Identifier: negroinchicagost00chic_0 (find matches)
Title: The Negro in Chicago; a study of race relations and a race riot
Year: 1922 (1920s)
Authors: Chicago Commission on Race Relations
Subjects: African Americans Race riots
Publisher: Chicago, Ill., The University of Chicago Press
Contributing Library: Wellesley College Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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ywhite. This timidity lasted for about a year and then these children becamemore like Chicago children. Building and playground contacts.—At six out of the thirteen elementaryschools some friction about the buildings and on the playgrounds was reported,and none at the other seven schools. On further analysis it appeared that thefriction reported was general at only two of the six schools. At the otherfour the instances cited seemed either to involve a few troublesome individualsor to be quarrels among Negro children rather than between Negroes andwhites. The two schools reporting general antagonism between Negro andwhite children had about 30 per cent Negro children. The principals of theseschools said that the white children were dominated by the Negroes and didnot dare stand up for their rights. The testimony of the principal of one ofthese schools showed a disposition to regard many acts as characteristicallyracial. For example, she needed no further evidence that a Negro boy had
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RACIAL CONTACTS 249 cut up a white boys cap than the fact that it was cut with a safety-razorblade. Although both white and Negro boys commonly carry safety-razorblades to sharpen their pencils, she thought of razors only in connection withNegroes. She also believed that Negro children of kindergarten age areunusually cruel, and that Negroes need a curriculum especially adaptedto their emotional natures. Again she said that a Negro boy who asked tobe put back from the third to the first grade, because the third-grade workwas too hard for him, was typical of Negro children, who shut down on theirintellectual processes when they are about twelve or fourteen years of age.In view of the numbers of Negro children in the higher grades who are advanc-ing normally, this is obviously an unwarranted generalization. There were some signs of friction at a school 20 per cent Negro (Haven)when a school largely Italian was combined with it, but the situationwas handled tactfully by the principal and

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