The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot

by Chicago Commission on Race Relations

I. INTRODUCTION

Volume of traffic.—The number of passengers carried in 1916 in a twenty-four-hour day by the Chicago surface lines was 3,500,000 and by the elevated railway lines 560,000, according to a tabulation made by the Chicago Traction and Subway Commission in 1916. With the city's growth in population the traffic in 1920 doubtless showed an even larger volume. This traffic is distributed over approximately 1,050 miles of surface and 142 miles of elevated track. It is most congested in the "Loop" area of the downtown business section, which is a transfer center for the three sides of the city, North, South, and West; and of course it is heaviest at the hours when people go to and from work.

Concentration of Negro traffic.—Negroes constitute 4 per cent of the city's population, according to the federal census for 1920, and presumably about that percentage of the city's street-car traffic. The Negro traffic, however, instead of being scattered all over the city, is mainly concentrated upon twelve lines which traverse the Negro residence areas and connect them with the manufacturing districts where Negroes are largely employed. These twelve lines, which are shown on the two transportation diagrams [facing page 300], cover 11 per cent of the total mileage of the surface and elevated lines. Because of this concentration, however, the proportion of Negroes to whites on these twelve lines is much higher than 4 per cent, and on such lines as that on State Street, which runs along the principal business street of the main South Side Negro residence area, it often happens that the majority of the passengers are Negroes. In addition to these twelve lines of heaviest Negro traffic, there are others traversing less densely populated parts of Negro residence areas. In varying degrees contacts of Negroes and whites may be found on other lines which serve the small proportion of the Negro population scattered throughout the city.

The main area of Negro residence, on the South Side, where about 90 per cent of the Negroes in Chicago live, is traversed by the State Street, Indiana Avenue, Cottage Grove Avenue, Stony Island Avenue, and the South Side elevated lines, running north and south, and by eleven cross-town lines, running east and west, beginning with the Twenty-second Street line at the north and ending with the Seventy-first Street line at the south. From six to nine o'clock in the morning, and from four to six o'clock in the afternoon, there is a heavy Negro traffic on the lines going north to the "Loop," on the Cottage Grove Avenue line going south to the South Chicago manufacturing district, and on the Thirty-fifth Street and Forty-seventh Street lines and the elevated branch line at Fortieth Street going west to the Stock Yards. To reach the Stock Yards, Negro laborers must ride through a territory between Wentworth Avenue and Halsted Street in which, as shown in the sections of the report dealing with housing and with racial clashes, hostility toward Negroes has often been displayed. This Negro traffic west of Wentworth Avenue is, therefore, chiefly confined to a few hours in the morning and the afternoon.

The West Side Negro residence area is connected with the "Loop" by the Madison Street and Lake Street surface lines, and the elevated line on Lake Street, and with the Stock Yards by the Halsted Street and Ashland Avenue lines.

The North Side Negro residence area is connected with the "Loop" by the lines on State and Clark streets and by the Northwestern elevated lines. Contacts on these lines, however, are not as important as on the lines serving the South and West Side areas, because the number of Negroes involved is only about 1,500, or less than 2 per cent of the Negro population.

Contacts and racial attitudes.—As in other northern cities, there is no "Jim Crow" separation of the races on street cars in Chicago. The contacts of Negroes and whites on the street cars never provoked any considerable discussion until the period of Negro migration from the South, when occasional stories of clashes began to be circulated, but only one such incident was reported in the newspapers. Even since the migration began there have been few complaints based upon racial friction in transportation contacts.

In response to inquiries, the South Side Elevated Company, which has the largest Negro traffic of any elevated line, replied that except during the riot in 1919, when a few cases of racial disorder were reported, there had been no complaints from motormen or trainmen since 1918, when a trainman was cut by a Negro but not seriously injured. No complaints from white passengers had been received since the spring of 1917, when white office workers objected to riding with Stock Yards laborers, mainly Negroes, on the Stock Yards spur of the elevated. White laborers in the Stock Yards mostly lived within walking distance of their work, but Negroes found it necessary to use car lines running east to the main Negro-residence area. The Chicago Surface Lines replied that complaints due to racial friction were negligible.

