How Does Race Cause Violence In Chicago
Instructor Odom
Rhetoric 105, Section B4
6 December 2012
The Effects of Race on the city of Chicago
Chicago has been known for its violence. Many claim that it is due to class while others think it is due to race. Research of gangs typically does not include the role of race, though a closer look at gangs in Chicago tells a story of hatred between races. Frederic Thrasher, an experienced sociologist of gang research, followed Robert Park, a noted liberal and leader of the Chicago Urban League, in arguing that gangs were the problem of violence in the city and not race. Park says “gangs” came from the “city wilderness” without regard to race, creed, or color. Park along with Thrasher are both wrong since it is because of race that the …show more content…
prevalent amount of gangs in Chicago formed.
Race for Park was just another variable, declining in significance with modernization. Racial inequalities could best be explained by class, family and employment patterns, and other economically-based factors. The Chicagoans, early and late, have been hampered by this nonracial ecological theory. This theory becomes apparent with a closer look at the history of Chicago 's gangs. The history of Chicago 's gangs reflects the traditional factors of immigration, poverty, or social disorganization; at the same time, reveal the centrality of race to the Chicago gang experience.
In the beginning of the 20th century, immigrants and migrants came to Chicago in groups and would usually stay in the same neighborhood together. The main ethnic groups, African Americans, the Irish, Italians, and Poles, underwent the same process of transition into their new city, Chicago; however, it was a differently big adjustment for African Americans. Because many immigrants and migrants would prefer to stay in the same neighborhoods of their own race, they segregated themselves. Not only did immigrants want to stay with their same race, but the city especially wanted to keep the African American people segregated. According to Anon “realtors and businessmen put together a black-belt reconstruction plan and suggested the appointment of an interracial committee to ‘develop a plan whereby one section of the city be given exclusively to colored people’” (17). In particular, it was the “social athletic clubs” (SACs) in Chicago that enforced African Americans in the “black belt”, a term, as historian Thomas Philpott said, that was used to mean the secluded ghetto of African Americans (568). As for the Irish, Italians, and Poles being segregated, John Hagedorn states they were “gradually integrated into the broader economy, and moved into more prosperous zones of the city, shedding their traditions as they assimilated” (195). These ethnicities added to the melting pot of diversity in America with a much easier time than African Americans. In 1930, nine out of every ten African Americans lived in areas that were at least 80 percent black.
As I mentioned before Robert Park does not believe that race is the cause violence in Chicago, but that is because he never knew about the corruption of politics in Chicago.
People in power and influence were the mainly Irish “voting gangs”. According to John Hagedorn, “These white gangs or ‘social athletic clubs’ (SACs) were organizations sponsored by politicians to provide boys and young men of the streets with ‘recreation’” (196). At the time of the 1920s, Thrasher approximated 250 gangs were in Chicago. SACs were a way for immigrants and migrants to be protected while local politicians could count on the vote of the gangs or as mentioned before - the voting gangs. Chicago 's SACs was a way for politicians to ensure their victory for re-election. For many young Irish, Italian, and Polish, SACs were a way to make a living because many were receiving jobs. These ethnic groups were becoming firemen, policemen, or sometimes they were joining the campaign of politicians. While ethnic groups like the Irish, Italians, and Poles gained positions of power, African Americans were denied the same opportunity and worse yet, were treated unfairly in many ways. For example Philpott exclaims that African Americans pay more than other immigrants. He says “Black belt residents paid higher rents for worse quarters than did immigrants; they took in more borders and had to tolerate the city’s vice district” (568). As more African Americans started migrating into Chicago, the Chicago municipal ordinance of 1923 helped contain them since there was a steady increase of African Americans in Chicago. In Christopher Silver’s essay on municipal ordinances, he explained how politicians in the United States used zoning to keep Africans Americans in the black belt. He says in his book “social reformers believed that zoning offered a way not only to exclude incompatible uses from residential areas but also to slow the spread of slums into better neighborhoods” (Silver,1). Also, African
Americans were treated unfairly by being kept in the black belt and nowhere else. Realtors would not show African-Americans houses in a white neighborhood, and if blacks were shown houses, the banks would not approve loans for the houses. Not only from a financial standpoint, but also there were clashes over public areas like which sidewalk to walk on, baseball grounds, and etc.
