly high percentage of homeownership (about ⅔ of Black residents owned
their homes, according to David Bruner), largely due to the fact that they were unable to find
rental housing that was open to them. As Bruner observed: “it is difficult for the colored man to
get property anywhere; but many newcomers buy partly because they cannot find places to
rent. One of the older colored residents of Evanston estimated that 2/3 of those who have been
long in Evanston own their homes . . . although until about 10 years ago few even of the older
residents owned property: 60 to 75% of the homes owned have been purchased in the last 10
years, he says.” (Bruner, 35)
The percentage of Black home ownership would, however, decline by 1940, when just over one
quarter of Black residents owned their own homes. (Evanston Committee on Postwar Planning,
“Evanston Housing, Some Facts, Some Problems,” Evanston, 1940, np.)
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 37 — D R A F T —
Owing to a tacit agreement among realtors and others, the informal process of steering Black
residents into a single area, which began around 1910, translated into the fact that by 1940,
84% of Black Evanston residents lived within a single neighborhood, which was described as:
“To the West and North, the enclave ended at the banks of a broad sanitary canal. To
the East, black neighborhoods halted at the tracks of the Chicago and Northwestern
railroad, with the exception of one small node, which protruded eastward on 2 streets to
the tracks of the L train. To the South, Church Street formed the recognized boundary.”
(Wiese, 427-438)
In 1940, a total of 1,252 housing units citywide were occupied by Black residents. Of that
number, 1,010 were located in the fifth ward, with 116 in the second ward. In the remaining 6
wards only 126 units were occupied by Black residents. (Evanston Committee on Postwar
Planning, “Evanston Housing, Some Facts, Some Problems,” Evanston, 1940, np.)
Now, the majority of Black residents were crowded in the 5th Ward, an area in which residents
often paid higher housing prices for, in many cases, substandard dwellings. In fact, when Black
residents began to move to the area they found that much of the housing had no electricity,
water, or sewers, and some of the streets had yet to be paved. Bruner described the area “to
the West, near the drainage canal”: “Here is real urban homesteading: sewers and water, gas
and electricity are in, but the streets are just being graded and often families move into their
houses before sewer and water are connected. The houses often look amateurish, being in
many cases built apparently from wreckage of other houses. All sorts of makeshifts are
adopted. In one case on the records of the housing inspector a man had built a fairly good
house, then rented it to two families and taken up his own residence in the barn at the rear of
the lot with his horse. In another instance four adults were found living in a two room shed
without water, light or sewer connections.” (Bruner, 36).
(As late as 1940, some units of housing occupied by Black Evanston tenants were documented
as having no bathing facilities, no running water, and no private toilets; other units still used gas,
kerosene or gasoline for lighting, while others had no cooking facilities.) (Evanston Committee
on Postwar Planning, “Evanston Housing, Some Facts, Some Problems,” Evanston, 1940, np.)
Also by 1940, Black families were reportedly paying higher rents for comparable properties
rented by white tenants. (League of Women Voters,
This is Evanston
, 1949, 20.) Additionally, as
Wiese documents, white bankers and mortgage lenders financed the mortgages of many
Black-owned homes through discriminatory terms (charging higher interest rates than white
mortgage holders were charged, for example.) John F. Hahn, Evanston City Clerk from 1899 to
1925 and president of the Commercial Trust and Savings Bank of Evanston, was active in
financing mortgages for Black residents in Evanston. Hahn served as City Clerk at the time the
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 38 — D R A F T —
city passed its first zoning ordinance, signed into law on January 19, 1921 by Mayor Harry P.
Pearsons.
Zoning
:
Along with the private and tacit practices that shaped a segregated city, the City of Evanston
also officially supported and enabled the practice of segregation.
In January 1921, the City of Evanston officially codified this practice when the Evanston City
Council passed the city’s first zoning ordinance, a key piece of legislation that tacitly served as
an effort by city officials to segregate the city by race. (The ordinance was revised over the
years after the initial legislation was passed.)
The ordinance was designed “to classify, regulate, and restrict the locations of trades and
industries and the location of buildings designed for specified uses and to regulate and limit the
height and bulk of buildings hereafter erected, to regulate and limit the intensity of the use of lot
areas and to regulate and determining the area of yards, courts and other open spaces within
and surrounding such buildings, and to establish the boundaries of districts for the said
purposes and prescribing penalties for the violation of its provisions.” (Zoning Ordinance,
Evanston, Illinois, 1921, 1.)
Evanston’s zoning ordinance was created by a nine-person city Zoning Commission, which
included the consultant Harland Bartholomew, whose firm Harland Bartholomew & Associates
crafted similar ordinances across the country in cities from Saint Louis, MO, to Oakland, CA.
Bartholomew’s work in creating zoning ordinances (along with concurrent efforts at crafting
“comprehensive city plans”) has increasingly come under scrutiny by scholars and historians
who argue that one of the primary impulses behind such ordinances was to enforce
segregation. And today, many scholars now view zoning ordinances as deeply damaging to the
cities and towns in which they were enacted.
Indeed, some of the first zoning ordinances were designed to explicitly enforce racial
segregation. Primarily in the South, some cities’ zoning ordinances established “race districts”
(Atlanta) or codified “race segregation” (Dallas). (Mary T. Voorhees, “Zoning Progress in the
United States,”
Engineering News-Record,
September 28, 1922, 519.)
This “racial zoning movement,” however, was impeded in 1917 when the U.S. Supreme Court
declared a racial zoning ordinance in Louisville, Kentucky, to be unconstitutional. (Christopher
Silver, “The Racial Origins Of Zoning In American Cities,” From: Manning Thomas, June and
Marsha Ritzdorf eds.
Urban Planning and the African American Community: In the Shadows.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1997, 1.)
Around 1921, the zoning movement in the United States was shifting its language, but the
primary goal remained: to control land use. As historian Christopher Silver has shown, both
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 39 — D R A F T —
“racial zoning practices” and their advocates were not solely located in the South. In cities in the
North, Midwest, and West, “especially those where the Black population increased rapidly,” land
control legislation was viewed as an “effective social control mechanism for Blacks and other
‘undesirables.’ ” And nearby Chicago, it should be noted, was “a bastion of racial zoning
enthusiasts.” (Silver, 2)
After the Chicago riot of 1919, Illinois governor Frank Lowden commissioned a report to study
the riot and race relations in Chicago. The report,
The Negro in Chicago
, was issued it 1922
with Charles S. Johnson, a Ph.D. student in sociology at the University of Chicago and director
of research at the Chicago Urban League, as one of the report’s key authors.
“The report identified inadequate housing conditions and the city’s dramatic black population
increase for shifting racial boundary lines, which stoked white racial resentment. The report also
detailed roundly held suppositions, by real estate brokers and laypersons alike, that a more
effective system of segregation with starker lines between black and white but better conditions
in the black neighborhoods would reduce racial conflict.” (Winling and Michney,
The Roots of
Redlining: Academic, Governmental, and Professional Networks in the Making of the New Deal
Lending Regime
,. 7-8.)
As Winling and Michney argued “Chicago real estate leaders took on this challenge locally as
the city simultaneously became a national hub for the real estate profession and the study of
real estate economics. These two developments were closely linked with Chicago’s emergence
as a racial tinderbox in which white realtors, lenders, and homeowners sought to maintain
segregation as a constituent feature of residential real estate’s structure and value. Many cities
were experimenting with administrative forms of segregation, such as racial zoning in Saint
Louis and Baltimore, while others suffered major outbreaks of anti-black violence across the
color line. The imperative for racial peace was essential for cities in the midst of chaotic changes
in immigration, industrialization, and urban growth.” (Winling and Michney, 7-8.)
Under the guise of “protecting” property values and guarding against “deterioration,” zoning
ordinances effectively controlled where and how city residents lived. The ordinances “sought to
ensure control over the entire area of the city” and zoning itself “became an instrument that
promoted spatial segregation, including racial segregation, but without directly mentioning the
question of races.” (Ana Cláudia Castilho Barone, “Harland Bartholomew and Racially Informed
Zoning: The Case of St. Louis,”
Estudos Urbanos e Regionais
, 20, 2018, 448, 454.)
In the 1920s, the practice of zoning was again challenged, most notably in the landmark 1926
U.S. Supreme Court case,
Euclid v. Ambler,
272 US 365 (1926)
. Ambler Realty filed suit
against the village of Euclid, Ohio, claiming the city’s zoning ordinance violated the Fourteenth
Amendment's protections of liberty and property described in the due process and equal
protection clauses. The court upheld the constitutionality of the zoning ordinance, which set a
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 40 — D R A F T —
precedent for the constitutionality of zoning laws. “Racial zoning,” however, was still considered
to be illegal.
