There are four settlements in Chicago in or near the neighborhoods of colored people. The pioneer was the Frederick Douglas Center on the South Side of Chicago, founded to promote a better understanding between white and colored people and to help remove the arbitrary disabilities from which the latter suffer in their civil, political and industrial life. The founder and head resident, who had for years been troubled by the increasing race antagonism against the colored people, believes that much can be accomplished by a frank discussion of the situation between the two races if it be carried on with justice and good will; cases of unusual discrimination are often arbitrated and adjusted.
The Wendell Phillips settlement was also organized by a board of white and colored people who were concerned over the conditions obtaining in the colored district on the West Side of the city. Two young colored women, graduates of Fiske University, are in charge and have developed an excellent system of clubs and classes. Both of these settlements own their own property.
The Negro Fellowship League was founded as an outgrowth of the discussion following the Springfield riots, when it was said that the difficulty arose from idle young men out of work, maintains a reading room, a lodging house, and an employment agency on State street in the midst of the “Black Belt.” The League performs many offices for the colored men who have newly arrived in Chicago similar to those of the League for the Protection of Immigrants; in fact, the needs of the two classes of people are similar in many respects, implying lack of adjustment rather than lack of ability.
The Enterprise Institute on State street has classes in various lines, at present numbering 150 pupils. There are in Chicago an entire group of institutions which have arisen as colored people were discriminated against in existing institutions, such as the Home for the Widows of Colored Soldiers and the Home for the Aged, all supported by associations of colored women.
Race Prejudice
Found Even in
Day Nurseries
and Dependent
Homes
A day nursery for colored children was organized a year ago because several day nurseries refused to receive colored children on the ground that “the other people objected to them.” There are likewise five homes for colored dependent children; two were the outgrowths of apparent discrimination against colored children in two state industrial schools receiving public funds, although in the case of the Illinois Industrial School for Girls, situated at Park Ridge, Illinois, the Institution is responsible for the branch maintained in Chicago for colored girls and defrays all expenses. The board managers believe that this segregation is equally valuable to both sets of children. The similar school for boys at Glenwood, Illinois, does not maintain a separate branch, but in various ways avoids taking colored boys into the school. At the time of the investigation, the Glenwood School contained 500 white boys and fifteen colored boys, a number disproportionate to the cases of colored boys brought into the Juvenile Court. It is becoming a custom, on the part of many places, to refuse colored children, with the cryptic utterance, “We have no room.”
In order to provide for dependent and delinquent colored children, a colored workman, previously a probation officer, established the Louise Juvenile Home, which cares for twenty dependent boys. The Eldridge Home and the Marcy Home each provides for smaller children. The Amanda Smith Home was founded by an ex-slave with a remarkable gift for public speaking and great religious devotion. She spent twelve years in China, Japan and Africa under the auspices of the English Missionary and Temperance Society. Returning home to Chicago in 1900, she invested the savings of her lifetime, ten thousand dollars, in the Home, which is chartered under the provision of the industrial school act. The Home cares for fifty children, but since Mrs. Smith left, on account of ill health, it has been greatly crippled for lack of funds. All of these homes for colored children are supported wholly by colored people. The Illinois Technical School for colored girls is maintained in Chicago by the Catholic Church; there are fifty-one girls in the school, ranging from four to sixteen years of age and receiving most excellent care. In spite of these various efforts, the care for dependent and semi-delinquent colored children is totally inadequate, a situation which is the more remarkable as the public records all give a high percentage of negro criminals; the police department gives 7.7 per cent; the Juvenile Court 6.5 per cent; the county jail 10 per cent.
Those familiar with the police and the courts believe that negroes are often arrested on excuses too flimsy to hold a white man; that any negro who happens to be near the scene of a crime or disorder is promptly arrested and often convicted on evidence upon which a white man would be discharged. The Juvenile Protective Association has on record cases in which negroes have been arrested without sufficient cause and convicted on inadequate evidence, and it is well known that a certain type of policeman, juryman, and prosecuting attorney have apparently no scruples in sending “a nigger up the road” on mere suspicion.
Negroes Frequently
Convicted on
Suspicion
To take one record from the files of the Association, the case of George W., a colored boy, nineteen years old, who was born in Chicago and had attended the public schools through one year at the high school. He lived with his mother and had worked steadily for three years as a porter in a large grocery store, until August 22, 1912, when he was arrested on the charge of rape. On the late afternoon of that day an old woman of eighty-three was assaulted by a negro and was saved from the horrible attack only by the timely arrival of her daughter, who so frightened the assailant that he jumped out of a window. Two days later George was arrested, charged with the crime. At the police station he was not allowed to sleep; was beaten, cuffed and kicked, and finally, battered and frightened, he confessed that he had committed the crime. When he appeared in court, his lawyer advised him to plead guilty, although the boy explained that he had not committed the crime and had confessed simply because he was forced to do so. The evidence against him was so flimsy that the judge referred to it in his instructions to the jury. The State’s Attorney had failed to establish the ownership of the cap dropped by the fleeing assailant and the time of the attempted act was changed during the testimony. Though the description given by the people who saw the colored man running away did not agree with George’s appearance, nevertheless the jury brought in a verdict of guilty and the judge sentenced the boy to fourteen years in the penitentiary. When one of the men who had seen the guilty man running away from the old woman’s house was asked why he did not make his testimony more explicit, he replied, “Oh, well, he’s only a nigger anyway.” The case was brought to the Juvenile Protective Association by the employer of George W., who, convinced of the boy’s good character, felt that he had not had a fair trial. The Association found that the boy could absolutely prove an alibi at the time of the crime and is making an effort to get him out of the penitentiary.