A specific point in time when racism was explicitly shown was during the time of the 1919 Chicago race riot, which is one of the nation’s most violent riots. The riot was a result of built-up racial tension among whites and their gangs over the increasing number of African Americans. Social athletic clubs seized upon the riot to engage in violent acts. Cheryl Hudson details “the 1919 race riot in Chicago, which had left 38 dead, hundreds injured and thousands of dollars of damage to the city’s homes and businesses” (53). Although SACs had a heavy involvement in the riot, Hagedorn describes “Few commentators have discussed the role of the athletic clubs in racist assaults on the black community”, which shows many people did not want to shed light on the white gangs (197). One of those people being Robert Park who believed urban ecology and social stratification was the cause of gangs. The riot was an extreme example of the violence between African Americans and White gangs, but there was still much fear and hostility from SACs towards African Americans. One of the common forms of violence was drive by shootings. What would happen is white gang members drove into black neighborhoods searching for black residents and would shoot at them. Since it happened consistently, African Americans would retaliate by grabbing their gun and would shoot back. They even started to snipe. The social athletic clubs were really racist gangs, organized by city politicians and police captains. Given time, black adolescent started gangs that clashed with white youths over years, defending their community against assault. The Chicago 's riot commission concluded, “There are no gang organizations among Negroes to compare with those found among whites” (n.p.).
In response to the riot, citizens of Chicago demanded there be reform in the relation between black and white residents and that a greater order be established. The Chicago Commission on Race Relations (CCRR) was put in place to figure out a plan to bring back peace in an orderly fashion. Although many citizens believed the CCRR should invest in making a more rigid segregation system, Charles Johnson was put in charge since he created the research plans for the commission. An African American student of Robert Park’s at the University of Chicago, Johnson served as the Director of Research and Investigations at the Chicago Urban League. Johnsons’ approach to studying and developing a plan was influenced by Robert Park greatly. Cheryl Hudsons says “Johnson followed Park in looking to large and impersonal social forces such as migration and war to bring about change in race relations” (61). Park was a teacher at the University of Chicago and influenced others like Johnson, but his teaching on race relations in Chicago were based off of financial and historical factors, not race.
Although Johnson received the job as Director of Research, “the commission subsequently dropped two areas of investigation: a proposed study of the politics of the black belt and, notably, a survey of the extent and causes of racial segregation” (61). Both the causes of racial segregation and the study of the black belt are two main focus points as to crime. The Chicago riot in 1919 mainly took place in the black bet. With African Americans as the minority race and the race who does not have much of a voice, it is hard for them to find justice. Johnson was able though to research “six separate committees” He “oversaw research into relations between the ‘two races’ in the context of racial clashes, housing, industry, crime, racial contact and public opinion and each comprised a separate section of the final report (CCRR, 74).
While the CCRR is planning on how to take action, doubts about the CCRR intentions surfaced due to W.E.B. Du Bois. Cheryl Hudson paraphrases that “He warned his Chicago friends that neither black nor white commission members were trustworthy and that both sought to devise a program of racial segregation ‘under the guise of impartiality and good will’” (60). It was a confusing time for both whites and African Americans since both black and white commission members were trying to gain the better half of the deal for devising choosing plans. Hudson explains that “African Americans developing racial consciousness and race pride could be turned to the advantage of the segregationists, Du Bois charged the commission with betraying blacks through a confusion of the concepts of ‘segregation’ and racial ‘solidarity’” (60).With all the confusion, it is no wonder why African Americans turned towards gangs to retaliate instead of looking towards politics. The final report and recommendations that the CCRR concluded with is that “the two issues of prejudicial public opinion and a black ‘cultural lag’ are identified as the central obstacles to constructive interracial communication in race relations” (62). With that in mind, they still acknowledged that the failings of the police, the courts, banks, employers, unions and the city government were at fault for not protecting black citizen’s rights. The CCRR figured that it would be a long and slow process in order to restore peace because most people were subject to thinking prejudicially to the other race. Hudson explains “The aim of the commission, therefore, was to expose and correct false cultural beliefs and attitudes in order to promote racial harmony” (62). Johnsons’ survey on the two races sought to reveal racial conflict through education and cultural adjustment in order to create an understanding of the other race.
