South Side, Chicago - History

History

With its factories, steel mills and meat-packing plants, the South Side saw a sustained period of immigration which began around the 1840s and continued through World War II. Irish, Italian, Polish and Lithuanian immigrants, in particular, settled in neighborhoods adjacent to industrial zones.

The Illinois Constitution gave rise to townships that provided municipal services in 1850. Several settlements surrounding Chicago incorporated as townships to better serve their residents. Growth and prosperity overburdened many local government systems. In 1889, most of these townships determined that they would be better off as part of a larger city of Chicago. Lake View, Jefferson, Lake, Hyde Park Townships and the Austin portion of Cicero voted to be annexed by the city in the June 29, 1889 elections.

After the Civil War freed the millions of slaves, during Reconstruction black southerners migrated to Chicago and caused the African American population to nearly quadruple from 4,000 to 15,000 between 1870 and 1890.

In the 20th century, the numbers expanded with the Great Migration, as African Americans left the agrarian South seeking a better future in the industrial North, including the South Side. By 1910 the black population in Chicago reached 40,000, with 78% residing in the Black Belt. Extending 30 blocks, mostly between 31st and 55th Streets, along State Street, but only a few blocks wide, it developed into a vibrant community dominated by African-American businesses, music, food and culture. As more blacks moved into the South Side, descendants of earlier immigrants, such as ethnic Irish, began to move out. Later housing pressures and civic unrest caused more whites to leave the area and the city. Older residents of means moved to newer suburban housing as new migrants entered the city, driving further demographic changes.

The South Side was racially segregated for many decades. During the 1920s and 1930s, housing cases on the South Side such as Hansberry v. Lee, 311 U.S. 32 (1940), went to the U. S. Supreme Court. The case, which reset the limitations of res judicata, successfully challenged racial restrictions in the Washington Park Subdivision by reopening them for legal argument. African Americans resided in Bronzeville (around 35th and State Streets) in an area called "the Black Belt". After World War II they spread across the South Side. The Black Belt, which gave a new meaning to the term ghetto, arose from discriminatory real estate practices and the threat of violence in nearby ethnic white neighborhoods.

In the early 1960s, during the tenure of then Mayor Richard J. Daley, the construction of the Dan Ryan Expressway created controversy. Many perceived the highway's location as an intentional physical barrier between white and black neighborhoods, particularly as the Dan Ryan divided Daley's own neighborhood, the traditionally Irish Bridgeport, from Bronzeville.

The economic conditions that led to migration into the South Side were not sustained. Mid-century industrial restructuring in meat packing and the steel industry cost many jobs. African Americans who became educated and achieved middle-class jobs also left after the Civil Rights Movement opened more neighborhoods to them. The South Side lost population, leaving a concentration of poor families. Many of its businesses and cultural amenities departed.

Street gangs have been prominent in some South Side neighborhoods for over a century, beginning with those of Irish immigrants, who established the first territories in a struggle against other European and black migrants. Some other neighborhoods stayed relatively safe for a big city. By the 1960s, gangs such as the Vice Lords began to improve their public image, shifting from criminal ventures to operating social programs funded by government and private grants. However, in the 1970s gangs returned to violence and the drug trade. By 2000, traditionally all-male gangs crossed gender lines to include about 20% females.