Civil Rights in Chicago

Sam Cooke - A Change Is Gonna Come

WW II

The Great Migration

• 70 % of African-Americans lived in cities in 1965

• Businesses refused to stay in the newly formed Black neighborhoods

• In 1965 only 15% of professional, managerial, or clerical jobs were occupied by African-Americans; while 44% were white

Al Raby Invites Martin Luther King Jr. to Chicago 1965-1966

Along with Mayor Daley, the three men attempted to open housing for African-Americans Chicago was seen as the most segregated city in the United States.

Overall, King was seen as a failure in Chicago

Daley wanted to keep the city segregated

Keep middle class white families from fleeing to suburbs

MLK Jr. at Gage Park

“I think the people from Mississippi ought to come to Chicago to learn how to hate”

Black Power Movement

Rejection of nonviolent ways of MLK

Didn’t agree with ideal of siding cooperating with whites

Felt as though only black people should control the black struggle

Racial Distinction over Racial Assimilation

Kerner Commission 1967

Kerner Commission 1967

White society should be blamed for isolating and neglecting African Americans

Urged legislation to promote racial integration and to enrich slums—primarily through the creation of jobs, job training programs, and decent housing

The United States was : “moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and

unequal.”

Unless conditions changed, the country faced a “system of ’apartheid’” in its major cities.

Reactions: 100 riots in April of 1968 alone