Information obtained by investigators for the Commission showed that the attitude of Negroes and whites toward each other was being affected by contacts on the cars. A white woman in the Hyde Park district, an officer of the Illinois Federation of Woman's Clubs, when interviewed upon race relations, made special reference to transportation contacts. She said:

While Negroes are coming into this neighborhood, especially on Lake Park, I see little of them, except on the street car. There I must say I have a decided opinion. Just last evening around five o'clock, I took a Lake Park car at Fortieth Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, and several colored men saw to it that they were first to board the car. I had to sit near the front and a great big Negro man sat next to me, smoking a cigar right in the car. I told my husband when I got home, I was for moving them all out of the city, and I never felt like that toward them until just of late. There's a feeling of resentment among us white people toward the colored people on the cars, and they feel that, and they feel the same resentment toward us. I think I see that very plainly. Last night, on this same car, a colored man was hanging over me, and I know he didn't want me there near him, any more than I wanted him.

As a factor in attitudes on race relations, transportation contacts, while impersonal and temporary, are significant for several reasons. In the first place, many whites have no contact with Negroes except on the cars, and their personal impressions of the entire Negro group may be determined by one or two observations of Negro passengers. Secondly, transportation contacts are not supervised, as are contacts in the school, the playground, and the workshop. If there is a dispute between passengers over a seat it usually rests with the passengers themselves to come to an understanding. Any feeling of suspicion or prejudice on either side because of the difference in race accentuates any such misunderstanding. In the third place, transportation contacts, at least on crowded cars, involve a degree of physical contact between Negroes and whites which rarely occurs under other circumstances, and which sometimes leads to a display of racial feeling.

Scope and method of investigation.—In obtaining information as to transportation contacts the Commission's investigators, both white and Negro, men and women, made many observation trips on the twelve lines carrying the heaviest volume of Negro traffic and therefore involving the greatest amount of contact. Counts of passengers, Negro and white, were made, behavior and habits were noted, passengers and car crews were questioned, and officials of the surface and elevated lines, starters, and station men were interviewed.

Superintendents of 123 industrial plants were interviewed to ascertain the numbers of whites and Negroes employed in offices and in plants, transportation lines used by workers, nature of work and its effect upon cleanliness of person and clothing, provision of baths, etc. A further source of information was a report made for the officers of the Central Manufacturing District, setting forth the transportation facilities for the 12,000 employees of the district and providing data drawn from questionnaires filled out by these employees. The district includes the area from Thirty-fifth to Forty-third streets and from Morgan to Robey streets.

II. DISTRIBUTION OF NEGRO TRAFFIC

Negro traffic is fairly continuous throughout the day in the Negro residence areas, and the proportion of Negroes and whites is about the same at different hours of the day. Except during the times of going to and from work the cars are not overcrowded, and the danger of friction is therefore small. On the routes connecting the Negro residence areas with the Stock Yards and with South Chicago, where many Negroes are employed in steel plants, the Negro traffic is confined to a few hours in the morning and late afternoon, but at these hours the cars are very crowded. There is much rushing to board cars and get seats, and white office workers and other non-laborers are thrown into contact with Negro laborers still in their working clothes. It is under such circumstances that irritation and actual clashes are most likely to arise. It should be noted that similar contacts with white laborers in their working clothes are disagreeable in the same ways, though in such cases the odors and grime are not associated with race and color.

TRANSPORTATION CONTACTS
MORNING TRAFFIC 7 TO 9 O'CLOCK FROM HOME TO WORK

TRANSPORTATION CONTACTS
AFTERNOON TRAFFIC—4 TO 6 O'CLOCK FROM WORK TO HOME

The hours of greatest general travel and car crowding were found to be from six to nine o'clock in the morning and from four to six o'clock in the afternoon.

The proportions of whites and Negroes on lines carrying the largest numbers of Negroes to and from work are shown in two diagrams. These are based on counts of white and Negro passengers, several trips being averaged to show typical car loads during the heavy travel of early morning and late afternoon. The first diagram shows the proportions in travel from the Negro residence areas of the South and West sides toward the Stock Yards, the other large industries employing Negroes, and the "Loop" district during the period from six to nine a.m. The second diagram shows the proportions in travel from the Stock Yards, the other industries, and the "Loop" toward the Negro residence areas of the South and West sides during the period from four to six p.m.

