The social and civic agencies are expressions of the group effort to adjust itself to the community. There are in the Negro community distinct organizations of this kind designed especially for Negroes, and branches of general agencies located conveniently for use by Negroes. Of the former type the Chicago Urban League is the most notable example. This organization is a clearing-house for social work among Negroes, and its activities include social investigations, an industrial bureau, and child welfare. It has an executive board and officers composed of both whites and Negroes, and a highly efficient staff of Negro workers. During 1920 more than 25,000 Negroes were assisted through this organization. Provident Hospital is another example of this type.
Of the latter type the Wabash Avenue Y.M.C.A. is an example. It is a branch of the city Y.M.C.A., and has adjusted itself to the peculiar social problems of its membership and community. Other agencies are the Community Service, Wendell Phillips Settlement on the West Side, Butler Community Center on the North Side, Phyllis Wheatley Home for Girls, Home for the Aged and Infirm, Indiana Avenue Y.W.C.A., Elaine Home Club, Julia Johnson Home for Girls, Hartzell Center, and Illinois Technical School for Colored Girls (a Roman Catholic institution).
Of the general social agencies with branches convenient for Negroes are the American Red Cross, United Charities, Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium, Abraham Lincoln Center. Although some of these branches are poorly supported and undermanned, they represent efforts of the community to care for itself. During 1920 six social agencies and twenty-seven churches raised among Negroes $445,000 for social-welfare work.
IV. Racial Contacts
The problems arising out of various occasions, both voluntary and enforced, for race association in Chicago, have, for convenience, been included in this report under the general classification of "racial contacts." Attention is given to contacts in the public schools, in public recreation places, on transportation lines, and in other relations exclusive of industry and housing which require special treatment. Negroes in Illinois are legally entitled to all the rights and privileges of other citizens. Actually, however, their participation in public benefits in practically every field is limited by some circumvention of the law.
1. [CONTACTS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS]
The public schools furnish one of the most important points of contact between the white and Negro races because of the daily association of thousands of Negro and white children at an impressionable age. The Chicago Board of Education makes no distinction between the races and keeps no separate records. Certain schools, therefore, with white American, Negro, and white foreign-born preponderances, were selected for special study.
Physical equipment of schools.—Twenty-two schools located in and near areas of Negro residence were selected and visited. Of these only five, or 23 per cent, have been built since 1900, and four of these five schools are in regions where the Negro population is smallest. The ten schools serving the largest percentage of Negroes were built, one in 1856, one in 1867, seven between 1880 and 1889, and only one after 1890. Of the 235 schools attended almost wholly by whites, 133, or 56 per cent, were built after 1899. The old buildings will not accommodate modern equipment and cannot be enlarged. The absence of modern buildings is in part due to the old residence areas in which Negroes must live. The gymnasiums in fifteen of these twenty-two schools of predominant Negro attendance are poorly equipped, and in the other seven schools there are none. Playground space is about the same in all the schools, and there was no exceptional overcrowding in schools attended largely by Negroes except in one case where by the "shift" system a double attendance was made possible. In the schools of mixed attendance one instance was conspicuous: Fuller School—a branch of Felsenthal which is well equipped, and under the same principal, who is an advocate of segregation—is in a neighborhood where the percentage of Negroes is the same as that around Felsenthal, but it has no playground, is run down, and neglected. Yet it has 90 per cent Negroes, while Felsenthal has 38 per cent. Unmanageable white children are sent to Fuller.
Retardation.—The question of retardation[106] of Negro children is of serious concern in race relations, since this fact is urged by advocates of separate schools as an unnecessary handicap for white children and a reason for segregation. Twenty-four schools were selected, with the aid of the Board of Education: six attended mainly by Negroes, six mainly by white Americans, and twelve mainly by children of immigrants. Of a total of 34,593 children there were 18,230, or 53 per cent, retarded—the same percentage as in the entire city; 10,250, or 30 per cent, normal; and 5,910, or 17 per cent, accelerated. In the schools attended mainly by white Americans, 49 per cent were retarded; in those attended mainly by children of immigrants 49 per cent; and in those attended mainly by Negroes 74 per cent. The percentage of retardation in schools attended mainly by Negroes ranges from 57 to 80 per cent; in schools attended mainly by children of immigrants from 32 to 71 per cent; and in schools attended mainly by white Americans from 40 to 62 per cent.
Predominating causes of this retardation of Negro children, according to the Board of Education's classification, are: "late entrance to school," "family difficulties," "fathers or mothers working," "lack of education in parents." The majority of retarded Negro children are southerners, and their retardation can be readily understood when the gross inadequacies of southern schools for Negroes are considered.