A 1922 study of zoning law offers insight into the ways in which zoning advocates could at once
affirm the illegality of racial zoning, while still conveying decidedly racist views:
“In all countries people of the same race tend to live in the same locality. As a result, large cities
have their well defined Italian, Jewish, Syrian, Chinese, negro, and other quarters,” observed
the author of the study, Frank Backus Williams, a lawyer and influential city planner in New
York. “Often the growth or change of districts inhabited by members of a race considered
inferior, like the Chinese or negroes, or the desire of some of its members for betterment, brings
them into contact with other peoples in the same block or multiple dwelling. This invasion of the
inferior produces more or less discomfort and disorder, and has a distinct tendency to lower
property values. As a result zoning on race lines has been attempted in various parts of our
Southern States, where negroes are most numerous. Such zoning in this country, however, is
illegal, and has never been attempted as a part of the zoning of any other country.” Frank
Backus Williams,
The Law of City Planning and Zoning
(New York: Macmillan, 1922), 200.
In 1923-1924, Northwestern University student, David Bruner, undertook a study of Black
Evanston residents. Bruner’s study included a survey of Black Evanston residents and an
investigation of housing, aided by the work of Evanston’s sanitary inspector, R.J. Lindsay.
Bruner’s study is valuable since it constitutes a detailed record of Black Evanston residents just
three years after the city’s first zoning ordinance had been passed and as the segregated city
was taking shape. Bruner’s approach to his work reflected the widespread attitude of many
white Northerners to the influx of Black southerners. “The Negro population of Evanston,”
Bruner observed, presents “a very real problem.” And, he asserted, “the white community
regards it as such.” (Bruner, 2.)
The so-called “problem” stemmed, in part, from population growth, Bruner argued. In 1920, the
U.S. census recorded 2,522 Black residents in Evanston. This figure represented a more than
50% increase since 1910 when 1,160 Black residents lived in Evanston. Projecting into the
future, Bruner argued that the continued influx of Black residents could mean that as many as
8,000 Black residents could soon call Evanston home. (Bruner, 18.)
“If in the space of a decade there come into a northern city growing from a population of 25,000
to 37,000, members of a socially isolated and inferior race to the number of 1,362 there may be
a problem arising,” wrote Bruner in 1924, “particularly when most of the number come during
the last half of the decade. When the majority of the newcomers to the northern city arrive direct
from the unexacting life of Southern plantation or village without knowledge of the city and ways
of living in crowds, and when at the same time little building is done and the area in which they
may buy or rent is rigidly restricted, there is inevitably a problem.” ( Bruner, 1.)
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 41 — D R A F T —
Bruner observed that thus far in Evanston, “race relations” had generally been positive (despite
the fact that ⅞ of the Black residents he surveyed said they encountered discrimination in
Evanston). But Bruner also set forth an argument concerning why the Black population in
Evanston had to be addressed as problematic. “The problem presented by the Negro population
in Evanston is of course only a phase of the whole problem of the Negro in the United States,”
he wrote, “and a part of the problem arising from the great northward migration of the Negro
since the beginning of the recent war.” (Bruner, 4). The “problem” was in fact a problem
belonging to racist white people who viewed Black people as inferior or dangerous, and
believed that their presence in a given location would have a negative impact on the city itself; a
large or growing Black population, therefore, was something that white people needed to
control, according to Bruner; and as Bruner’s study makes clear, methods for control were found
in a number of ways, from hiring practices to city zoning ordinances.
Referring to the “use map” of Evanston’s 1921 zoning plan, Bruner explained that the map
“indicates the kind of territories the Negroes find open to them: largely commercial and light
industrial areas along the tracks, and districts so remote from transportation facilities as to be
comparatively undesirable. It will be seen that practically no Class ‘A’ residential district is
occupied by Negroes and none is likely to be opened.” (Bruner, 35.)
Indeed, it must be understood that Evanston’s 1921 zoning ordinance imposed restrictions upon
a city that was already, to some degree, unofficially zoned since a majority-Black neighborhood
had already been established. The zoning ordinance essentially codified the process of limiting
where Black residents could live, and ensured, as Bruner states clearly, that Black residents
would not find “open” to them any of the areas zoned as Class A in the future. (The majority of
Class A areas were found largely along the lakefront and extending several blocks west, and
also in the northwest corner of Evanston. See Use Map.) “There can be no doubt that there are
rather confined limits within which Negro may come to live in Evanston,” Bruner wrote. “This will
be more and more true in the future. The Emerson Street district, especially in its eastern
portion is most likely to be the permanent center.” (Bruner, 24-25.)
“After you have been restricted to this area (quite unintentionally of course since the main
intention is to get you out of town altogether) then your troubles begin,” wrote the editor of the
Newsette
, a Black newspaper in Evanston, about the push to segregate Black residents within
the city’s Fifth Ward or the west side in general. “Zoning laws permit anything short of a garbage
dump to be built next door to your home, if you find one. The West side, as you know it, is
zoned for industrial and commercial use. You will live, as usual, in the least desirable section of
Evanston.” (“Evanston’s Housing Problem,”
Newsette
, May 22, 1947).
After the passage of the 1921 zoning ordinance, segregation was upheld through various
practices. Some white landlords continued to restrict access to housing in the city through
“racially restrictive covenants” that provided that homes “shall not be conveyed, leased to, or
occupied by anyone not a Caucasian (servants excepted).” Such covenants were effective until
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 42 — D R A F T —
1948, when the U.S. Supreme Court held them unenforceable. (Larry Gavin, “Developing a
Segregated Town, 1900-1960,”
Evanston Roundtable
, December 5, 2019).
The Evanston Real Estate Board, organized and incorporated in 1918 and boasting a
membership that included “every broker in good standing in the city,” also worked in tandem
with others on restricting housing in the city. The board, led by seven white men, worked closely
with Evanston city officials on various projects, including providing the zoning commission with
“material assistance.”
(Evanston
, Evanston, IL: Kiwanis Club of Evanston, 1924, 23, 59.)
After the vast majority of Black residents were living in a single area, the work to complete the
process of segregation continued. And, in many ways, the 1940s can be seen as the second
wave of housing segregation in Evanston.
Home Demolition and Evanston’s Land Clearance Commission
By 1940, roughly 6,000 Black residents lived in Evanston, and some city officials saw fit to once
again tackle the “problem” of “our non-white citizens.” Evanston Mayor S. G. Ingraham
appointed a committee on postwar planning. In the committee’s report on Evanston housing,
they outlined a list of “problems” associated with the housing of Black Evanston residents.
(Evanston Committee on Postwar Planning, “Evanston Housing, Some Facts, Some Problems,”
Evanston, 1940.)
“Negro groups as well as whites of low incomes do not pay enough taxes to support the
services they consume,” advised the mayor’s committee. “A too large proportion in this group
would soon mean poorer schools, streets and municipal services,” the members advised. “To
conserve the white market for their services Negroes should maintain their proportion of
population about where it is. Otherwise taxes will go up and whites will move out or taxes will
remain as is and services will go down.” (Evanston Committee on Postwar Planning, “Evanston
Housing, Some Facts, Some Problems,” Evanston, 1940.)
In order to protect property values, develop Evanston, and tackle the “problem” of Black
housing, the city adopted a policy of home demolition, a means by which the city and private
citizens attempted to control and remove Black citizens from certain neighborhoods that lay
beyond the west side (“clearing” those areas for “economic development.”)
Often the argument was made that the housing to be demolished was “substandard” or
“unsanitary” or that certain areas were “blighted” or “overcrowded.” “Blighted neighborhoods
must be cut out of the city before they spread,” wrote the League of Women Voters in 1949.
“Slum clearance and strict enforcement of zoning to prevent future overcrowding of the land
must go hand in hand with rebuilding,” the group advised.
For decades, white observers had noted the presence of what they called “substandard”
housing in the Black section of Evanston. “Many places in colored [
sic
] area in particular should
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 43 — D R A F T —
be condemned,” wrote a white resident in 1941. “But no place for people to go.” (“What are the
Present Housing Facilities,” 1941, Evanston History Center Archives.) But so-called
“substandard” housing was the result of segregation itself. As mentioned above, many white
landlords rented to Black tenants, charging more than white tenants would pay for comparable
properties, and often failing to maintain the properties. Additionally, because there were so few
opportunities for Black people to rent or own in the city beyond the west side, the area where
the vast majority of Black residents lived became densely populated (and was zoned to allow
that density). Many residents did not wish to live in housing that they considered overcrowded,
too expensive, and lacking proper upkeep by landlords, but with nowhere else to go, they faced
limited options.
In 1946, Council member Edwin B. Jourdain, Jr. addressed the city council stating that the
“severe shortage of housing for Negro families serves to outline sharply additional factors which
have existed for a number of years period one the arbitrary limitation of land available for
Negroes’ occupancy.” (Evanston City Council Minutes, August 19, 1946, 10.) Citing a study on
housing in Illinois, Jourdain acknowledged that in Evanston there were “too few units” for Black
residents and most of those were “substandard.’ ” “Overcrowding of these inadequate units
makes bad situations worse,” Jourdain stated in one of his many attempts to urge the council to
address the housing shortage, conditions, and restrictions (such as restrictive covenants) on
Black residents.