The CCRR answer to the final report neither proposed integration or segregation, but decided to continue to add the black population to the black belt. The CCRR figured rather than support an open housing policy; they would still keep separate the whites from African Americans. Not really seeking a solution to the problem, the CCRR basically kept the two races divided which would not help solve the problems of “prejudicial public opinion and a black cultural lag”. The CCRR decisions are still affecting Chicago today due to the increase in gang violence over the years. The violence stems from segregation of races, which isolated African Americans to grow up in an improper way, experiencing much racism and violence. By placing an official emphasis on the separateness of racial groups, the commission set the stage for race-based citizenship for decades to come. The continuing pattern of violence between the races carries on into the 1930s to the 1950s. Part of the reason why is because of “the arrival of roughly 60,000 African Americans during World War II”, which Hagedorn mentions the race riots “continued through the war and intensified after the war ended” (200). With more African Americans migrating to Chicago they would sometimes unknowingly go and live in the wrong neighborhoods. This would upset white politicians, residents, realtors, and gangs who were trying to contain the growing African American population. Violence in black neighborhoods became more dangerous through acts of bombing, mob violence, and even attacks by the police. The start of white segregationist organizations throughout Chicago started fighting the expansion of the ghetto with arson and bombs and still.
Although more violence was going on between races, black gangs preferred not to have territory over by the borders of white neighborhoods. African American gangs were either run by older gang members or younger gang members. The gangs run by younger gang members typically were as historian Timuel Black recalled:
“We had gangs when I was growing up. There was the 31st Street Gang, the 43rd Street
Gang, the 40 . . . 58th Street Gang, the 54th Street Gang. And I hungout with the 54th
Street Gang. But what did we do? Played basketball, and baseball, and football. And we had a few hoodlums in the gang, the group. And so they began to do things that were unlawful. Snatching pocketbooks. Sticking helpless people up on the streets.”
As the black population increased though, more and more violence broke out between adolescent gangs, which became a huge problem when more African Americans started migrating to Chicago. While local gangs for African Americans were small and many, the dynamics started changing when in the 1960s another wave of African Americans started moving in. The black belt could no longer hold the already populated black area. According to Ted Seals, a Chicago Tribune writer “As the black population increased, many white residents fled, while others became absentee landlords” (qtd. in Hagedorn 202). As a result this made gangs bold to claim new neighborhoods as their turf. For new families trying to make a living, there were not many good choices to live because of the increase in violence. Chicago, in response to the even bigger black population, built public housing complexes. Also with more of a black population, youth gangs began to form multi-neighborhood branches. Gangs started to run neighborhoods. As of today, not much has changed. Many of the gangs fight for territory in the even bigger black belt area.
Race was the initial reason why race riots started, which created the violent gangs of Chicago today. The history of gangs in Chicago is basically a history of race. In the beginning when the Irish, Italians, and Poles started terrorizing African Americans, it was a start of built up tension, which led to race riots. The race riot of 1919 is an extreme example of the violence between races and is one of many smaller examples just like it. Politicians and the police underestimated racism when they tried to stop it with the Chicago Commission on Race Relations. They did not change the fact that everyone was being prejudice of one another. Many were ignorant and stayed ignorant because of their unwillingness to think that their beliefs were wrong. As time went on, many of the Irish, Italians, and Poles obtained jobs through the SACs, leaving African Americans to remain as gangs. In the segregated area, the black belt, many African Americans were migrating there, which influenced white owners to leave the nearby neighborhoods. This led to more African Americans joining gangs, which helped change the dynamic of gangs in general. Gangs joined up with other gangs, making gangs a more serious and powerful force. It has been a long history of unnecessary violence, which started because of race, which has left the effects of violent gangs in Chicago.
Bibliography
Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor, American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley. His Battle for Chicago and the Nation (Boston, MA, 2000).
Anon. (1917), ‘Negroes Offer Housing “Swap” with Whites’, Chicago Daily
Tribune, 10 April, p. 17.
Hagedorn, John. RACE NOT SPACE: “A Revisionist History of Gangs in Chicago”. Journal of African American History Vol. 91 Issue 2 (Spring 2006): 194-208. Web. 6 Nov. 2012
Philpott, Thomas Lee. The Slum and the Ghetto: Neighborhood Deterioration and Middle-Class Reform, Chicago, 1880–1930. 1978.
Robert Park, introduction to Frederic Thrasher, The Gang: A Study of 1313 Gangs in Chicago (Chicago,1927), xi
Silver, Christopher. The Racial Origins of Zoning in American Cities
The Chicago Commision on Race Relations. The Negro in Chicago. The University of Chicago Press
Timuel Black, "The History of African American Gangs in Chicago" Chicago Gang Research Project; http://panpresearch.neVChicaEoGangs/gangs&ghetto/TimuelBlackx.html ( '2000 ').