III. CONDUCT RESULTING FROM CONTACTS

As already noted, contacts of Negroes and whites on street cars provoked little discussion until the migration of Negroes from the South began to be felt. The great majority of the migrants are laborers. Many of them are ignorant and rough mannered, entirely unfamiliar with standards of conduct in northern cities. It is this type which is meant in references hereinafter to the "migration" or "southern" Negro.

Coming to a city like Chicago, with no "Jim Crow" racial segregation, was a new experience to many southern Negroes. They felt strange and uncertain as to how they should act. Many whites and Negroes long resident in Chicago have said that they could tell a migration Negro by his ill-at-ease manner and often by his clothes.

The conspicuous points in the behavior of the migration Negro before he became urbanized were his "loud laughing and talking," his "ill-smelling clothes," his "roughness," and his tendency to "sit all over the car." These are easier to understand when one considers the background of the southern Negro.

Few white people realized how uncertain the southern Negro felt about making use of his new privilege of sitting anywhere in the car, instead of being "Jim Crowed." One Negro woman who came to the city during the migration said, when she was asked about her first impression of Chicago: "When I got here and got on the street cars and saw colored people sitting by white people, I just held my breath, for I thought any minute they would start something. Then I saw nobody noticed it, and I just thought this is a real place for Negroes." There were exceptional cases in which southern Negroes walked miles, rather than take a car.

It may seem strange in view of such uncertainty of mind and timidity that the most noticeable point of behavior of the southern Negro was loud talking, joking, and laughter. The South Side Elevated Company, replying to the Commission's inquiries, said: "These colored people are of a happy-go-lucky type and are often noisy, especially when two or more acquaintances meet on the trains or station platforms or crossing from one side of the station to the other. They laugh and talk a good deal and seem to be happy and care-free."

Although some of this boisterousness was no doubt due to a care-free spirit and a broad good humor, some of it had quite a different source. Many a southern Negro thinks that the whites like him to be "typical," and that they will tolerate him as long as his dialect, his wit, and his manner are amusing enough. A Negro newspaper of Chicago took the southern Negroes to task for using this safety device in Chicago.

Many whites, clerical workers, shoppers, and others of a non-laboring type, have expressed objections to what they term a tendency of Negroes to "sit all over the cars," meaning to sit anywhere in the car. This was most conspicuous when whites had to ride in the morning on a car which had come from one of the Negro residence areas and was already filled with Negroes, or when Negroes and whites were boarding a comparatively empty car near one of the big industrial plants in the afternoon. The employment manager of the Corn Products Company plant at Argo reported a complaint about this tendency made to him by one of the girls in the office:

An office girl told me she had trouble getting a seat on the cars. She was not able to get a seat by herself and did not want to sit next to a Negro. She said that Negroes would rush in and get all the seats by the windows. She thought they did it more to tease the office help than anything else. This girl was undoubtedly prejudiced. That was one of her arguments to explain why she had difficulty in getting to work in the morning. She is a St. Louis girl of Flemish extraction.

Many of the southern Negroes were found to be very hesitant about taking seats next to whites. The southern tradition was so ingrained in them that they tried to be as inconspicuous as possible. On the other hand, some, with the sudden removal of the restraints of the South, used their new freedom without thought of the effect of their behavior on Chicago whites and Negroes.

The attitude of migration Negroes was sometimes expressed to the Commission's investigators. For example:

You can spend your money as you please, live better and get more enjoyment out of it—I mean go where you please, without being Jim-Crowed.

There's no lynching or Jim Crow. You can vote, you receive better treatment and more money for your work.

The freedom of speech and action. You can live without fear and there's no Jim Crow.