Demolition of Black owned and occupied homes was seen as a boon to the city’s tax revenues.
The destruction of Black homes had begun in earnest in the 1940s. In 1941, roughly fifteen
homes owned and occupied by Black residents in the area near Haven School were destroyed.
The demolition took place in order to make way for the construction of a football field. Several
other homes on Sherman Avenue were also destroyed that year to make room for an apartment
building; and in south Evanston, more homes owned by Black residents were destroyed.
The demolition of housing was taking place as one of the final acts of segregation. “Where will
we move?” asked the editor of the
Newsette,
as the destruction was underway. “Where can we
buy property?. . . Because of the massive squeeze play directed against Negroes, you can
move into the area generally called the ‘west side,’ bounded by the canal and the railroad
tracks.” “Eight to 10,000 of you are being herded into an area over which you can walk in less
time than an hour,” the
Newsette
continued, warning Black Evanston residents. “You are
compelled to live in kitchens, attics, basements, and, possibly, closets and bathrooms . . . If you
do not buy, then you move out of town. That is just the exact purpose of the squeeze play
against Negroes in Evanston. By their own admission, openly published, whites who are
smoking Negroes out of town are interested in keeping Negores who can serve them as maids,
chauffeurs, butlers, [and] dishwashers.” (“Evanston’s Housing Problem,”
Newsette
, May 22,
1947).
For a dozen years, Edwin B. Jourdain, Jr. had advocated for the creation of a Housing Authority
in Evanston. “We have a housing problem in Evanston that is woeful in the bad housing it sets
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 44 — D R A F T —
up, particularly in the North and 5th Ward, where poor structures and overcrowding are at the
worst,” he told other members of the City Council. (Evanston City Council Minutes, August 5,
1946, 7).
Jourdain was never able to convince the other members of the City Council to create such a
body. And, on April 28, 1947, just two weeks after Jourdain left the Evanston City Council (he
was defeated in his reelection attempt), the City Council issued a unanimously passed
resolution creating the city’s Land Clearance Commission. The resolution read:
“Resolution declaring the need for land clearance Commission in the City of Evanston, Illinois,
be resolved by the City Council of the city of Evanston, Cook County, Illinois: that the City
Council of the city of Evanston, Cook County Illinois pursuant to the statutes of the state of
Illinois, hereby fines, determines and makes the following declaration: that the city of Evanston,
Illinois, has more than 25,000 inhabitants. That unsanitary and unsafe inhabited dwelling
accommodations and buildings exist in the city of Evanston, Illinois ; That the number of families
in the city of Evanston, Illinois has increased from 16,413 in 1930 to 19,177 in 1940 and
probably exceeds 20,000 at the present time period that in 1940 there were 2884 dwelling units
over 45 years old; that there were 32 houses without indoor toilets; That there were 444 houses
in which more than one family shared a single toilet. That the census of 1940 disclosed that
there were 1,092 houses, which at that time were in need of major repairs, and that this number
as well as the dire necessity of repair or demolition’s since that time very material materially
increased; The conditions revealed by the above statistics have not improved in the last five
years but have increased within the city; That there are many buildings, houses and dwellings
which, through continued neglect or over a long period of time, are in such condition as to
require demolition, and that in the best interest of health and safety such dwelling should be torn
down; That the existence of these unsanitary, unsafe and dilapidated structures constitutes a
menace an hazard to the health and safety of the city and should be illuminated as soon as
possible. That there is need for a Land Clearance Commission in the city of Evanston, Illinois.
That a certified copy of this resolution, together with a certified copy of the statement of findings
be forthwith forwarded to the city clerk of the city of Evanston, Illinois, to the state housing
board of Illinois. Be it further resolved, that this resolution be effective immediately.” (Evanston
City Council Minutes, April 28th 1947, 4.)
With the establishment of the Land Clearance Commission, the demolition of homes was
codified. The commission consisted of a five-member board appointed by the mayor with the
consent of the City Council. (Evanston’s future mayor, John Emery, chaired the commission at
one point.) The commission’s mandate was to focus on identifying so-called “substandard”
housing in Evanston, purchase that housing, evict the tenants, and demolish the structures. This
practice was presented as a means for city beautification and “redevelopment.” This practice
was similar to many other practices across the country variously known as “slum clearance” and
“blighted neighborhood development.” (In 1947, Illinois passed statewide legislation that
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 45 — D R A F T —
legalized the demolition of private homes and businesses: the Blighted Areas Redevelopment
Act of 1947. (315 ILCS 5/1)(from Ch. 67 1/2, par. 63.)
On June 14, 1948, Evanston’s Land Clearance Commission issued a list of properties to be
demolished.
Land to be “cleared” in Evanston, Evanston City Council Minutes, June 14, 1948, 4
But what of those who were forced to move out of their homes only to have them destroyed?
Evanston reportedly paid market costs to purchase the homes that were to be demolished, but
those who were cast out did not necessarily have replacement housing made available to them.
“Some cities have solved this dilemma,” the League of Women Voters observed in 1949, “with
temporary housing for the dispossessed. Evanston, as yet, has found no solution.” (
This is
Evanston
, 1949)
In August 1948, a mass meeting of Black residents was held in Evanston to address the new
land clearance program. Several speakers presented an analysis of the city’s new commission
and observed that Evanston had failed to do anything constructive towards housing for Black
residents. (“Hold Mass Meeting In Evanston on Housing,”
Chicago Defender,
August 14, 1948).
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 46 — D R A F T —
In the fall of 1948, properties were demolished in the following areas: “both sides of Hovland
court between Church and Emerson streets; the east side of Wesley Ave, between Emerson
and Foster streets; A portion of the east side of Elmwood Ave between Lake and Grove streets;
Also both sides of Gray Ave between Church and Emerson streets.” (
This is Evanston
, 1949.)
This described area, it should be noted, lies within the city’s Fifth Ward.
Some of the condemned areas were set aside to use as parking lots. As the city undertook this
clearance project no plans were in place to finance the construction of new housing or to
authorize any kind of government authority to oversee the process of land clearance. At one
point the Evanston City Council reportedly undertook consideration of establishing a Housing
Authority but did not take that action.
The City of Evanston was not the sole entity pursuing land clearance policies. Northwestern
University also adopted this strategy. Purchasing homes and buildings, the university would
then demolish them in order to construct its own (tax free) buildings.
In 1967, Northwestern University petitioned the Evanston City Council to amend the city’s
zoning ordinance in order to allow the university to build a $10,000,000 graduate student
complex on a lot bounded by Emerson, Maple, and Foster streets and the CTA tracks (Again,
this land was located in the City’s 5th Ward). Most of that land was “taken up with residences
and six small businesses” and many were owned and occupied by Black residents. In the
announced plans for “clearance” of the land, only brief mention was made of the “hardship
cases”- the current occupants and tenants who might need assistance in their “relocation effort.”
(“Northwestern U. Bids To Build Grad Flats: Evanston Zoning Laws Must Be Changed Though,”
Chicago Defender,
October 24, 1967.)
“In order to make room for the graduate dormitories on Maple Ave between Emerson and Foster
streets, Northwestern University demolished many apartment units and residential homes
resulting in the displacement (removal) of over 70 families, 1/3 of which were black. The white
families displaced simply moved to another area of town, but the Blacks, subject to racial
discrimination, had no place to go and eventually left Evanston. In this sense the Blacks were
‘removed.’ ” (“The Case Against Northwestern University,” Northwestern University Archives,
ND.)
Before beginning construction, the university petitioned the City of Evanston to amend the
zoning ordinance in order to authorize its planned design. In March 1968 the Evanston City
Council agreed to authorize a new zoning classification that would allow Northwestern to build
the graduate housing complex according to its plan. By August 1968, all of the existing buildings
had been “cleared” (demolished) after the families and business owners were bought out, save
for William Spencer and his wife who had operated their business, “Foster Street Pharmacy,” for
48 years. They were the last to leave. (Edith Herman, “N.U.’s Housing Project Delayed,”
Chicago Tribune
, August 18, 1968.)
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 47 — D R A F T —
Construction, however, was delayed after the Evanston City Council asked Northwestern
University “to make a payment to the city for fire and police protection.” Because Northwestern
University land is tax exempt, the university does not pay for the City's fire and police services
which is funded through taxes. In October 1968, the City Council voted to accept the university’s
offer of “the gift of a new $30,000 fire engine as partial compensation for fire protection and
other municipal services provided by the city.” The council also voted “to approve” another
request from the university for the “rezoning of a tract of Northwestern University property
bounded by Garnett Place, Foster St, Maple Ave and the L tracks for more graduate housing.”
