An Abbreviated Time Line of Events Described in Hirsch's Making the Second Ghetto

 

TIME

 

Events in Chicago

Other Events

1919

Famous city wide race riot starts at a beach near Hyde Park

 

1939-1945

 

WWII, Second Great Black Migration North.

1943

 

Race riots between Blacks and Whites in Detroit, and in Harlem

1945-1955

 

The Great Wave of Suburbanization in the U.S., fostered by a variety of federal programs.

1946

Antiblack riot in Airport Homes

 

1947

Antiblack riot in Fernwood Park

 

1947

Blighted Areas Redevelopment Act gives South Loop Businesses Eminent Domain powers and funding for 'urban renewal'

 

The Pettibone- Mumford legislation puts the Chicago Land Clearance Commission in charge of the project

 

1948

 

U.S. Supreme Court strikes down racially restrictive covenants (Shelley v. Kramer)

1949

Carey Amendment, which would have guaranteed blacks some access to 'urban renewal' projects, is defeated

Antiblack riot in Park Manor

Antiblack riot in Englewood Park

Chicago’s recipe for Urban Renewal is applied nationally in the US Housing Act of 1949

1951

Over the opposition of the CHA, the City Council approves Duffy- Lancaster proposal to build public housing only in already overpopulated black neighborhoods.  Leads to the construction of the enormous Robert Taylor Homes, and Stateway Gardens Homes.

 

1951

Antiblack riots in Cicero, Englewood.

 

1952

Ground broken on Lake Meadows homes, product of South Loop 'urban renewal'

 

1953

Urban Community Conservation Act, backed by the University of Chicago, is passed.  This act extends eminent domain rights to neighborhoods that are merely threatened with economic decline.

 

1954

Antiblack riot in Trumbull Park

In Brown vs. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down explicit state sponsored school segregation.

1954

Elizabeth Wood, the liberal leader of the CHA, is fired.

 

1955

Richard J. Daley (the first) becomes mayor of Chicago, appoints a new segregationist leader to lead the CHA.

 

1957

Antiblack riot in Calumet Park

 

1958

City Council approves Hyde Park urban renewal plan

 

1966

Martin Luther King and Mayor Richard J. Daley have a 'housing summit', in which much is promised but nothing is ever delivered

 

1968

 

Federal Fair Housing Act

1968

 

 

Martin Luther King assassinated, riots follow in black ghettos of Chicago and across the nation.

1969

 

In Gatreaux vs. CHA, a federal judge orders Chicago to build public housing outside the black ghetto.  Chicago declines to build any further public housing.

c1998

Federal Housing Authority seizes legal control of the CHA, and begins demolishing the largest housing projects.