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

by Chicago Commission on Race Relations

In Farren School (92 per cent) a teacher of a special room for children recently arrived from the South expressed the belief that these children "have a distinct and decided fear of the white teacher and it's up to the teacher to change this fear into respect." They were very timid at first, she said, due to the new environment and the contact with so many more people, especially white. This timidity lasted for about a year and then these children became more like Chicago children.

Building and playground contacts.—At six out of the thirteen elementary schools some friction about the buildings and on the playgrounds was reported, and none at the other seven schools. On further analysis it appeared that the friction reported was general at only two of the six schools. At the other four the instances cited seemed either to involve a few troublesome individuals or to be quarrels among Negro children rather than between Negroes and whites. The two schools reporting general antagonism between Negro and white children had about 30 per cent Negro children. The principals of these schools said that the white children were dominated by the Negroes and did not dare stand up for their rights. The testimony of the principal of one of these schools showed a disposition to regard many acts as characteristically racial. For example, she needed no further evidence that a Negro boy had cut up a white boy's cap than the fact that it was cut with a safety-razor blade. Although both white and Negro boys commonly carry safety-razor blades to sharpen their pencils, she thought of razors only in connection with Negroes. She also believed that "Negro children of kindergarten age are unusually cruel," and that "Negroes need a curriculum especially adapted to their emotional natures." Again she said that a Negro boy who asked to be put back from the third to the first grade, because the third-grade work was too hard for him, was typical of Negro children, who "shut down on their intellectual processes when they are about twelve or fourteen years of age." In view of the numbers of Negro children in the higher grades who are advancing normally, this is obviously an unwarranted generalization.

FARREN SCHOOL
Located at Forty-eighth Street and Wabash Avenue, 92 per cent Negro attendance.

There were some signs of friction at a school 20 per cent Negro (Haven) when a school largely Italian was combined with it, but the situation was handled tactfully by the principal and there had been no trouble. At a school 85 per cent Negro (Doolittle), where the white element was Jewish, all the teachers reported that there was no antagonism between the races.

Voluntary grouping.—The only school where the investigator noticed Negro and white children playing in separate groups was Webster (30 per cent), whose principal reported antagonism between Negroes and whites. At the other schools natural mingling was reported by some teachers or observed by the investigator. At a school 26 per cent Negro (Oakland) three teachers said that Negro and white children did not mingle on the playgrounds, while another teacher said they all played together regardless of color. The principal and twelve teachers at a school 85 per cent Negro (Doolittle) agreed, with the exception of one teacher who was a southerner, that there was never anything but the most natural mingling in the classrooms, about the building and on the playground. At a school 30 per cent Negro (Drake), the principal of which stated that the relations between the races were not harmonious, the investigator observed a free and natural grouping of Negroes and whites of all ages on the playground. The principal explained that this was "a forced rather than a natural grouping because of lack of apparatus for all." The white children at a school 20 per cent Negro (Haven) were Italians, Jews, and Greeks, and all the races played so naturally together that passersby frequently stopped to watch them.

Social contacts.—There are few social organizations and gatherings in the elementary schools. The principal of a school 93 per cent Negro (Raymond) said that there were clubs through all the grammar grades and that the friendliness between the two races was marked, but added:

We have not more than fifty or sixty white children in this particular building. One white child was elected vice-president, the first white child elected in eight years. It shows the friendly relationship when a white child could be elected to office with a large preponderance of colored children. A Jewish boy was elected to a smaller office of clerk. The white children are not foreign. In their meetings the question of color never arises at all.

In a few instances principals had found that graduation presented some difficulties, as white mothers would appear at the school a few days before and request that their children do not march with Negro children. "About the only time I see a white mother is near graduation," said the principal of a school 38 per cent Negro (Forrestville). "They always say they wouldn't care for themselves, but a friend might see and they would feel ashamed." "White children prefer not to march with colored at graduation," said a teacher at Oakland School (26 per cent), "and mothers sometimes come to ask that it be so arranged that their girls can march with white girls. They usually say that for themselves they don't mind, but friends might see and wonder why that should be."