(“Council O.K’s Rezoning of N.U. Property,”
Chicago Tribune
, October, 8, 1968.)
Critics of Northwestern University's development methods and projects objected to what was
seen as the university’s encroachment on Black neighborhoods and displacement of Black
residents and businesses. “Northwestern University is engaged in an effort to expand its
boundaries into the Black community. Northwestern University is not expanding northward or
southward into the white affluent community, but westward into Black and mixed communities,”
critics observed. Further, they charged, owing to the tax exemption status enjoyed by
Northwestern University, the tax burden to pay for city services was born disproportionately by
low-income residents, many of whom were Black. (“The Case against Northwestern University.”)
Additionally, critics objected to Northwestern’s reported “sell and lease back” arrangements,
producing “large, tax-exempt incomes, while taking that much more property off the tax rolls.”
Such arrangements involved “wealthy homeowners, businessmen and corporations” selling their
land to Northwestern University “which in turn leases the land back to the original owners for
their disposition at a reasonable rate… Since the land is under the legal ownership of
Northwestern University, the original owners no longer have to pay property taxes. Thus
providing a ‘tax dodge.’ Consequently as property owned by the wealthy is removed from the
tax rolls, the tax base is reduced creating a greater tax burden on low income families.” (“The
Case against Northwestern University; U.S. House of Representative, Hearings Before the
Committee on Ways and Means, 81
st
Congress, Revenue Revision of 1950, Washington, D.C.:
Government Printing Office, 810).
Finally, critics objected to Northwestern’s often poor service as a landlord to some Black
Evanston residents. In the area surrounding the new dormitory alone, Northwestern reportedly
owned 25 dwelling units, all classified as income property and tax exempt, many of which
reportedly had large numbers of code violations, along with defective plumbing, electrical, and
heating systems, resulting in several fires. (“The Case against Northwestern University.”)
[i] Andrew Wiese, “Black Housing, White Finance: African American Housing and Home
Ownership in Evanston, Illinois, Before 1940,
Journal of Social History,
Winter 1999, 430.
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 48 — D R A F T —
Residential Housing:
Evanston African American residents had few options in purchasing a home. Evanston banks
would not offer or provide home loans to Black families. Most families applied for mortgages in
Chicago or had made arrangements with their employers.
A resident shared his experience dealing with banks:
Being in the mortgage business now, I look back, and when my parents bought their
house, like, 99 percent of the black folks then, or African Americans at that point, got
their mortgages from somewhere outside this community. No banks would [lend] money
to minorities to buy houses. And so when the banks wouldn’t lend money to do anything,
so when I became president of the NAACP that was one of my goals is to knock down
the discriminatory practices at the banks . . . That was in 1972. (Carl Davis. Shorefront
oral history collection, www.shorefrontvoice.org)
Another resident who eventually served as 5th ward alderman shared an instance that took
place in 1965:
“I just looked at the signs, found an apartment, and went to a local realtor, who is very
much in business still to this day, and after going into the building with my wife, and
being basically ignored for a long time as we were sitting sort of in, like, a little waiting
room area, finally a man came out from a side office. . . And he walked up, and sort of
drew in his breath . . . and asked if there was something that he could do for us, or what
we wanted, -- it was nothing along the line of “may I help you”. . . And when we told him
that we had found an apartment in one of the buildings that his firm managed, and that
we wanted to put in an application . . . He actually jumped back like a step, almost as if I
had thrown something on the ground that had blown up and had suddenly startled him . .
. he drew in his breath, and he said, “Why no. We don’t rent to coloreds.” (Mike
Summers, Shorefront oral history collection, www.shorefrontvoice.org)
Housing segregation in Evanston was documented through the city’s relationship with
Northwestern University, which for years offered students a list of accredited off-campus
rooming houses and rentals. Many owners of those private properties, it was known, “refuse[d]
to rent to Negroes.” (“Discrimination Against Negro Students,”
Daily Northwestern,
December
15, 1936.) It was not until 1965, when, acting under pressure from students and others, that
university officials finally agreed to remove from the university’s list of approved off-campus
housing any landlord that was found to discriminate in renting to students. (Michael Whitney,
“NU to Notify Landlords of its Policy,”
Daily Northwestern
, February 4, 1965.) But discrimination
against Black renters would persist.
Fair Housing
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 49 — D R A F T —
For years, Evanston residents, Northwestern students, and others brought pressure to the
university to desegregate its own real estate holdings in Evanston. And pressure on the
Evanston City Council to pass fair housing legislation had been ongoing for years, with
numerous petitions presented before the City Council to no avail.
In October 1967, the Evanston City Council finally passed an ordinance providing a penalty for
real estate agents found practicing discrimination. The ordinance created a city-issued license
for real estate brokers that could be revoked if they were found to be practicing discrimination in
the rental, sale and advertising of housing. (“Vote on Open Housing is Set for Evanston.”
Chicago Tribune,
October 3, 1967; “New Housing Bill Urged,”
Chicago Tribune.
April 14, 1968.)
The ordinance was largely seen as ineffective since it did not address the larger issues related
to housing discrimination.
It was not until after the assasination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in April 1968, that the Federal
Government signed into law the Fair Housing Act, expanding on existing laws and prohibiting
discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, religion, and national
origin. In Evanston, the City Council still refused to pass a fair housing law. After students and
hundreds of Evanston residents took part in marches, and the Fair Housing movement’s leaders
stated “emphatically and unequivocally” that if an ordinance was not passed on or before April
29, 1968, they would move “from non-violent protest . . . to nonviolent resistance,” involving an
“economic boycott of all Evanston businesses, transportation systems, and profit making
operations within the city limit of Evanston,” that a law was finally passed. (“Statement of Intent,”
Collection 57, Evanston Housing Records, 1900-1995, Evanston History Center Archives,
Evanston History Center, Evanston, IL; John Maclean. “O.K. Stiffer Housing Law,”
Chicago
Tribune,
April 30, 1968.)
The legislation did not solve the issue of housing discrimination in Evanston. By 1985, a study of
Evanston real estate practices alleged that “racial steering” was being practiced by certain
realtors, whereby Black renters and buyers were “steered” toward certain properties and away
from other areas of the city. “Discrimination in Evanston’s real estate market is very subtle and
not always apparent,” the report noted. Mayor James C. Lytle appointed a committee to
investigate, pledging “to correct the problem.” (Robert Enstad, “Evanston Cites Realty Steering,”
Chicago Tribune,
March 27, 1985.)
The Postwar Housing Shortage and Veterans Housing:
After World War II, the city of Evanston, like many cities and towns across the country,
experienced a severe housing shortage owing to a halt on residential construction during the
war.
In the years following World War II, the City of Evanston declared a “housing emergency” and
granted permits for a variety of temporary housing construction projects throughout the city. The
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 50 — D R A F T —
City Council granted requested building permits with certain conditions applied to the temporary
construction projects. In the case of Northwestern University, the conditions applied to the
granting of new permits were described in the following paragraph:
“A majority of committee on buildings recommends that this application be granted for the period
of the housing emergency, the City Council to determine the duration of the emergency, but in
no case to exceed five years; provided that the University will undertake to keep the buildings in
repair and the property in a neat and orderly condition for the duration of the permit.” (Evanston
City Council Minutes, April 29, 1946, 4.)
Northwestern University did not allow Black students or visitors to live in its housing, nor would
Black students, including Black veterans, be allowed to live in the temporary housing
constructed during this period; and so, especially in 1946-1947, the issue of housing
segregation and the Evanston City Council’s role in allowing it, came to the forefront.
In the face of the extreme housing shorting, Northwestern University applied for several permits
to build erect temporary housing. Some examples of these projects are listed below:
In April 1946, Northwestern applied for a permit to build fourteen steel craft houses for
“temporary living quarters for students and faculty on the property of 1420 Isabella St.”
(Evanston City Council Minutes, April 22, 1946, 2).
The university also requested “permission to erect 12 prefabricated metal buildings . . . at the
south end of the Evanston campus (1845 -1875 Sheridan Rd ) and 13 on the south end of the
music campus (1801-1807 Sherman Ave and 701-733 Clark St ) to be used for temporary living
quarters for single students.” (Evanston City Council Minutes, April 29, 1946, 4.)
In May 1946, the university applied for a permit to build fifty “single family units to be erected on
property . . . located on the north side of Central St. between Girard and Ridge Ave.” (Evanston
City Council Minutes, May 27, 1946, 2.)
In February 1946, Northwestern applied for a city permit to build a 280-unit housing facility for
returning (white only) veterans. (“Evanston Lets N.U. Build More Huts for Ex-GIs,”
ChicagoTribune
, February 5, 1946.)
