Mapping Inequalities In Chicago
The Living History of Redlining on the South Side
Chicago’s history of discriminatory housing policies is long and storied. The Hyde Park, Kenwood, and Woodlawn neighborhoods on the South Side, home to the University of Chicago, illuminate the ways in which public policies and private institutions collaborated in enforcing segregation.
The area we are referencing is represented on the map by C213, C214, C215, C216, C217, B107, D74, D76, D77, D78. The University is not zoned, but it is bordered on three sides by C215 and on the south by Midway Plaisance Park.
The City of Chicago annexed Hyde Park in 1889 and the University was founded in 1890, which made the neighborhood develop in the best interest of the University. The Great Migration led to demographic shifts, however, and as the city’s Black population more than doubled between 1915-1940, tensions rose in Chicago. From 1917 to 1921, there were fifty-eight fire bombings of homes in white areas that Black families moved to. Such violence and racial animus led to the 1919 race riots after a white person stoned a black swimmer for drifting into the white area of the public beach. Though the swimmer drowned, no one was arrested, and riots broke out that ended up killing 38.
Such tension led to restrictive covenants across Chicago, which sought to keep neighborhoods white through contractual agreements to not sell or lease to Black people. They sought to placate white residents through under-the-table agreements that promised their neighborhoods would not integrate.
In the case of UChicago and Hyde Park, the presence of an elite university was not enough to maintain the color line in the neighborhood, and thus similar covenants arose in the area. The Hyde Park Improvement Protective Club offered to buy the homes of Black people who lived in Hyde Park. The University organized organizations like this one to prevent Black families from moving to town, and spent $100,000 between 1933 and 1947 to legally defend covenants and evict any Black people that had previously arrived from their homes.
In 1937, university President Robert Maynard Hutchins wrote that the university “had the right to invoke and defend” restrictive covenants “to stabilize its neighborhood as an area in which its students and faculty would be content to live. Though he called covenants “unsatisfactory,” Hutchins and the university promoted them to boost the bottom line. The Chicago Defender, a prominent Black newspaper, called these covenants “the University of Chicago Agreement to get rid of Negroes.”
This practice was challenged by people like Carl Augustus Hansberry, who contested a covenant to buy a home in the Washington Park subdivision, which is represented by D78 on the map. In 1940, only three Black families lived in the subdivision; the area directly to the South was 90-100% Black. To the West, it was 100% Black. When Hansberry tried to buy the house, there were far more Black people than available housing, but the Depression had tanked the market for white housing. This made him the only one hoping to buy the home, but soon a lawsuit sought to enforce the agreement and evict him. The agreement was to be "of no force or effect" unless it had signatures from 95% of the area's frontage.
Hansberry’s lawyers argued that the covenant did not have adequate support to allow the past decisions upholding the covenant to apply res judicata to the matter. When the Illinois Supreme Court affirmed the eviction under res judicata, Hansberry took the case to the Supreme Court of the United States in the 1940 case Hansberry v. Lee. They ultimately deemed this covenant void under specific stipulations within res judicata but did not rule restrictive covenants altogether unconstitutional until 1948 in Shelley v. Kramer. However, this case voided this particular covenant, which challenged the practices supported by community organizations and the university.
After Shelley v. Kramer, the University continued to execute urban development policies that sought to keep the neighborhood “desirable” — in other words, white. University president Lawrence Kimpton wrote, “I am still working quite hard on the problem of doing something about our neighborhood and community. We are in the impossible situation of being neither a first-class community, nor a slum. The finger of blight is thoroughly on the area and our desperate problem is to keep it from going further down hill.” The Chicago Maroon, the University’s student paper, reports that the University’s redevelopment plans were ultimately effective in Kimpton’s goal: “193 acres were demolished, 30,000 people were displaced, bars, jazz clubs, and other businesses were pushed out, and 41 acres were claimed as additions to the UChicago campus. Over the next decade, Hyde Park's black population would fall by 40 percent.” Despite outright covenants being illegal, communities were able to develop in ways that disproportionately disadvantaged Black residents.
Income Data: Blue = less than $20k, Light blue = $20-40k, Green = $40-60k, Yellow = 60-100k, Red = more than 100k. Census Data: Black = African Americans
Comparing census data that illustrates racial distribution in 1940 to modern income data, a clear legacy of institutionally discriminatory housing practices is present. Discriminatory policies shaped the formation of Hyde Park, which remains an incredibly wealthy neighborhood surrounded by poverty. Though the neighborhood has integrated and is currently largely diverse, the class divisions remain, which makes the neighborhood inaccessible for many low-income families in the area, who are overwhelmingly Black. he case of Hyde Park and the University illuminates the ways that high-profile private institutions played hugely influential roles in keeping neighborhoods segregated.
How the U.S. Government Segregated Chicago | [Inside Chicago, Part 1]
The University of Chicago and the South Side: A Complicated History
Obama Presidential Center
Featuring a library, museum, and public forum, the Obama Presidential Center promises to precipitate social and economic opportunity in Jackson Park through community engagement, jobs, and tourism. Critics decry its $600 million price tag, anticipated gentrification, and development of one of the South Side's most treasured public lands.
Enduring Expansion
From the 1930s to the 1940s, the University of Chicago indirectly funded racially restrictive covenants in Hyde Park and Woodlawn. These "community interest" projects were described by local property owners as "the University of Chicago Agreement to get rid of Negroes." The University announced plans for a new charter school on 63rd Street in 2016, directly violating their previous agreement with representatives of the Woodlawn community that they would not expand past 61st Street.
Trauma Center
While lobbying for the Obama Presidential Center, the University of Chicago pledged to establish a trauma center at their medical school. The South Side did not have a Level 1 trauma center from the 1990s until 2018. In the absence of proper care, countless victims of gun violence have died while en route to hospitals on the north and west sides. Now approaching its third year of operation, the trauma center has the capacity to serve 2,700 patients per year.
Social Impact on the South Side
The University of Chicago's Employer Assisted Housing Program (EAHP) has provided employees purchasing homes on the South Side with down-payment funds with incredible success. Since 2014, the program structures loan eligibility according to its development goals, prioritizing purchases in and around Woodlawn over Hyde Park and South Kenwood. The University Community Service Center (UCSC), on the other hand, has faced backlash for its high turnover rates, emphasis on pre-professional growth rather than grassroots community building, and lack of transparency.
Obama Foundation submits plans amid opposition