Some southern Negroes apparently came to Chicago with a real grudge against all whites and ready at slight provocation to display their resentment. The minister of one of the Negro churches in Chicago said:

After years of restriction and proscription to which they were subjected in the South, they suddenly find themselves freed in a large measure of these conditions. Their mind harks back to that which they endured at the hands of members of the Aryan race in the South, and they grow resentful, and in the midst of their new environment they vent their spleen. One has but to ride on any of the surface lines running into the section of Chicago largely occupied by my race group to be convinced of the facts mentioned above.

The southern Negro who got into trouble with whites by insisting on his right to a seat sometimes belonged to the class of suspicious and sensitive Negroes, and sometimes he was simply a "greenhorn." The following cases show how "green" the migration Negro could be, and how easy it was for him to make himself disliked and ridiculous. The first case was observed by a Negro man, the second by a Negro woman, both long resident in Chicago:

I boarded a crowded car in the "Loop" going south and was forced to stand near the rear door. There are two lengthwise seats at the rear of the car, one of which will hold three people and one of which will hold two. Two colored women, carelessly dressed and holding greasy paper bundles in their hands, got on the car at Twelfth Street and stood in the back of the car hanging on to straps. They rode this way until Eighteenth Street, when one of them, a large woman, noticing that there were three white people on one of the seats and only two on the other said to her companion, "If three folks can sit on that seat, I ain't going to stand over these white folks, who are just like they are down South, and don't want you to sit down. I'm going to sit down myself." She then inserted herself between the two white women, one of whom was pushed to the floor. The Negro woman was much embarrassed, but I don't think she has yet realized that the seats were of different lengths.

I was on a State Street car when two southern Negro women got on, talking loud, and throwing themselves around loose and careless like. I was sitting on one of the end seats, just big enough for three, and one of the women says to the other, "Here's a seat, here's a seat." "You move over," she said to me. There was fire in their eyes, and I don't like fighting, so I made up my mind that if they started anything I'd get up and give them my seat. Most people would have understood how you felt if you did that, but I am not sure they would have understood. I said to one of them, "There really isn't room on this seat." She gave me a shove, so I said, "But I'll get up and give you my seat." You wouldn't believe what happened then. The conductor came in and said, "You just keep your seat." And a white man, who was sitting in one of the cross-seats, turned around and said, "I'll see that she does."

Soiled and ill-smelling clothes were a large factor in making Negro workingmen objectionable to many whites even of the same working class.

At the time of the migration, in the fall of 1916 and the spring of 1917, the Stock Yards were taking on hundreds of Negro laborers to increase their war-time production, and these new hands, most of them migration Negroes, rode to and from work with white office workers. How the white office workers felt about it is shown by a statement of a white woman clerk in the Stock Yards:

Some of the Negroes on the Thirty-fifth Street car are very rough. Most of them work out at the Stock Yards and the smell of the Yards is very bad. They seem to try to clean up, but the smell is there, especially in cold weather when the cars are closed. I would suggest that they run special cars from the Stock Yards for those people, and that would leave enough cars for us and we wouldn't get the odor either.

This situation was somewhat remedied by the fact that most of the Negro laborers at least changed their clothes before going home, even if they could not entirely rid themselves of the Stock Yards odor; also the hours for Stock Yards employees were so arranged that the office workers came to work later and left later than the white and Negro laborers.

The Negro press of Chicago tried to make the migration Negro realize how the odor attaching to his clothes was affecting public opinion. The Chicago Searchlight of May 22, 1920, had this exhortation by the editor:

Did you ever get on the elevated train at Indiana Avenue about 5:30 o'clock in the afternoon, and meet the "gang" from the Stock Yards? It would make you ashamed to see men and women getting on the cars with greasy overalls on and dirty dresses in this enlightened age. There is really no excuse for such a condition to exist. There is plenty of soap and water in the Stock Yards and you have better clothes in your homes. Why not take a suit to the yards and wash up and change your clothing, before attempting to mingle with men and women, many of them being dressed for theaters and club parties, etc.? Don't you know that you are forcing on us here in Chicago a condition similar to the one down South?