Many people were outraged at the barring of Black veterans from Northwestern’s housing. City
Council member Edwin B. Jourdain, Jr. urged the council to “demand that the school drop its
color bar as a condition upon which permission would be granted” for any new structures.
(“Northwestern Gets Ok on Jim Crow Dorm,”
Chicago Defender,
May 11,1946.)
As Chairman of the city’s Building Committee, Jourdain engaged in correspondence with the
National Housing Agency (NHA) to determine the legality of restrictions against Black veterans.
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 51 — D R A F T —
“At this writing, nine Negro war veterans, — some with battle stars from the European and the
South Pacific theaters, some drawing disabled war vets’ pensions,” he wrote, “are finding that
their share in World War II means little to a university which today raises against them the very
Hitler racist barriers they fought to destroy.” (Quoted in Beverly, Jr.,
Edwin B. Jourdain,
97.)
But the Evanston City Council would continue to approve Northwestern University’s applications
for building permits. Council member Jourdain voted “nay” on each of the university’s
applications for permits.
Given that the City Council granted building permits to Northwestern University with “conditions”
attached, as Jourdain observed, its members had the power to attach any conditions that a
majority of council members approved. Jourdain objected time and again to the City Council’s
failure to add the condition that, in order to have a permit approved by the City Council,
Northwestern must make the housing available to all- to both Black and white students.
Jourdain took a strong stand in his opposition to the fact that these new housing facilities would
be segregated (as was all Northwestern University housing). Further, he charged that by
granting the permits to Northwestern, the City Council and the City of Evanston were complicit in
acts of racial discrimination and segregation.
At the April 22, 1946 City Council meeting, Jourdain said, “It has been claimed that this Council
is not involved in the University’s housing matters. But now, when we are asked to grant a
special application for added housing, this council can and has tonight set up certain conditions
to the granting of the application. One of these conditions can be and should be that housing be
open to all university students, regardless of their race or their color.” (Evanston City Council
Minutes, April 22, 1946, 2)
As Chairman of the Building Committee, Jourdain was required to present the applications for
building permits from Northwestern University to the council, but each and every time he did so,
he not only objected, but he also voted “nay.” He also called attention to the fact that
Northwestern’s housing would not be open to Black students who had served in the war.
Jourdain pledged that he was “going to go on opposing every single one of these applications
from Northwestern University. Just as long as this University insists on a Jim Crow housing
policy, it has no right to come into the City Council asking these special favors. We represent
the very citizens they bar. Northwestern shuts its dormitory doors on its own students. It turns
from its houses the girls under its care, if they just happened to be colored. The University has
no right to take special benefits from taxpayers’ money, and then bar some of the taxpayers.
This City Council has no right to vote special permits increasing University housing facilities,
without insisting that these facilities be open to all without color restrictions.” (Evanston City
Council Minutes, April 29, 1946, 4.)
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 52 — D R A F T —
Jourdain asked that the legal position of the city in this matter be investigated and reported to
the council. “The city of Evanston has no right to grant special permits for University facilities
from which some of its citizens will be barred because of color,” he said. “I question how far you
can go in extending facilities paid for by all taxpayers for uses from which some taxpayers are
barred. I take the position that this City Council cannot be party to setting up Jim Crow housing
facilities. I ask that this legal question be referred for report on the legality of our position to the
Corporation Counsel.” (Evanston City Council Minutes, April 29, 1946, 4-5.)
According to the minutes of the Evanston City Council, Jourdain’s requests were not met. And
Northwestern University continued to win approval for its requested building permits. On May
27, 1945, Jourdain addressed the council and submitted a “minority report” at the same time he
presented “the report of the building committee on Northwestern University's application for
additional housing units.” “Some time ago, I stated on the floor of this council that I would
continue to oppose every request of Northwestern University for additional housing, so long as
this University continues to refuse to let people who happen to be colored use these housing
facilities,” Jourdain stated. “Once more I am calling attention to the fact that this city has no right
to go on issuing permits for housing from which our taxpayers are barred because of merely
color. This city council has no right to make itself a partner to this university’s Jim Crow housing
policy. I have informed the joint meeting tonight of the building and zoning committees of this
stand and since these committees and joint meeting have not seen fit to adopt this position, I
am bringing this to the floor of the council once more as a minority report. If Northwestern
University draws a color line in housing this city cannot be a party to it.” (Evanston City Council
Minutes, May 27, 1946, 2).
At numerous City Council meetings, Jourdain reiterated his concerns. On June 3, 1946, he once
again called “the attention of the City Council to the city's part in Northwestern University's
housing development.” Jourdain stated: “there are serious legal difficulties standing in the path
of this city’s continuing to cooperate with Northwestern’s Jim Crow housing policy. We must
definitely stop and face the legal question of how far we can afford to go in aiding and abetting
race discrimination. There is a large question of public policy involved. Every city has real
interest in the welfare of all its citizens. It certainly violates the decent interest we have in our
citizens’ welfare for us for us to help Northwestern University erect Jim Crow housing projects.
The University could not get permits for these discriminatory projects, if we withheld them. This
city has noticed and for years has known the university’s long history of discriminating against
its colored students. It should be the policy of this city, therefore, to refuse permits for any
housing developments that bar any of our citizens, because of color it is against public policy of
state and local governments to discriminate because of race. The city certainly has a clear right
and duty to refuse to help a discrimination which is so strongly against public policy, against the
constitution, against the Civil Rights Act of the Illinois statutes. In this housing shortage, houses
are needed by everyone. This city should not issue permits for housing that bar so many
people. The city must not go on record as standing idly by and tacitly aiding and erecting the
Jim Crow housing units. Every taxpayer has definite interest in this. Northwestern University is a
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 53 — D R A F T —
tax exempt body by virtue of its state charter. Taxes on the humblest home in Evanston are
more burdensome, just by this exemption. Yet the very parents who thus contribute to the
University cannot get for their children University facilities for which this city goes on issuing
permits. This city ought not help the University do that discriminating which the city itself has no
right to do. There is another aspect to this matter. The federal government has expressed
concern over veterans housing. Certain federal agencies give priorities to aid veterans housing
so that all who shared in this war might find housing, regardless of what color they happen to
be. I am therefore, moving a reference to the Corporation Council to write asking the National
Housing Agency how Northwestern can get priorities for Jim Crow housing here, and what is the
policy of this agency as to aiding erection of housing that bars war veterans.” (Evanston City
Council Minutes, June 3 1946, 7).
Jourdain’s motion was seconded, but “held over for one week on the question of what right the
City Council had to authorize such inquiry.” (Evanston City Council Minutes, June 3, 1946, 7).
However, no progress was made on the issue and a few weeks later, Jourdain reiterated his
request that the City Council “rule that we had no legal right to aid and abet segregation.”
(Evanston City Council Minutes, June 24, 1946, 5).
“The City Council held up my reference,” he said. “The council raised the question, did we have
a right to order the Corporation Counsel to write such a letter? While the council was making up
its mind on that point, I wrote the letter myself. Tonight I report on that correspondence with the
National Housing Agency [NHA].” (Evanston City Council Minutes, June 24, 1946, 5).
Jourdain presented a response from the NHA regarding the construction of housing that bars
Black veterans. The NHA stated that it would “not issue priorities to Northwestern University for
housing that bar Negro veterans.” (Evanston City Council Minutes, June 24, 1946, 5). In answer
to the idea of building a separate dormitory for Black veterans only (an idea that had not been
formally proposed, but had circulated), the NHA wrote: “[T]his agency could not subject itself to
charges that it supports occupancy patterns that will unfortunately result in racially unequal
housing accommodations,” the NHA wrote. “It is difficult to contemplate a racially separate
dormitory, open only to a relatively small Negro veterans group as an equal housing
accommodation, in view of the nature of an educational institution, and the facilities which must
be inaccessible to its students.” (Evanston City Council Minutes, June 24, 1946, 5).
The NHA correspondence was included in the minutes. Jourdain concluded: “So Evanston
veterans will get protection from insult through the ruling of a federal agency. Our own citizens
should have looked to the ruling of their own City Council for this protection. This council might
have ruled, and should still rule, that we too will refuse to be used in a program of segregation
and insult to our own citizens.” (Evanston City Council Minutes, June 24, 1946, 5).
The NHA also informed Northwestern officials of its policy to “administer its functions with racial
equity.” All educational institutions that sought federal aid or support for emergency construction
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 54 — D R A F T —
were required “to reply that in the administration of its temporary housing program, it will provide
housing for racial minority groups substantially in accordance with its proportionate needs.” But
university President Franklyn Bliss Snyder announced that the NHA’s policy would have no
impact on planned, segregated construction projects. “It is not in my power to commit the
university on the question of housing Negro veterans,” he said, “the university recommends that
they stay with Negro families in Evanston and not on the campus.” This policy was, he
explained, “determined by the board of trustees and the public sentiment of the community.
