Chapter VI · RACIAL CONTACTS (continued 4)

It was his opinion that those Negroes who did bring cases into court made a mistake in prosecuting them from a criminal standpoint. It seemed to be, in his opinion, hopeless for Negroes to assert their rights through the criminal courts.

Another judge of long experience in the Chicago courts expressed the view that few Negroes brought in cases involving discrimination. He thought that especially the better class of Negroes would not bring them because of the unpleasantness involved and because the damages obtained in most cases would not pay the attorney's charges. "Most Negroes," he said, "have found out by experience what the actual feeling is and act accordingly, trying to avoid unpleasant experiences as much as possible. Although there would be no trouble in getting a verdict in any clear case, the amount obtained would not compensate for the trouble involved." He did not believe that any jury would convict a white defendant on a criminal charge of discrimination. A prominent Negro attorney, who formerly held a responsible state office, in giving his general experience said:

In cases involving only Negroes on each side, both judges and juries will act squarely between them; in cases involving white defendants and Negro plaintiffs, the tendency is to give considerably less credibility or weight to Negro testimony; in cases involving Negro defendants and white plaintiffs, the tendency is to give more weight to white testimony.

He stated further that in discrimination cases, where the law had been clearly violated, there was usually no difficulty in getting a verdict and damages for $25 and up, but that he did not care much about handling such cases and Negroes did not care to push them, because they were unpleasant and expensive.

II. "BLACK AND TAN" RESORTS

The intimate association of Negroes and whites in the cabarets of the South Side has occasioned frequent and heated protests. Negro men are there seen with white women and white men with Negro women. Although mixed couples constitute somewhat less than 10 per cent of the patronage, this mingling is used to characterize all of the association there. These resorts, with their liquor selling and coarse and vulgar dancing, are highly dangerous to morals and established law and order, and a nuisance to the neighborhoods in which they are located. They are used as amusement places, both by white couples living in other sections of the city and by Negro couples who live near them. In fact, although many of the resorts are patronized by an equal number of whites and Negroes, the actual mixed couples are few. The habitués of these resorts are usually of an irresponsible type of pleasure seekers, and frequently they are vicious and immoral. Newspapers and several of the civic agencies have violently criticized these places as a menace, but in their attacks the emphasis has usually been shifted from the menace to morals to that of arousing sentiment against the mingling of races. The police on numbers of occasions have been urged to close the places in which this form of association took place. In most cases they have not done so, stating as their reason that, although mingling was undesirable, there was no law prohibiting such contacts, and that evidence of violations of such laws as those concerning liquor selling or decency would be necessary to warrant their closing.

During 1920 the Negro press began a series of attacks on violations of law and against the immoral resorts in the Negro residence areas, including the so-called "black and tan" cabarets, some of which were the most notorious violators. This was followed by similar attacks from the white local newspapers. The emphasis in the white papers, however, was on the race mingling. An extract from one of the articles in a white paper is given:

"Lid" a Joke as Pekin Shimmies Defiance of Law

LIQUOR, SIRENS, JAZZ, RACE RAINBOW RIOT IN CAFÉ

"Lawless liquor," sensuous "shimmy," solicitous sirens, wrangling waiters, all the tints of the racial rainbow, black and tan and white, dancing, drinking, singing, early Sunday morning at the Pekin café, 2700 South State Street....

"BLACK AND TAN AND WHITE"

The crowd began to arrive. In came a mighty black man with two white girls. A scarred white man entered with three girls, two young and painted, the other merely painted.

Two well dressed youths hopped up the stairs with two timid girls. Seven young men—they looked like back o' the Yards—came with two women, one heavy footed, the other laughing hysterically.

Two fur-coated "high yaller" girls romped up with a slender white man. An attorney gazed happily on the party through horn rimmed glasses. The waiters called, shouted, whistled when each party arrived—a full table meant big tips.

At one o'clock the place was crowded. Meanwhile a syncopating colored man had been vamping cotton field blues on the piano. A brown girl sang.... All the tables were filled at two o'clock, black men with white girls, white men with yellow girls, old, young, all filled with the abandon brought about by illicit whisky and liquor music.... The Pekin is again the Pekin of years ago. Only more so.

The reply of a Negro newspaper to the series of articles in the white press on these resorts expresses the reactions of Negroes to this view:

Black and Tans and Race Riots

It is an established conviction that the so-called "intermingling of races" in the cabarets of the South Side is a fruitful source of riots. To those whose minds are bent in this belief, the fact that no riot has ever yet started in one of them is of little importance. Men believe, as a rule, most readily what they earnestly wish to believe. It matters little how absurd the proposition, if it expresses a desire they will make of it an everlasting verity even though it costs them the kingdom of heaven. And so it happens that we are told that the Abyssinians burned a flag and almost precipitated a race riot because they happened be to standing in front of the Entertainers' Café where Negroes and white persons dance on the same floor and occasionally together.

