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

by Chicago Commission on Race Relations

Among the whites, late entrance, inability to speak the language, ill health, backwardness, and low mentality are the main causes of retardation. While it is often maintained that the Negro is the mental inferior of the white, these figures do not bear out that contention. Also the retardation figures do not show the home life of the Negroes to be productive of as much ill health as is the case with the whites.

Approximately the same number of Negro and white children were retarded because of irregular attendance.

In addition there were forty-two Negro children and 155 white children who were classified under two, three, or four different causes for retardation. Children who were late entering also had some physical difficulty, or children who were retarded because of family difficulties were also of poor mental endowment. In some cases such double classification represented a realization by the teacher that retardation is a complicated and delicate thing which cannot be explained by one hard-and-fast reason. Others, finding it difficult to decide whether children were backward, of low mentality, or feeble-minded, classified them under all three causes. In two instances Negroes were found to be retarded because they were late entering and "foreign"—that is, they were handicapped by an "initial lack of the English language."

Intensive study of 116 retarded Negro children.—The presence of retarded Negro children in the Chicago public schools within recent years has been regarded by many teachers and principals as a problem of Negro education. Some assume that this retardation is due to an inherent incapacity for normal grade work. Inquiries of the Commission early disclosed the fact that although the retardation rate of Negro children was higher than that of white, the great majority of the retarded Negroes were from southern states, and that Negro children born in the North had, as a rule, no higher rate of retardation than the whites. In the belief that the causes of retardation among Negro children could be found in the same factors of social background and environment which operates to retard white children, an intensive study was made of 116 Negro children taken at random from among all the retarded Negro children in several schools to learn what elements in their former life and present home environment might explain their retardation.

Out of the 116 children 101 had been in school before coming to Chicago. Of these eighty-six had lived in the South and attended southern schools. Since this group was chosen at random, the large proportion from the South tends to bear out the statements of school principals and teachers that Negro children from the South constitute the bulk of retarded children. Previous school records were obtained for eighty-four of these eighty-six southern children, and in sixty-four cases the children were retarded when they came to Chicago. Many of them were retarded two and three years, and some three, four, five, and even six years. Forty-seven of the sixty-four were retarded more than one year. In a number of cases children who were in the normal grade for their age in the South were put back one or two grades when they entered Chicago schools because they were not equipped to do the work of this grade in the North.

The states from which these children came are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. Twenty-three of the eighty-six children who had lived in the South were from Mississippi—the largest group from any one state—and of these three were up with their normal grade, eleven were retarded three or four years, one was retarded six years, and one who was in the normal grade in the South was demoted two years. One reason for the poor record of these Mississippi children is undoubtedly to be found in that state's inadequate compulsory-education law which provides a school term of eighty days in districts which do not reject the law. Eight of the Mississippi children lived on plantations which were so far from school that regular attendance was impossible.

Information gathered concerning the parents of these 116 retarded children showed that in eighty-six cases the father was living with his family. In six cases the father was dead, in one case he was insane, in fifteen cases he had separated from or deserted the mother, and in eight cases there was no report on the father.

The mother was found to be living with her family in 112 cases. In two cases the mother was dead, and in two cases she had deserted father and child.

All of the eighty-six fathers who lived at home were working, though one was reported as working irregularly, and two as having deserted their wives occasionally for periods of several weeks. In two of the cases where the father had separated from the mother he was reported as contributing to the support of the child.

In forty out of the eighty-six cases where the father was living at home and working, the mother was also working, and in the fifteen separation cases where the mother was supporting the child, she was working. The fact that a total of fifty-five out of 112 mothers, or 49 per cent, were working is undoubtedly a large factor in the retardation of the children. The statement was frequently made by teachers that 40 or 50 per cent of the Negro mothers worked, and that the child was therefore neglected, and the teacher could get no co-operation from the mother, as she was never free to come to school to talk over matters affecting the child.