In order to find out whether Negroes working in other plants than the Stock Yards do work which leaves the worker soiled and smelling, superintendents or foremen were questioned. It was learned that much other work done by Negro laborers leaves oil, grease, and acid stains, that many of the plants have no baths or adequate facilities for washing, and that sometimes where there are such facilities they are not kept in order. Three-fourths of the superintendents and foremen interviewed had the impression that Negroes were more careful about bathing and changing their clothes than whites. They said the difference was probably due either to the fact that the white laborer who was doing the same class of work as the Negro, was an immigrant, or to the fact that the white laborer often lived near the plant where he works, and preferred to wash up at home.

The Negro laborer meets little objection when he is riding with white laborers; it is when he comes in contact with whites of a non-laboring class that there is the most likelihood of trouble. Such whites often find white laborers quite as objectionable. A lawyer in Indiana Harbor who was questioned about the transportation contacts in the Calumet industrial district, said:

So far as transportation is concerned, little trouble need be expected. Most of the people here are working people, and they know what to expect when a dirty workman comes and sits down next to them. The fact of it is that if there is any complaint to be made, it would be against the foreigners. In the winter, when the doors are closed, the smell of garlic is almost unbearable.

Another complaint from whites is that Negroes on the street cars are "rough." It is significant, however, that all the incidents related to the Commission in regard to "roughness" occurred on crowded cars. The rush to get on a car before or after working hours is often heavy. The Commission's investigator, describing the loading of cars at an important transfer point near the Stock Yards at the evening rush hour, said:

I observed the loading and transfers at Ashland and Forty-seventh from three to four o'clock in the afternoon. With the possible exception of six to seven in the morning the traffic is heaviest at this time. The transfers from the Ashland to the Forty-seventh Street car are mostly Negroes from the government plants at Thirty-ninth and Robey. About 40 per cent of them are women. Cars going east on Forty-seventh Street leave every five minutes. There is a supervisor on this corner, whose duty it apparently is to supervise the arrival and departure of cars. He pays no attention, however, to the matter of loading. Usually the men meet the car in the middle of the block and climb on while it is moving. By the time the car reaches the corner the seats are all taken and the doorway is congested. The women, like the men, get on as they can. No deference is shown them. Most of those who get on this car are colored, and most of them, colored and white alike, are workmen.

Some friction between whites and Negroes has occurred during the boarding of cars. It may be caused by general racial attitude as well as by the circumstances of the particular case. The following cases were both related by white men, one an assistant superintendent in a foundry, and the other a barber:

One of our employees (Negro) in running to catch a car accidentally knocked over a white man. The white man became particularly abusive, and the crowd joined in with him. The crowd attempted to beat the Negro up, but he ran back to the plant here for protection and we quieted them down.

I remember one time about three years ago, I was coming home on the Forty-seventh Street car and two Negroes were standing on the back. It was pretty crowded. A man swung his wife on board, and two more white men jumped on too. He got her through into the car, and one of the Negroes said to her: "I'm going to get that husband of yours." I went up and stood in back of the white man and told him I'd stand by him, if anything happened. There were lots of whites on the car but about half Negroes, I guess. I think the Negroes have too much freedom. They don't know how to act. Some of those Negroes on the street car are real uncivilized.

The South Side Elevated Company, in answer to a questionnaire said: "It requires constant watching to prevent Negroes from entering and leaving cars through the windows." The following incident, reported by the Commission's investigator, who traveled over all the lines used by Negroes, shows that both whites and Negroes may climb through the windows under the same conditions of crowding:

I was transferring from the Argo car to the Sixty-third Street car with a number of white and Negro workmen from the Corn Products Refining Company. The crowd rushed for the door, and the doorway soon became congested. Two white men climbed in the car through the back window, followed immediately by a Negro. When the conductor came up, a white woman, who was standing next to me and had seen the whole performance, said to the conductor, indicating the Negro, who had climbed in through the window: "I wouldn't take his fare, if I were you. He came in through the window."

Selection of seats by white and Negro passengers often provides instances of conduct which is based on racial prejudices. These seem to be most frequent on lines with comparatively light travel by Negroes and where there is thus less opportunity for the races to become accustomed to contact. Sometimes whites show plainly their avoidance of Negroes.

