Chicago

Before being settled by European colonists, the area which would become known as Chicago was inhabited by several native tribes including Miami, Sauk, Fox and Potawatomi tribes. The first Non-Native person to settle the area was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, who arrived around 1780. Just over 50 years later, the Black Hawk War ended the Native resistance to European settlement and Chicago was incorporated as a town in 1833.

Chicago's position as a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi watershed made it a bustling industrial hub and by 1837 the population had grown to over 4,000 residents. Just under twenty years after that, due to innovations in grain farming, the population had swelled to 30,000 inhabitants, making Chicago the largest grain port and America's largest Midwest city.

Recovering from the 1871 Great Chicago Fire wherein the 100,000 of the city's now 300,000 residents were rendered homeless, Chicago emerged as an architectural innovator giving us the world's first skyscraper and Ferris Wheel. As industry grew, and prosperity abounded for the heads of these corporations, specifically railroad, meatpacking, manufacturing and shipping industries, the quality of life for the laborers and residents of Chicago began to deteriorate. The turn of the century was marked by poverty, protest, corruption and unrest in the city. Still, as industries grew, so did the availability of unskilled labor opportunities and the population continued to swell.

The Great Migration refers to the movement of nearly 7 million African Americans from the rural south to the Northeast, Midwestern and Western United States from 1916 and 1970. Often, this period is split into two distinct eras: The Great Migration occurring from 1910-1930 and the post Great Depression Second Great Migration occurring from 1940-1970. Precipitated by Jim Crow laws, the invention of the Cotton Gin, devastation of Southern crops by the Boll Weevil and general unrest in the South, Black folk sought the urbanized and industrialized Chicago as a place to gain work, higher wages and social freedom. They were met, in early days however, with employers who would not hire them and instead strictly hired the European immigrants who were flooding into the city for the same reasons. When WWI legislation halted European immigration, employers sought out Black laborers and The Chicago Defender, Chicago's Black owned newspaper declared May 15, 1917 the Great Northern Migration Day. Four days later a teenager from Selma, Alabama wrote the editor, Robert Abbott, the following letter:

Sirs, I am writeing to see if You all will please get me a job And Sir I can wash dishes, was, iron, nursing, work in groceries and dry good stores. Just any of these I can do. Sir, who so ever you get the job from, please tell them to send me a ticket and I will pay them When I get their, as I have not got enough money to pay my way. I am a girl of 17 years old and in the 8th grade at Knox Academy School. But on account of not having money enough I had to stop school Sir I will thank you all with all my heart. May God Bless you all.

While the North provided more economic opportunities for Black folk- including higher wages and more autonomy for female domestic workers - it was often more of the same when it came to segregation and discrimination. White Flight and de facto segregation corralled Black communities to the South Side of the city where housing was cheaper, but more poorly managed - creating a racially segregated ghetto. As always, however, Black folk managed to turn the South Side into a bustling hub of entertainment, intellectuals and enterprise, making innovations in literature, music, art and politics.

The historical Black Belt was only a small stretch of land between 31st and 55th Street and resenting the names by which White folk and major media called the area including "Black Belt", "Darkie Town" and "Black Ghetto" - the inhabitants of this area renamed it "Bronzeville" or "The Black Metropolis".

Notable South Side Residents:

• Gwendolyn Brooks - Poet
• Robert Abbott - Editor, Chicago Defender
• Richard Wright - Novelist
• Margaret Walker - Writer
• Muddy Waters - Musician
• Louis Armstrong - Musician
• Howlin' Wolf - Musician
• Carol Moseley Braun - Politician
• Mahalia Jackson - Musician
• Jim Nutt - Artist
• Gladys Nilsson - Artist
• Karl Wirsum - Artist

The Younger family lives in the Washington Park subdivision of the Woodlawn community on the South Side of Chicago. Below are some facts about this neighborhood:

• Demographics
  • While originally a largely German and Irish immigrant neighborhood, the turn of the century saw a major "white flight" and by 1930 the community was 92% Black and remains, per the 2015 census, 95.98% Black.
  • The 1960 census produced the following numbers
    • Population: 43,690
      • Black residents: 43,310
      • White residents: 332
      • Residents of other ethnicities/racial groups: 48
  • The Washington Park population has been in steady decline since 1950, when Chicago Land Clearance Commission initiatives drove the population down from nearly 57,000 to 14,146 in just 50 years.