There is no indication that it will change.” (R.B. Goldsberry, “Negro Vets Not Wanted in N.U.
Dorms,”
Chicago Defender,
July 20, 1946).
Spencer Jourdain, Edwin’s youngest son, has written extensively on this subject. “The permit
was issued, and university housing segregation would continue for several years thereafter. The
city, the local builder, and the federal government had collaboratively authorized continued
racial segregation.” (Spencer Jourdain,
Dream Dancers,
Vol III, 323.)
The issue of the Evanston City Council’s role in segregation of postwar housing was not limited
to its dealings with Northwestern.
A veterans’ housing project in Evanston was the cause of controversy concerning charges that
the housing was segregated and that housing was being assigned in a discriminatory way, with
many of Evanston’s Black veterans disproportionately turned away. A total of thirty-seven
buildings were allotted to the City of Evanston by the federal Public Housing Authority to be built
on the shore of the sanitary district canal (on the city’s west side).
The new housing project was indeed segregated: A total of 111 four-room family units were
built; the majority of which were open to white families only. Only a small number of the units, on
one side of the canal, were set aside for Black families. The housing units were managed by an
Evanston City official, the Veterans Housing Supervisor, a position created in 1946 by the
Evanston City Council.
At a city council meeting on September 30, 1946, Jourdain stated: “War veterans are bringing
me reports that the job of assigning GI housing units along the canal is not being fairly
approached. That the yardstick is not simply need, but color. Only one rule should be used in
allocating these veterans’ homes; the rule of the greatest need. But veterans say this is not the
practice. They are telling me that Evanston boys back from battlefields are being told that only
four houses are open to them if they are colored. This is being done not in Mississippi, but in
Evanston.” (Evanston City Council Minutes, September 30, 1946, 5.)
Jourdain’s statement concerning the conditions faced by Black veterans in Evanston is worth
quoting at length:
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 55 — D R A F T —
“Evanston knows Negroes have the accutest housing shortages, worst housing conditions,
because Evanston made it that way. Some Evanstonians have seen to it that year by year.
Families of Negro GI’s have been pushed back, crowded back, into a tight ghetto area where
housing was not equal, where living could not be free. And living in a ghetto hurts just as much
in Evanston as it hurts in Mississippi, or in Hitler's Germany . . . A GI with 39 months overseas,
with battle stars from Tunisia, Africa campaigns, says that he applied [for Evanston’s veteran
housing] last August, and was told . . . that only 12 colored families would be taken care of.
Here is the wife of a GI two years in Guam. She applied three months ago and was told that the
same limitations hurt her chances. But she's living with six people in one room- two babies and
four adults. . . Here is another GI living so crowded that when he comes home from work
Thursdays, they have to send the seven year old child out to stay with relatives so the GI can
have a place to sleep. He sleeps home other nights because the wife works days while he
works nights. His whole family lives in one room, 9 by 10, with no closets. In a one story house
live 14 people. There's no furnace; Until August no gas. There's no hot water. When you draw
water in the bathtub it runs on the kitchen floor. Wiring is so bad ironing boards chords burn out
repeatedly. Water left on the stove in a pan overnight in the winter freezes. Yet this GI’s wife
was told . . . that only 12 south bank units were for Negroes; once those were filled, no Negro GI
need hope to live on that canal bank, where 100 units were. In one room in the same house
lives another vet, with his whole family, and the same Jim Crow bars him too from getting on this
North side of the canal. But for four months without interruption, this vet was on the front lines,
under fire, with the 7th Army, steadily, in hot fighting. He has battle stars for battles all the way
from southern France to Germany, and a special star for crossing the Rhine River, and if he was
good enough to cross the Rhine under that German shellfire, he's good enough to cross that
little piece of canal out there, and live on the side with the most houses. These vets fought their
way across Africa, across France, through South Pacific islands, for freedom and a decent life
for your families, and they tell me now they are ready to fight for freedom and a decent living for
their own families. They’re ready, they tell me, to fight through the courts for freedom from
segregation when they seek a roof over their families’ heads - for freedom to live decently,
without being insulted and humiliated - these men who themselves fought for human liberties,
with undemocratic and shameful restrictions. You can save them from this fight, if you'll only
vote now to stop all this segregation and discrimination, to give colored GI’s an even chance at
veterans housing on the simple basis of actual need, without first stacking the cards against
them by limiting their chances to houses.” (Evanston City Council Minutes, October 7,1946,
4-A.)
Jourdain stated that because the Veterans Housing Supervisor was appointed by the Evanston
City Council, the council must instruct the person serving in that role to “end immediately all
segregation and discrimination in his housing allocation and handling. To end all plans for trying
Negro veterans down to a quota of four houses, without any regard to the need of the other
veterans, who will be left out.” He continued: “If this City Council were to try to uphold . . .
barring colored veterans from any homes, just because of color, this council would be flying in
the face of the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution and the federal statutes and
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 56 — D R A F T —
the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States all guarantee freedom from segregation
at the hands of the city government. A municipality has absolutely no right to deal in residential
segregation.” (Evanston City Council Minutes, September 30, 1946, 5.)
Jordain then moved that the City Council must instruct the Veterans Housing Supervisor that
“he was acting as its agent, appointed by the council and that veterans must be admitted to
these homes without any regard to color. That any segregation be dropped immediately
because of the fact that it cannot legally be carried out and that any case be considered entirely
on basis of actual need.” The motion was seconded, but after discussion another council
member (Mogg) “made a substitute motion that this matter be referred to the Mayor’s Special
Committee on Housing.” The motion was seconded, while another council member (James)
“expressed complete confidence in the method pursued” by the Veterans Housing Supervisor
“and the committee in the allocation of the veterans housing.” All voted “aye” on the motion, with
the exception of Jourdain and Rubin, who voted nay. (Evanston City Council Minutes,
September 30, 1946, 6.)
On October 7, 1946, the Mayor’s Special Committee on Housing issued its report and
categorically denied that the Veterans’ Housing Supervisor or his office engaged in any
discrimination. (Evanston City Council Minutes, October 7, 1946, 4.) “There is, and has been, no
intent on the part of the committee on veterans housing to discriminate against any particular
race or minority group in the matter of housing facilities,” the report read. (Evanston City Council
Minutes, October 7, 1946, 4.)
Jourdain countered: “The plain truth is one, that there is discrimination now; Two, that there has
been discrimination aplenty; Three, that it is the Council’s appointed agent . . . and his assistant
who are telling Negro veterans, and have been telling them, that only four houses are open to
them, all segregated on one side of the canal. That when these four are gone for Negro GI’s all
hope is gone.” (Evanston City Council Minutes, October 7,1946, 4-A.)
At the City Council meeting on October 14, 1946, Jourdain presented a letter from an official at
the Federal Public Housing Authority (FPHA) and telegram from a former FPHA official which,
he stated, “plac[ed] every blame for segregation squarely on the city of Evanston.” Jourdain
explained that the segregation of veterans housing units had been done at the request of
Evanston’s Veteran Housing Supervisor. A portion of the FPHA letter read: “In reference to your
project for temporary housing for returning veterans, ILL-V-11299, we would like to call your
attention to a provision included in the project development program which requires that 12 units
be provided for racial groups at the Darrow and Payne Avenue section. This was brought to our
attention by Mr E. B. Jourdain, Councilman of the city of Evanston. Our records indicate this
provision was made on the basis of a conversation between [Evanston’s Veterans’ Housing
Supervisor] and Mr Robert H. Merriam of our office on May 10, and is no doubt based upon the
specific request by [Evanston’s Veterans’ Housing Supervisor], in as much as this authority
does not in any way wish to influence a locality as to the disposition of a racial problem in its
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 57 — D R A F T —
community. We would like to point out to you that this office did not specifically request the
segregation of housing for minority racial groups from the main portion of the project.” (Evanston
City Council Minutes, October 14, 1946, 5-6.)
“Since this letter and telegram make it plain that the federal people are not asking for this,”
Jourdain concluded, “it is now squarely up to this City Council to withdraw this Jim Crow
arrangement, drop the color line and make need the sole measure of who gets housing. The law
of the land is against your segregation policy . . . The law of decency is against it.” (Evanston
City Council Minutes, October 14, 1946, 5-6.)