Some Negroes have timidly offered their seats to women standing, and have been chagrined by the refusal of the white women to accept the courtesy. The superintendent of one of the plants where Negroes work made the following comment:

Negroes seemingly refrain from showing courtesy to white women, such as offering them their seats, because of two facts. Either the woman to whom the courtesy was extended, or outsiders, seem to the Negro to place a wrong construction upon his courtesy. They think him either fresh or servile, and in the majority of cases where a Negro would extend such courtesies, he refrains from doing so.

A few Negroes justified themselves by pointing out that white men did not give up their seats for Negro women, and so they did not intend to give up their seats for white women. The editor of a Negro newspaper took Negro men to task for their disregard of white women and also women of their own race, as follows:

Do you know that there is a growing tendency among the young men of our race to show disrespect for our womanhood? If you don't think so, just get on a street car or visit public amusement places, or even notice their actions as they walk along the street. It is nothing to see hundreds of big strong young men sitting on our cars, while women stand until they become almost exhausted, while those "fellows" sit and read their papers or gaze out of the car windows.

There is one trait, and I might say only one, that I take off my hat to the southern "Cracker" for, and that is his respect and high regard for women. While he hasn't any for the other fellow's [the Negro's] wives and daughters, yet he respects his own. We must set a good example for him and respect all women, regardless of race, color, or creed. Then you will win the admiration of all civilized people. Men who do not respect and honor their women are not worthy of citizenship. Do you get me, brother?

White men have become much incensed when they have given seats to white women, and Negro men, not realizing what had happened, took the seats. The timekeeper at a large industrial plant said:

I was on an East Chicago Whiting car. Six Negro workmen were standing. The car was full about one-third with Negroes. A man got up to let a white woman sit down. A Negro, seeing the seat vacated, sat down before the woman had a chance to get to it. The man who had proffered the seat became indignant, cursed the Negro, yanked him out of his seat, and proceeded to beat him up. The Negro drew out a knife. About this time, it became a general race clash. One of the Negro workmen had a gun: he pulled it out of his pocket and cleaned out the car.

The following incidents were reported by two white investigators:

I was on a Cottage Grove Avenue car at 5:30 p.m. The car was crowded, about one-third colored people. A young, well-dressed colored boy of about twenty was standing in the aisle beside a white man and a white woman. The seat directly in front of this colored boy was vacated, and the white man made a move to seize it, but the boy by holding his arm on the back of the seat barred the white man's way and stepped aside to allow the woman to sit down. The woman nodded her thanks to the boy, and the white man went on reading his paper.

I was on an eastbound Oak Park elevated train at about 10:30 a.m. Several Pullman porters got on at Campbell Avenue and had to stand, as did several white women and men. As the crowd began to thin out, I noticed that the white men were apt to drop into a vacant seat themselves, while the Negro porters were careful to wait until the women sat down before they took advantage of any vacant seats.

A white woman in the Hyde Park district said to one of the investigators:

On the street cars I would rather ride with Negro gentlemen than with many of our so-called white gentlemen. A Negro man who has the slightest training is courteous and genuinely so. My children use the street car every day to go to the Hyde Park High School, and it's not the Negro men on the street cars I hate to think of; it's the cheap white men. A very rough element of whites congregate every night on Lake Park near Fifty-first Street—hoodlums that the colored people living there must fear.

No case of attempted familiarity by a Negro man toward a white woman on the street cars was reported to the Commission. Cases were reported, however, of accidental contacts between Negro men and white women which might easily have been misunderstood, but which seemed to the investigator, a white woman, to be due to the clumsiness of southern rural Negroes in crowded cars. Two such cases follow:

I was on a Madison car going west. A number of Negroes got on at the Northwestern Station. The car was crowded, and I felt someone in the aisle leaning heavily against my shoulder. I was very much annoyed and glanced up. I saw that the man was a Negro about twenty years old. He was with a girl, obviously his sister, who was also standing in the aisle. They both had childlike faces, and I could see that he was quite unaware that he was leaning against me. I didn't say anything, as the car was really crowded.