Rhetoric 105, Section B4
6 December 2012
The Effects of Race on the city of Chicago
Chicago has been known for its violence. Many claim that it is due to class while others think it is due to race. Research of gangs typically does not include the role of race, though a closer look at gangs in Chicago tells a story of hatred between races. Frederic Thrasher, an experienced sociologist of gang research, followed Robert Park, a noted liberal and leader of the Chicago Urban League, in arguing that gangs were the problem of violence in the city and not race. Park says “gangs” came from the “city wilderness” without regard to race, creed, or color. Park along with Thrasher are both wrong since it is because of race that the …show more content…
prevalent amount of gangs in Chicago formed.
Race for Park was just another variable, declining in significance with modernization. Racial inequalities could best be explained by class, family and employment patterns, and other economically-based factors. The Chicagoans, early and late, have been hampered by this nonracial ecological theory. This theory becomes apparent with a closer look at the history of Chicago 's gangs. The history of Chicago 's gangs reflects the traditional factors of immigration, poverty, or social disorganization; at the same time, reveal the centrality of race to the Chicago gang experience.
In the beginning of the 20th century, immigrants and migrants came to Chicago in groups and would usually stay in the same neighborhood together. The main ethnic groups, African Americans, the Irish, Italians, and Poles, underwent the same process of transition into their new city, Chicago; however, it was a differently big adjustment for African Americans. Because many immigrants and migrants would prefer to stay in the same neighborhoods of their own race, they segregated themselves. Not only did immigrants want to stay with their same race, but the city especially wanted to keep the African American people segregated. According to Anon “realtors and businessmen put together a black-belt reconstruction plan and suggested the appointment of an interracial committee to ‘develop a plan whereby one section of the city be given exclusively to colored people’” (17). In particular, it was the “social athletic clubs” (SACs) in Chicago that enforced African Americans in the “black belt”, a term, as historian Thomas Philpott said, that was used to mean the secluded ghetto of African Americans (568). As for the Irish, Italians, and Poles being segregated, John Hagedorn states they were “gradually integrated into the broader economy, and moved into more prosperous zones of the city, shedding their traditions as they assimilated” (195). These ethnicities added to the melting pot of diversity in America with a much easier time than African Americans. In 1930, nine out of every ten African Americans lived in areas that were at least 80 percent black.
As I mentioned before Robert Park does not believe that race is the cause violence in Chicago, but that is because he never knew about the corruption of politics in Chicago.
People in power and influence were the mainly Irish “voting gangs”. According to John Hagedorn, “These white gangs or ‘social athletic clubs’ (SACs) were organizations sponsored by politicians to provide boys and young men of the streets with ‘recreation’” (196). At the time of the 1920s, Thrasher approximated 250 gangs were in Chicago. SACs were a way for immigrants and migrants to be protected while local politicians could count on the vote of the gangs or as mentioned before - the voting gangs. Chicago 's SACs was a way for politicians to ensure their victory for re-election. For many young Irish, Italian, and Polish, SACs were a way to make a living because many were receiving jobs. These ethnic groups were becoming firemen, policemen, or sometimes they were joining the campaign of politicians. While ethnic groups like the Irish, Italians, and Poles gained positions of power, African Americans were denied the same opportunity and worse yet, were treated unfairly in many ways. For example Philpott exclaims that African Americans pay more than other immigrants. He says “Black belt residents paid higher rents for worse quarters than did immigrants; they took in more borders and had to tolerate the city’s vice district” (568). As more African Americans started migrating into Chicago, the Chicago municipal ordinance of 1923 helped contain them since there was a steady increase of African Americans in Chicago. In Christopher Silver’s essay on municipal ordinances, he explained how politicians in the United States used zoning to keep Africans Americans in the black belt. He says in his book “social reformers believed that zoning offered a way not only to exclude incompatible uses from residential areas but also to slow the spread of slums into better neighborhoods” (Silver,1). Also, African
Americans were treated unfairly by being kept in the black belt and nowhere else. Realtors would not show African-Americans houses in a white neighborhood, and if blacks were shown houses, the banks would not approve loans for the houses. Not only from a financial standpoint, but also there were clashes over public areas like which sidewalk to walk on, baseball grounds, and etc.