To carry further these deductions the United Cigar Store also should be closed because one of the fanatics shot into it and killed a white man. The connection of both of these places with the incident is just about the same, if not a little worse for the cigar store.

The fury back of complaints like that, for instance, of one Mr. Farwell of the Law and Order League invites suspicion. In all seriousness what is this crime of association for which Mr. Farwell would have these places closed? If demoralization of character is more certain in mixed places or liquor sold more openly can it be urged that race contact is responsible? It cannot. The sore point is the contact. These places are located in the most densely populated Negro neighborhoods. Attendance is voluntary and so is whatever amount of association that follows. There is no manhandling of white innocents to force them into the society of Negroes. Neither do Negroes go snooping around the high lights of the West or North sides seeking white companionship. But that is not the point. When this antipathy is analyzed it becomes apparent that there is a well defined intention to prove that any relationship varying too sharply from the master and servant type is wrong. It is the yelp of tribal jealousy. It is the gaunt denial of a fallacious orthodoxy which proclaims that certain instincts will keep certain persons eternally apart. It is that complex of emotion into which all discussions of race relations resolve themselves.

The resentment of Negroes at the poorly veiled thrusts is perfectly justifiable. However unwholesome to morals these places may be they refuse to join in the chorus of hate against amusement places just because they put no restraints upon their associations. They feel that they are human and at liberty to seek pleasure if they so desire where contacts are mutually agreeable. Those who do not care for this contact will stay away. Because a white woman will dance with a colored man or a white man with a colored woman there is no argument that a riot will follow. Persons who dance together are not so likely to fight as persons who stand at a distance and call each other bad names.

Rationally considered there is no ground for these contentions. They are insulting. If danger is ahead for the city when the Irish and Italians visit the same places of amusement or the Swedes and Lithuanians, then some thought will be given by Negroes to eliminating their dangers. There is no point to calling the patrol because Mr. Farwell and the News think it complicates the race question.

This paper condemned all of these places because they were nuisances to the neighborhood—the blacks, the black and tans and the whites—it did not by this condemnation imply that color affects morals.

III. CULTURAL CONTACTS

Contacts of whites and Negroes in institutions of learning, general cultural agencies, and meetings ordinarily involve no friction and are frequently directly beneficial to race relations. Many Negroes visit and use the public libraries. In fact, instances of objections on the part of the public in this institution appear to be extremely few. In the reading-rooms Negroes sit where they wish, and no objections to their presence are noted. At a branch library on Oakwood Boulevard over 70 per cent of the patronage is of Negroes, and, the director says, very cordial relations exist. The civil-service system has made a number of Negroes eligible for positions in the direct public-service branches of the city government. No apparent difficulties or objections have resulted.

The University of Chicago and Northwestern University have for many years had Negro students. There were in 1921 more than sixty at the University of Chicago, and, although many southern white students attend, there have been no conspicuous difficulties resulting from the associations. On the contrary, certain individual Negroes have been very popular with the student body. During the 1920 football season two Negroes were members of the football squad, and for several years the favorite of the "track" was Binga Dismond, a Negro runner.

There is no Negro member of the City Club or of the Woman's City Club, although the question of admitting Negroes has occasionally been discussed. The Chicago Woman's Club has two Negro members, one for more than fifteen years. Negroes, however, have been welcomed to meetings and in some instances have themselves held meetings there.

A few white churches have several Negro members, usually of long standing. There are instances of white churches accepting particular Negro members, with some apprehension that they might bring friends. The Catholic and Christian Science churches welcome the presence of Negroes at their services. There is no Christian Science church exclusively for Negroes, and several hundred Negroes attend the various services of this church.

Many of the more definitely intellectual agencies like the Chicago Ethical Society, the Chicago Rational Society, and the Sunday Evening Club have regular Negro attendance. At the Chicago Rational Society one of the young hostesses is a Negro.

In these forms of contact it is seldom, if ever, that Negroes are discourteously received. This may be due to the relatively high class of whites and Negroes who share these associations.

IV. CONTACTS IN CO-OPERATIVE EFFORTS FOR RACE BETTERMENT

Most of the important social organizations and agencies of the city which aim definitely at the improvement of the Negro group have mixed boards of control and supervision. The philanthropy, business ability, and influence of white members is combined with the influence of Negro members and their intelligent understanding of their own group problems.

The Young Men's Christian Association, the Young Women's Christian Association, the Chicago Urban League, Community Service, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the Inter-racial Committee organized by the Chicago Woman's Club are examples of this form of joint effort. The sentiments of both groups in contact may be discussed and, on the basis of represented group conditions and sentiments, programs are formulated and carried out. This association and exchange of sentiment provide a means of breaking down the isolation between the groups and at the same time offer a means of extending the representative thought of Negroes through their white associates to circles in which contacts are either prohibited or restricted by custom and tradition.