Donita Duffee Lexington High School

Though rather dry and complex, Arnold R. Hirsch's Making The Second Ghetto: Race & Housing in Chicago 1940-1960, is an important resource for understanding urbanization in mid twentieth century Chicago and the United States. Hirsch discusses the forces behind the creation of these primarily black neighborhoods not only for the first ghetto established during the "great migration" of World War I on the south side of "the windy city", but also to its expansion both to the south and west. The making of this second ghetto seems to be a conglomeration of several simultaneous motivating factors including a new World War II migration, a subsequent postwar job and housing shortage, a cultural bigotry, political acquiesce, and not surprisingly, an economic stimulus. An interesting way to look at these motivators is through terms of power and control socially, economically, and politically.

One must remember the cultural attitude of the period. Though barriers were breaking for many aspects of black life, equality and integration were certainly not among them. Most people would agree to blacks having basic rights of education, marriage, voting, housing etc, just so it was not in "white" neighborhoods. Brown v Board of Education had not yet set an integration precedent. As displaced African Americans began looking for private housing and agencies looked for public housing sites in white areas, rioting began to occur to maintain the racial purity of the neighborhood. This society of bigots was fueled by centuries of fear and discrimination,* The various "ethnically white" groups were fairly successful in most instances of keeping the blacks out. This Hirsch explains as negative power because, rather than causing something to happen, these groups were only able to preven something from occurring. When they were not successful in preventing blacks from moving to their neighborhood, whites often escaped to the suburbs leaving the "black belt" to expand.

Positive power (the power to make change) on the other hand, belonged to the convenient union of economics and politics. During the "flight to the suburbs" of many inner city middle class citizens and financially able industries, immobile corporations were left with a diminishing market and increasing taxes. They thus developed plans for renewal and revitalization of the inner city. To accomplish this, they needed not only a source of funds but also an authority to make decisions concerning housing issues. This power is granted via a state government convinced of the success of the project and its likelihood to "trickle down" to all Chicagoans. The General Assembly thus determines this redevelopment to be for the "public good" and enforces its power of eminent domain to secure the properties. Then, using their "write down" procedure of reselling expensive property at a much lower "use value" to corporations, an evil union was thus created.

Though intentions may have been good originally, it was soon evident that financial and political gains were becoming the primary focus. Good housing was being torn down for their lakefront view under the guise of "potential deterioratio As the masses of these displaced homeowners, no longer eligible for the limited public housing began looking for private housing, they soon found they were not welcome in the white neighborhoods and usually could not qualify for the new FHA loans that whites were able to secure. Public housing issues for the remaining 15% were just as difficult. Available vacant lots in many white neighborhoods were rejected by local aldermen and instead public housing Units were put in already bulging ghetto areas. And the blacks, the main victim in the whole situation, had virtually no power over their fate.

Making the Second Ghetto, though not a suitable read for most high school students does provide an abundance of usable topics for high school discussion. Urbanization, discrimination, and use of government authority are common topics to not only history courses but also government and sociology The concept of power (and lack thereof) among differing ethnic and social classes would also be an appropriate sociology topic. Although difficult, it has important themes that social science classrooms should likely discuss.

Return to Reactions to Assigned Readings index