A specific point in time when racism was explicitly shown was during the time of the 1919 Chicago race riot, which is one of the nation’s most violent riots. The riot was a result of built-up racial tension among whites and their gangs over the increasing number of African Americans. Social athletic clubs seized upon the riot to engage in violent acts. Cheryl Hudson details “the 1919 race riot in Chicago, which had left 38 dead, hundreds injured and thousands of dollars of damage to the city’s homes and businesses” (53). Although SACs had a heavy involvement in the riot, Hagedorn describes “Few commentators have discussed the role of the athletic clubs in racist assaults on the black community”, which shows many people did not want to shed light on the white gangs (197). One of those people being Robert Park who believed urban ecology and social stratification was the cause of gangs. The riot was an extreme example of the violence between African Americans and White gangs, but there was still much fear and hostility from SACs towards African Americans. One of the common forms of violence was drive by shootings. What would happen is white gang members drove into black neighborhoods searching for black residents and would shoot at them. Since it happened consistently, African Americans would retaliate by grabbing their gun and would shoot back. They even started to snipe. The social athletic clubs were really racist gangs, organized by city politicians and police captains. Given time, black adolescent started gangs that clashed with white youths over years, defending their community against assault. The Chicago 's riot commission concluded, “There are no gang organizations among Negroes to compare with those found among whites” (n.p.).
In response to the riot, citizens of Chicago demanded there be reform in the relation between black and white residents and that a greater order be established. The Chicago Commission on Race Relations (CCRR) was put in place to figure out a plan to bring back peace in an orderly fashion. Although many citizens believed the CCRR should invest in making a more rigid segregation system, Charles Johnson was put in charge since he created the research plans for the commission. An African American student of Robert Park’s at the University of Chicago, Johnson served as the Director of Research and Investigations at the Chicago Urban League. Johnsons’ approach to studying and developing a plan was influenced by Robert Park greatly. Cheryl Hudsons says “Johnson followed Park in looking to large and impersonal social forces such as migration and war to bring about change in race relations” (61). Park was a teacher at the University of Chicago and influenced others like Johnson, but his teaching on race relations in Chicago were based off of financial and historical factors, not race.
Although Johnson received the job as Director of Research, “the commission subsequently dropped two areas of investigation: a proposed study of the politics of the black belt and, notably, a survey of the extent and causes of racial segregation” (61). Both the causes of racial segregation and the study of the black belt are two main focus points as to crime. The Chicago riot in 1919 mainly took place in the black bet. With African Americans as the minority race and the race who does not have much of a voice, it is hard for them to find justice. Johnson was able though to research “six separate committees” He “oversaw research into relations between the ‘two races’ in the context of racial clashes, housing, industry, crime, racial contact and public opinion and each comprised a separate section of the final report (CCRR, 74).
While the CCRR is planning on how to take action, doubts about the CCRR intentions surfaced due to W.E.B. Du Bois. Cheryl Hudson paraphrases that “He warned his Chicago friends that neither black nor white commission members were trustworthy and that both sought to devise a program of racial segregation ‘under the guise of impartiality and good will’” (60). It was a confusing time for both whites and African Americans since both black and white commission members were trying to gain the better half of the deal for devising choosing plans. Hudson explains that “African Americans developing racial consciousness and race pride could be turned to the advantage of the segregationists, Du Bois charged the commission with betraying blacks through a confusion of the concepts of ‘segregation’ and racial ‘solidarity’” (60).With all the confusion, it is no wonder why African Americans turned towards gangs to retaliate instead of looking towards politics. The final report and recommendations that the CCRR concluded with is that “the two issues of prejudicial public opinion and a black ‘cultural lag’ are identified as the central obstacles to constructive interracial communication in race relations” (62). With that in mind, they still acknowledged that the failings of the police, the courts, banks, employers, unions and the city government were at fault for not protecting black citizen’s rights. The CCRR figured that it would be a long and slow process in order to restore peace because most people were subject to thinking prejudicially to the other race. Hudson explains “The aim of the commission, therefore, was to expose and correct false cultural beliefs and attitudes in order to promote racial harmony” (62). Johnsons’ survey on the two races sought to reveal racial conflict through education and cultural adjustment in order to create an understanding of the other race.
