Summary
Chicago, one of the most segregated cities in the country, did not become that way by accident. Though explicit racial zoning was not permitted, Chicago used discreet means to enforce racial separation at the neighborhood level throughout the first half of the 20th century. Even when the federal government blocked their way, Chicago still found innovative techniques to continue racial separation in the city, such as selecting nearly exclusively all-Black neighborhoods as sites for public housing.
Chicago’s government was backed up by Chicago’s white citizens when it came to segregation, with citizens forming groups to “keep up the neighborhood” that encouraged white people to sell their homes only to other white people to prevent Black people from moving in, even going so far as to attempt to drive Black people out of their homes. Black people (and white people who supported them) faced violence from white homeowners who wished to maintain segregation. And when that didn’t work, white homeowners would leave the neighborhood, in what has traditionally been referred to as white flight, causing neighborhoods to fall prey to redlining.
Speculators took advantage of this white panic, convincing white people to sell for cheap, then sell those homes to Black people on contract. Clyde Ross spent his time dealing with his on-contract home by working three jobs, taking his children out of private school, and spending money and time paying speculators rather than supporting his children.
Mattie Lewis, an Alabama native, moved to Chicago in the mid-forties, bought a home on contract, and became involved, along with Ross, in the Contract Buyers League to gain restitution for homes. She and her friend, Ethel Weatherspoon, share with Coates a similar story to Ross’s, where they had to cut down on things for their homes and their children in order to keep up with payments. But even though they ended up keeping their homes, they were in the tiny minority: for every success story, there are thousands of people who “fell by the way.”
Analysis
Chicago is an excellent example of how cities instituted racist policies in ways that were indirect but still deeply destructive. Northern cities were not exempt from racism simply because they had been on the side of the Union when it came to the abolition of slavery; everywhere across the country, white people were invested in preventing Black people from succeeding. The complexity of the techniques used to keep Black people restricted to certain neighborhoods demonstrates how fighting against racism is more than just fighting against individual actions but involves fighting against entire ways of life. Moreover, it shows that the experience of African Americans like Ross in Chicago were not one-offs, but instead reflect the way that the system was built. The city of Chicago is responsible in large part for the poverty of millions, because the government was involved in instituting redlining. And Chicago is far from the only city that carries that kind of responsibility.
This institutional racism was supported by the individual racism of Chicago's white citizens. Even though the work of white allies should be acknowledged, far more white people were interested in keeping Black people out. In 2019, phrases like "there goes the neighborhood" may seem innocuous, but in this time, the drive to keep a "good" neighborhood led to white people endeavoring to prevent Black people from moving into their neighborhoods by any means necessary, even forming organizations to keep African Americans out. An example of this from literature is in Lorraine Hansberry's play, A Raisin in the Sun. Set in Chicago, the characters decide to move to an all-white neighborhood after they come into an inheritance, only to face the obstacle of a segregationist organization that attempts to pay them not to move into their new house. This kind of response was on the nicer side of retaliation against integration—protests often got violent and many Black people were literally, physically driven out of their neighborhoods.
In the worst-case scenario, white people decided to move out of neighborhoods entirely in a migration referred to as white flight. This dynamic is what enabled speculators to buy homes for extremely cheap. Though racism often benefitted white people, speculators manipulated the enormous fear of African Americans to buy homes for artificially low prices, so in the end, the housing market was also harming even Chicago's white population. Ross, on the other hand, and people like him, spent years working overtime because of their on-contract homes. More importantly, as unlikely as it might seem, Ross and his friends were actually lucky in their housing experiences. While they had homes on contract, their ability to hold onto their homes were rare. Like the Obamas, Ross's relative success is not shared by the vast majority of people in his situation. More and more, Coates is making it clear that the success of African Americans comes often despite impossible odds, rather than the African American community failing to properly use their resources.