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 58 — D R A F T —
POLICING
On October 10, 2015, 25-year-old Lawrence Crosby pulled over, got out of his car with his
hands up, and was taken to the ground by Evanston law enforcement. Earlier in the evening, a
female observer called the police to report what she thought was a car break-in, when in fact,
what she saw was only Crosby getting into his own car. (Later, and caught on a recording, the
caller said she was not sure that Crosby was breaking in.) After receiving the initial call and
pulling Crosby over, Evanston police officers appeared to demand conflicting orders and, in the
end, Crosby was taken to the ground and struck repeatedly. Crosby filed a civil lawsuit against
the Evanston police and won a $1.25 million settlement in 2019. No officers were disciplined
following the stop nor was there an apology offered to Crosby. (“
Northwestern Ph.D. Student
Accused of Stealing His Own Car Wins Civil Suit
”, CBS News, January 20, 2019)
Countless incidents of over-policing Black residents in Evanston have occurred over the years,
including:
In 2018 a minor was taken into custody for riding on the back pegs of a bike while his friend
peddled in downtown Evanston. (“
Evanson police undergoing internal investigation following
arrest of Black 12-year-old cyclist
”, (
Daily Northwestern
, August 20, 2017).
In November 2016, Evanston’s current (2020) city clerk was arrested by Evanston police in
downtown Evanston as he was collecting signatures on a petition to get his name on the ballot
for the race for city clerk. After an investigation, police announced the arrest “should never have
happened.” (Genevieve Bookwalter, “Arrested Evanston City Clerk Has Candidacy Challenged,”
Pioneer Press
, December 9, 2016).
African-American residents are subject more often to be stopped and frisked by officers
investigating crimes than any other racial or ethnic group in the city. Evanston's
African-American residents make up about 18 percent of the town's population, but account for
about 60 percent of the adult crime suspects identified by Evanston police, according to the
city's police chief and data from the Evanston Police Department. "They are over-represented
as suspects." (“
Black residents in Evanston subjected to more stop and frisk encounters than
any other group, police chief says
”,
Chicago Tribune
, March 27, 2018)
Statistics presented by Evanston police showed that of the adult suspects identified in 2017,
59.69 percent, or 1,479 people, were black; 29.22 percent, or 724 people, were white; and 4.8
percent, or 119 people, were Hispanic. The remaining suspects were of Asian, Indian or
unknown descent. Of the adults who were arrested in 2017, 58.58 percent, or 782 people, were
black; 24.27 percent, or 324 people, were white; and 11.99 percent, or 160 people, were
Hispanic, police reported. (
Chicago Tribune
, March 27, 2018)
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 59 — D R A F T —
2018 Statistics continue to show percentages of stop and frisk activities in Evanston.
30.7%
of
drivers stopped were Black,
53%
of drivers given citations were Black,
53%
of drivers asked for
a vehicle search were Black,
10
Black drivers were subjected to a dog sniff search, compared to
0 White drivers,
64%
of pedestrians stopped were Black,
65%
of pedestrians given pat downs
were Black,
60%
of pedestrians searched beyond a pat down were Black,
73%
of pedestrians
arrested were Black. (Illinois Traffic and Pedestrian Stop Study for 2018)
Evidence of over policing can be found in earlier decades as well. In September 1945,
Evanston’s mayor, S. G. Ingraham, ordered all “professional gamblers to get out of town.” The
order came after Ingraham had warned of an “outbreak of crime” in the city. Additional police
officers were ordered to “walk beats in residential areas.” Three Evanston council members,
including Edwin B. Jourdain, Jr., “denied a crime wave existed” and protested what they said
was a “wholesale arrest of Negroes” within Evanston. (“Mayor Orders Gamblers Out of
Evanston,”
Chicago Tribune
, September 25, 1945.)
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 60 — D R A F T —
LAWSUITS
Theaters
In 1912, Hellen Garnett, sued the Evanston Theater for the amount of $500 because of
discriminatory seating. In 1923, two Evanston residents brought a lawsuit against the owners of
the New Evanston Theater because they had been denied equal access to the theater; they,
like all other Black patrons, were forced to sit in the balcony of the theater and to use a separate
entrance.
(
Chicago Defender,
February 10, 1912)
Northwestern University
In 1937, Northwestern University student, William Yancy Bell, Jr. (c. 1914 -1967) brought a suit
against Northwestern for $5,000 in damages after he had purchased a token for admission to an
Evanston bathing beach, operated by the university, and was refused entrance. According to
The Crisis
magazine, when Bell “presented himself for admission, he was told he could not
enter because he was colored.” Bell insisted upon his right to enter and was told by the beach
guard, (a player on Northwestern’s football team), that “he would be thrown out if he tried to
enter.”127 The lawsuit charged the university with violating Bell’s civil rights. University officials
responded that the 1885 Civil Rights Act of Illinois was not applicable in this case since
Northwestern was a “charitable” institution and, as such, exempt from the law. (“State-Wide
Battle on Illinois Jim Crow,”
The Crisis
, February 1937, 43;
The Takeover 1968,
35-36.)
In 1943, a visiting music student from Chicago, Robbie Shields (Terry), lodged a complaint
against Northwestern University, charging that she had been barred from Willard Hall, a
university dormitory, because she was Black. (Shields’ niece was Marian Shields Robinson,
Michelle Obama’s mother.) Shields said she had been “humiliated, chagrined and insulted”
when she arrived at Northwestern to take part in a music institute and was turned away by the
dormitory director. Soon, her lawyers charged that the university had branded Shields “inferior
to other normal young American women.” In December 1943, Shields sued Northwestern for
$50,000. (“Northwestern Sued For $50,000 in Dorm Ban,”
Chicago Defender,
December 11,
1943;
The Takeover 1968,
42-43).
Foster School Suit
The Evanston NAACP filed a class action lawsuit seeking to reopen the Foster-King Lab
School. The suit charges District 65 School Board with racial bias in its school closing decisions.
The suit further charges the school board’ decision to close Foster-King Lab was a “powerful”
plan to discriminate against black students by bussing them away from their neighborhood
school to schools in white neighborhoods. .. the “entire burden of desegregation” would be on
the blacks, the suit said. (“Second racial bias suit filed”,
Evanston Review
, Pioneer Press, June
21, 1979. p. 5)
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 61 — D R A F T —
Two Real Estate Firms Fined in 1992
A settlement between the City of Evanston against Baird & Warner and Century 21 Shoreline for
the total amount $450,000, said to be the largest settlement ever delivered at that time. The
funds were deposited in the City’s general fund and payment made to the legal team in the
amount of $300,000. The three-year suit arose from a testing audit by the Interfaith Housing
Center of the Northern Suburbs and not from the direct complaint of a prospective renter/home
buyer. (
National Fair Housing Advocate Online
, 1992)
Between 2003 and 2012, there were 38 housing discrimination complaints filed with HUD. Of
the 38, Race was the most common basis for complaint, cited in 28.8% of all filings. (“
Analysis
of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice
”, City of Evanston, IL, Revised Ed, April 2014)
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 62 — D R A F T —
CURRENT PROTESTS AND POLICIES
Nationally, during these recent months in 2020, peaceful protests against the murder of George
Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer and against the many other attacks and murders of Black
Americans by both police and private citizens have expanded to include tearing down statues
and statutes that symbolized white nationalist ideas. Historically, these white nationalist ideas
fueled and supported policies that excluded people of other nationalities, but most explicitly,
excluded those of African descent. These events have led a resurgence in initiatives addressing
harm that has affected Black communities both nationally and locally.
Fight for Black Lives rally. Photo by Shorefront
Fight For Black Lives Rally:
The Fight For Black Lives rally in Evanston took place on May 31,
2020 in response to police brutality on the Black population across the nation and in Evanston.
Inspired by the events surrounding the deaths by police of George Floyd during an arrest in
Minneapolis, MN where police pinned him to the ground by kneeling on his neck for 8.5 minutes;
and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, KY during a “no-knock search warrant” and was shot eight
times while in her sleep. The rally was organized by eight recent ETHS students (all of who
were 20 years old), who organized the rally in just two days. The public protest attracted an
estimated 3,000 participants and is considered the largest walking protest in Evanston’s recent
history combating police brutality and racial inequity in Evanston, IL.
Race and Equity:
Resolution 58-R-19, Commitment to end Structural Racism and Achieve
Racial Equity unanimously passes on June10, 2019. The City Council made an initial
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 63 — D R A F T —
commitment to pursue equity with the FY 2017 Budget, approving the creation of the Equity and
Empowerment Coordinator position to focus on implementation and action strategies to help
make the City equitable for all residents of Evanston. In 2018, to strengthen its original
commitment, the City Council identified equity as a council goal, approved the creation of the
Equity & Empowerment Commission, supported City-wide staff training, and participated in
diversity training as a Council.