I was in the aisle seat of an Illinois Central suburban car about 5:00 p.m., waiting for the train to start. A Negro man standing in the aisle next to me suddenly leaned against my shoulder so hard that it hurt. I looked up at him resentfully but he didn't notice me. He looked as though he had been picked up in a little western town and dumped down in a city for the first time. He had a wide western hat on, and his face was lean and weatherbeaten. I take it he was about fifty years old. He was in animated conversation with a woman in a seat behind me. This woman had many bundles. Apparently they wanted to find seats together. Soon another man joined them who had been scouting for seats in the car ahead, and they all set out together for another car. They were so concentrated on this problem of getting a seat that they didn't know there was anyone else in the car. They lunged down the aisle knocking against people as they went along, but no one paid any particular attention to them.

Another case of accidental contact, showing an attitude of suspicion on the part of a white woman, was reported by a Negro Y.M.C.A. secretary:

I was on a street car going west through the "Loop" on Madison Street. A colored man, apparently a workman, was sitting across the aisle from me, looking out of the window, with his left arm stretched along the back of the seat. A white woman came in, glanced at the vacant seat beside me, and sat down beside the colored man across the aisle. He looked around and saw the woman sitting in the seat, and apparently was confused. He attempted to remove his arm, and in doing so his arm brushed across the woman's shoulder. She got right up and exclaimed: "How dare you put your arm around me?" The man looked at her dumbly, his face the picture of excitement and wonder. I said to the lady, "I was watching this man and he was honestly trying to remove his arm from the back of the seat. I think he was more surprised to find you there than anything else, and the whole thing was sheer accident." She wanted to know what I had to do with it, and I simply said I wouldn't like to see a matter of that kind misunderstood. She resumed her seat beside the colored man and nothing further happened.

Many cases of improper advances by white men toward Negro women were reported to the Commission by Negro women, well known to the Commission, whose character is beyond question. The following are typical:

Going south on a State Street car to Fifty-third Street, I noticed a man in the aisle staring at me. He kept moving down nearer and nearer to my seat and sat down in front of me. He handed me a note written on a scrap of newspaper. I opened it because I was curious to know what his motive was. He was a young man, in his twenties, and well dressed. He had written down his name and telephone number and the words: "Call me for a date."

I remember one man especially, because I used to ride downtown on the same car he took every morning. The first time I ever saw him, he stared at me a great deal and when I got off the car, he got off too. As he got off he said to me, "Don't take that car, wait for the other one." I noticed then that he went over to the corner and took a car going in the opposite direction from mine. I saw him lots of times after that, and he always got just as close as he could and stared. I always arranged it so that he could not sit next to me.

I was on the elevated with a friend the other day. We were sitting on end seats. A man got up to give a white woman his seat and then came over and stood close to us. He stood with his legs against my friend's knees, until she jerked around and sat facing me. Then he tried standing close to me. He had me so hedged in I could hardly move, and I had to make a very abrupt movement to get away. He moved on after a while.

What may be done to prevent misunderstanding and check in its incipiency trouble which might easily and suddenly become serious, is illustrated in the action of a white woman, a resident of the Chicago Commons Social Settlement:

One evening, soon after the race riot in July, 1919, I was riding on a State Street car, going south from Grand Avenue. I had only ridden a block, when there was a general stir in the car, a young woman fainted, and I learned that the conductor had been struck and his cap knocked off. Word went around the car that a "nigger" did it. Ugly remarks were being made and I feared there would be trouble. I stepped to the back of the car and asked two colored women if they knew who struck the conductor. One said, "He looked like a colored man," the other said, "I don't know." Then I asked the conductor, in a voice loud enough so that the rest of the car could hear me, whether it was a white or a black man that struck him and why. He said: "It was a white man. I wouldn't let him bring his big drum on the platform, it was too crowded." Having learned this, I turned to two young couples who were still showing much feeling and said, "A white man struck the conductor." The whole car then quieted down, and there was no more feeling.

Most of the difficulties in transportation contacts reported and generally complained of seem to have centered around the first blundering efforts of migrants to adjust themselves to northern city life. The efforts of agencies interested in assisting this adjustment, together with the Negro press, and the intimate criticisms and suggestion for proper conduct of Chicago Negroes, have smoothed down many of the roughnesses of the migrants, and as a result friction from contact in transportation seems to have lessened materially.