The CCRR answer to the final report neither proposed integration or segregation, but decided to continue to add the black population to the black belt. The CCRR figured rather than support an open housing policy; they would still keep separate the whites from African Americans. Not really seeking a solution to the problem, the CCRR basically kept the two races divided which would not help solve the problems of “prejudicial public opinion and a black cultural lag”. The CCRR decisions are still affecting Chicago today due to the increase in gang violence over the years. The violence stems from segregation of races, which isolated African Americans to grow up in an improper way, experiencing much racism and violence. By placing an official emphasis on the separateness of racial groups, the commission set the stage for race-based citizenship for decades to come. The continuing pattern of violence between the races carries on into the 1930s to the 1950s. Part of the reason why is because of “the arrival of roughly 60,000 African Americans during World War II”, which Hagedorn mentions the race riots “continued through the war and intensified after the war ended” (200). With more African Americans migrating to Chicago they would sometimes unknowingly go and live in the wrong neighborhoods. This would upset white politicians, residents, realtors, and gangs who were trying to contain the growing African American population. Violence in black neighborhoods became more dangerous through acts of bombing, mob violence, and even attacks by the police. The start of white segregationist organizations throughout Chicago started fighting the expansion of the ghetto with arson and bombs and still.
Although more violence was going on between races, black gangs preferred not to have territory over by the borders of white neighborhoods. African American gangs were either run by older gang members or younger gang members. The gangs run by younger gang members typically were as historian Timuel Black recalled:
“We had gangs when I was growing up. There was the 31st Street Gang, the 43rd Street
Gang, the 40 . . . 58th Street Gang, the 54th Street Gang. And I hungout with the 54th
Street Gang. But what did we do? Played basketball, and baseball, and football. And we had a few hoodlums in the gang, the group. And so they began to do things that were unlawful. Snatching pocketbooks. Sticking helpless people up on the streets.”
As the black population increased though, more and more violence broke out between adolescent gangs, which became a huge problem when more African Americans started migrating to Chicago. While local gangs for African Americans were small and many, the dynamics started changing when in the 1960s another wave of African Americans started moving in. The black belt could no longer hold the already populated black area. According to Ted Seals, a Chicago Tribune writer “As the black population increased, many white residents fled, while others became absentee landlords” (qtd. in Hagedorn 202). As a result this made gangs bold to claim new neighborhoods as their turf. For new families trying to make a living, there were not many good choices to live because of the increase in violence. Chicago, in response to the even bigger black population, built public housing complexes. Also with more of a black population, youth gangs began to form multi-neighborhood branches. Gangs started to run neighborhoods. As of today, not much has changed. Many of the gangs fight for territory in the even bigger black belt area.
Race was the initial reason why race riots started, which created the violent gangs of Chicago today. The history of gangs in Chicago is basically a history of race. In the beginning when the Irish, Italians, and Poles started terrorizing African Americans, it was a start of built up tension, which led to race riots. The race riot of 1919 is an extreme example of the violence between races and is one of many smaller examples just like it. Politicians and the police underestimated racism when they tried to stop it with the Chicago Commission on Race Relations. They did not change the fact that everyone was being prejudice of one another. Many were ignorant and stayed ignorant because of their unwillingness to think that their beliefs were wrong. As time went on, many of the Irish, Italians, and Poles obtained jobs through the SACs, leaving African Americans to remain as gangs. In the segregated area, the black belt, many African Americans were migrating there, which influenced white owners to leave the nearby neighborhoods. This led to more African Americans joining gangs, which helped change the dynamic of gangs in general. Gangs joined up with other gangs, making gangs a more serious and powerful force. It has been a long history of unnecessary violence, which started because of race, which has left the effects of violent gangs in Chicago.
Bibliography
Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor, American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley. His Battle for Chicago and the Nation (Boston, MA, 2000).
Anon. (1917), ‘Negroes Offer Housing “Swap” with Whites’, Chicago Daily
Tribune, 10 April, p. 17.
Hagedorn, John. RACE NOT SPACE: “A Revisionist History of Gangs in Chicago”. Journal of African American History Vol. 91 Issue 2 (Spring 2006): 194-208. Web. 6 Nov. 2012
Philpott, Thomas Lee. The Slum and the Ghetto: Neighborhood Deterioration and Middle-Class Reform, Chicago, 1880–1930. 1978.
Robert Park, introduction to Frederic Thrasher, The Gang: A Study of 1313 Gangs in Chicago (Chicago,1927), xi
Silver, Christopher. The Racial Origins of Zoning in American Cities
The Chicago Commision on Race Relations. The Negro in Chicago. The University of Chicago Press
Timuel Black, "The History of African American Gangs in Chicago" Chicago Gang Research Project; http://panpresearch.neVChicaEoGangs/gangs&ghetto/TimuelBlackx.html ( '2000 ').