While these efforts are beneficial, we see racial tensions escalating both nationally and locally
including in our schools. Following successful racial equity initiatives modeled in other cities, the
Kellogg Foundation’s Truth, Healing, and Racial Reconciliation model, and other equity best
practices, it is important to realize that all work done to achieve equity must come from
leadership and include acknowledgment of intentional (and unintentional) harm done to
communities of color. While the City Council understands this resolution will not repair harm or
make a tangible change in individuals life experience, we desire to make a public commitment
to doing the hard work needed to begin unifying the community. (Evanston City Council
minutes, June 10, 2019)
Reparations:
Resolution 43-R-02, in support of House Resolution 40, allowing the U.S.
government to begin to investigate the issue of reparations. In support of 43-R-02, a great deal
of time was spent at the city council with public comment from residents, scholars and historians
on the subject of Reparations, what it looks like and how it would ever be adopted. (Evanston
City Council minutes, June 10, 2002)
Alderman Simmons addressing the audience at the Reparations Town Hall gathering Dec. 11, 2019. Photo by Shorefront
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 64 — D R A F T —
Local Reparations and Funding:
Resolution 126-R-19, establishing a City of Evanston
Funding Source Devoted to Local Reparations. The City Council has discussed the funding of
Reparations through the budget discussions held over the last two months. Through these
discussions a $10 million dollar goal was set and the Cannabis Retailers Tax was selected as
the funding source.
The Cannabis Retailers Tax allows municipalities to set a rate of up to 3% on gross sales of
cannabis in the City where cannabis dispensaries are located. Based on early projections this
tax could provide an estimated $500,000 to $750,000 per year in tax revenue. The State of
Illinois will allow municipalities to start applying this tax on July 1, 2020. Staff has estimated
$250,000 in revenue for the 6 months of 2020.
The Reparations Fund is also accepting donations from private businesses, organizations and
individuals who wish to contribute. The Reparations Subcommittee started discussions on a
variety of issues including: developing criteria for eligible individuals, a process for applicants,
potential program funding, and evaluating how the money is allocated. (Evanston City Council
Memorandum, November 25, 2019)
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 65 — D R A F T —
MAPS
The series of maps in the following pages show the changing borders of the fifth ward.
Comparisons will show in comparison, the 1924 map, the 5th ward covers most of today’s 5th
and 2nd ward. The HOLC map D2 zone covers the 5th ward, precincts 1-8 compared to the
1942 Evanston ward map.
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 66 — D R A F T —
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 67 — D R A F T —
1924 Ward map (City of Evanston)
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 68 — D R A F T —
1940 HOLC map. D2 (in red) encompases most of 5th ward
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 69 — D R A F T —
1942 ward map (City of Evanston)
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 70 — D R A F T —
1980 Ward map (City of Evanston)
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 71 — D R A F T —
2005 Ward map (City of Evanston)
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 72 — D R A F T —
CONCLUSION
This report was compiled during the months of late June through August 2020. The report draws
from research and resources compiled over many years by its respective authors. While it is
intended to provide an overview of relevant issues related to Evanston’s history, it is only a
small sample of the vast amount of information and data concerning the various issues it
outlines.
We hope this report provides insight to the depth policies and practices have and had impacted
Black Evanston residents over the decades. There is a plethora of historical evidence that
clearly shows patterns and practices of discrimination and segregation in the city. And, we
should note, these were neither rare nor unusual in the United States during the period
described here. Indeed, Evanston, along with cities and towns across the country, backed by
state and federal laws, enacted discriminatory policies that, when taken together, constitute a
network of national patterns aimed at segregating Black Americans and denying Black
Americans equal access to opportunities and services, among other goals. Evanston was one
city of many, to be sure, but the policies and practices of that one city are no less insidious and
destructive merely because it did not act alone.
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 73 — D R A F T —
RESOURCES
Books and Articles:
Beverly Jr, Sherman,
Edwin B. Jourdain, Jr: The Emergence of Black Political Power in
Evanston, Illinois, 1931–1947
, Shorefront Press, 2018
Bruner, David Kenneth, “A General Survey of the Negro Population of Evanston,” Northwestern
University, May 1924.
Chicago Commission on Race Relations,
The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and
a Race Riot.
Chicago: University of Chicago, 1922.
City of Evanston, “
Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice
”, Revised Ed, April 2014
City of Evanston, Zoning Ordinance, Evanston, Illinois, January 1921.
Gavin, Larry, “
Developing a Segregated Town, 1900-1960
”,
Evanston RoundTable
, December
5, 2019.
Gavin, Larry, “
A History of Foster School and Desegregation in School District 65
”,
Evanston
RoundTable
, June 19, 2002
Gavin, Larry, “
Foster School: Its Role in Desegregating School District 65 in 1967 and Its
Closing in 1979
”,
Evanston RoundTable
, October, 25, 2011.
Gavin, Mary Helt and Randhava, Heidi, “
Police and Policing in Evanston: A Discussion
”,
Evanston RoundTable
, June 24, 2020.
Harper, Douglas, “
Slavery In The North
”, 2003
Jourdain, Spencer,
Dream Dancers Volume III: E Pluribus Unum - The Battle for American
Equality 1924-1947
. Shorefront Press, 2018.
Robinson, Morris (Dino),
Gatherings: The History and Activities of the Emerson Street Branch
YMCA
, Shorefront, 2004 (Portions of this book have been adapted here.)
Alice Orian Rood, “Negroes in School District 75, Evanston, Illinois”, 1926.
Thompson, Jenny,
The Takeover 1968: Student Protest, Campus Politics, and Black Student
Activism at Northwestern University.
Evanston, IL: Evanston History Center Press, 2019.
(Portions of this book have been adapted here.)
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 74 — D R A F T —
Wiese, Andrew, “Black Housing, White Finance: African American Housing and Home
Ownership in Evanston, Illinois, Before 1940”,
Journal of Social History
, Winter 1999.
Wiese, Andrew,
Places of Their Own: African American Suburbanization in the Twentieth
Century
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004).
Williams, George W.,
Conversations with Blacks in Evanston: An Evaluation of
African-American Progress in this Suburb of Chicago
(Baltimore, MD: American Literary Press,
Inc., 1998).
Williamson, Harold Francis and Payson Sibley Wild,
Northwestern University, A History,
1850-1975.
Northwestern University, 1975.
Winling, Ph.D., LaDale C., and Michney, Ph.D., Todd M.,
The Roots of Redlining: Academic,
Governmental, and Professional Networks in the Making of the New Deal Lending Regime.
JAH
Submission date: 2/12/2020.
Collections:
Evanston History Center collections:
Oral Histories
, transcripts available on site for review.
Online database
.
Shorefront Legacy Center collections: Oral History collection
www.shorefrontvoice.org
, Articles
www.shorefrontjournal.org
, and
Finding aids
.
Other primary sources:
Newspapers and Journals:
The Chicago Defender, The Chicago Tribune, The Crisis, The Daily
Northwestern, The Day Book, Evanston Daily News, Evanston News-Index, Evanston Review,
Evanston Roundtable, The Inter-Ocean,
and
Shorefront Journal.
Records of the City of Evanston, Evanston, IL: online and from the Evanston City Clerk’s office
and at Shorefront and the Evanston History Center.
Housing related records: Evanston History Center.
Edwin B. Jourdain, Jr. collection: Original documents from Jourdain’s personal files housed at
Shorefront.
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 75 — D R A F T —
Brooks, Lawrence B.,
The Integration of Foster School
, 1968, documentary film, Shorefront
archives.
Northwestern University Archives, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.
Organizing for Positive Action and Leadership (
OPAL
), http://www.opalevanston.com
U.S. Census records.
Further Reading:
Coates, Ta-Nehisi, “The Case for Reparations,”
Atlantic Monthly,
June 2014.
Rothstein, Richard,
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated
America,
Liveright, 2017.
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 76 — D R A F T —
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
This report was compiled by:
Morris (Dino) Robinson, Jr.
is the founder and current Executive Director of the Shorefront
Legacy Center. Shorefront collects, preserves and educates people about Black history on
Chicago’s suburban North Shore. A graduate of Loyola University with a B.A. in Communication
Design and a minor in African American Studies. Outside of his career in advertising and
design, his avocation with the creation of Shorefront began in 1995 and has since accumulated
over 300 linear feet of archival material illustrating the lives and experience of Blacks on the
North Shore for public use. He is the author of three books:
Through The Eyes of Us
(1997),
Gatherings: The History and Activities of the Emerson Street Branch YMCA
(2004), and
A Place
We Can Call Our Home
(revised, 2014). Through Shorefront, he has engaged the local
community preserving its history through articles and oral history, provided resources for public
use, participated in dozens of lectures on the topics of the importance of community based
archives and local history.
Jenny Thompson
is Director of Education at the Evanston History Center and a public history
consultant. A graduate of San Francisco State University, she has an MA in American Studies
from the George Washington University and a PhD in American Studies from the University of
Maryland. She has taught courses in American history at the University of Maryland and at
Roosevelt University in Chicago. Her books include
The Takeover 1968: Student Protest,
Campus Politics, and Black Student Activism at Northwestern University
(2019)
and
War
Games: Inside the World of 20th-Century War Reenactors
(2004). Her essays have appeared in
various anthologies and publications, including the
New York Times.
Evanston Policies Directly Affecting the African American Community, 1900-1960 (and Present) 77