Detroit and the Great Migration 1916-1929, by Elizabeth Anne Martin
Housingand the
Newcomers
Just as employers relegated African-Americans to the most undesirable positions, economic conditions and racial prejudice forced home-seeking migrants into what had become the most undesirable area of the city. Before 1915 there was only one district in the city in which African-Americans lived, the "St. Antoine Street District," on Detroit's Near East Side [1]. Although the district housed most of the city's Blacks, it was by no means a homogeneous neighborhood. Beginning in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, the district had served as "a port of entry and a stopping off place for much of the city's foreign born" [2]. Throughout the 1920s, Blacks shared their neighborhood with Italian, Greek, and Russian Jewish newcomers [3].
During World War I, when foreign immigration slowed and African-American migration accelerated, Blacks steadily began to achieve a majority status in the St. Antoine district, which soon became known as the "East Side Colored District" [4]. Because the city's business district lay to its west, the St. Antoine district could not expand in that direction to accommodate its residents. It was able, however, to expand slowly northward. Since homes there were, in the main, too costly for migrants, they remained mainly in the center of the district and continued to move into dilapidated houses left behind wealthier Blacks or to crowd into homes already overflowing with residents [5].
Housing for the poorer migrants became slowly available as the East Side District expanded to the east and south. Eventually, the neighborhood extended all the way to the Detroit River. The southernmost blocks of the district, the most dense in the neighborhood, became known as the "Black Bottom" of Detroit [7. In a three-square mile portion of the East Side, 313,600 people were "huddled together as closely as it is possible for humans to exist" [8].
Restrictive covenants, real estate codes, and racial prejudice generally prevented Blacks, especially new arrivals, from randomly finding homes anywhere in the city. As the numbers of African-Americans in the city increased in the 1920s, however, Blacks were able to secure housing in a few neighborhoods outside the St. Antoine District. The second largest district where African-Americans lived was the West Side, an area that became home to a large portion of the upper class Black community [9]. Other African-Americans lived in the Eight Mile Road, Inkster, and North Detroit districts, or in the nearby cities of Highland Park, Hamtramck, River Rouge, and Ecorse. All had Black populations of over one thousand, but none was so large its the St. Antoine or West Side neighborhoods [10].
The St. Antoine district remained the largest and most predominantly working class Black neighborhood in the city. Black migrants were often directed there when they first arrived in Detroit. Building in the district did not increase, however, when the migration did. To make matters worse, the Board of Health began condemning many houses on the East Side in the early 1920s [11]. The city claimed that it was trying to rid the neighborhood of unsafe housing and to improve the quality of life for residents by building playgrounds on the new vacant lots. The board did not provide new dwellings to replace the demolished residences, however. African-Americans displaced by the demolitions joined the ranks of the thousands of other Blacks left homeless by the recession of 1920-1921 [12].
At a Detroit Urban League board meeting in 1919, a city housing official offered one solution to the housing shortage, the sending of word to prospective migrants to stop coming North. An African-American board member, however, responded that many migrants "would rather withstand the rigors of winter and the other housing discomforts in the North than stay in the South where there is no security from harm and mob violence" [13].
The power of the dream that brought the migrants north is movingly attested to by the conditions they endured in the quest to fulfill that dream. Conditions in the neighborhoods where migrants had to make their new homes were simply horrible. As more and more migrants came to the city, unsightly buildings seemed to grow like weeds in the cramped district--extra rooms, additional floors, and make-shift shacks sprouted up from beside, behind, and between existing structures. Stables, garages and cellars were converted to homes. Some pool rooms and gambling clubs began to charge men to sleep on their tables at night! [14]
Many single male migrants with little money and nowhere else to go took up residence in what the Board of Health termed "Dormitory Hotels" for workers. One Board of Health investigator described such a hotel as follows: "A two story brick structure once a bakery. On the second floor, fifty beds. Beds very dirty, using dark gray blankets as spreads. Men pay twenty-five cents a night for sleeping. Beds not changed often. Toilets stopped up, bath in deplorable condition. In one: corner of the dormitory about thirty-five to forty dirty mattresses piled up, seemingly from a fire. The floors very dirty, walls bad. Men sleeping in their street clothes. On the first floor a restaurant without a license selling soup and fish. Water in the back, flies very bad, no sink, foul air and poor ventilation" [15].
Electricity and running water were modern conveniences that few migrants enjoyed in the South or in the North. In 1926 approximately 30 percent of homes in the St. Antoine district had no toilet [16]. Toilets were not necessarily a luxury, however. Landlords often installed toilets because they had been pressured to install them by health officials or because they wanted an excuse to raise rents. Landlords were inclined to install toilets where it was cheapest to do so, such as in the kitchen, where existing plumbing made it easier than elsewhere in the home to place a toilet. When toilets were installed in a kitchen, landlords generally did not include a partition between the kitchen and the toilet. Landlords also sometimes installed toilets in such public areas as living rooms, providing only a curtain to hide the user from the other occupants of the room. Provisions for ventilation of any kind Were nonexistent [17].
Migrants unaccustomed to northern winters suffered in the bitter cold without adequate insulation or heating in their horses. One Board of Health investigator actually saw children stumbling over ice that had frozen on the floor when leaking pipes and toilets had flooded their house [18]. Another investigator, on a stormy day, stood in each room of a four room shack in the St. Antoine district and "saw the rain, literally, pour through the ceiling and onto the floor. Residents of several houses on the West Side were observed putting bedsheets over windows to keep out the snow and rain. The floors and walls of those dwellings were so unstable that the "tenants [were] living in actual danger of the house tumbling down over their heads [19].
Migrants paid exorbitant rents for homes that were "ready to fall any moment [20]. To maximize profits, many landlords divided up apartments and houses into smaller units so that they could collect money from more families. The Detroit Urban League visited one four-room dwelling that had been divided into two apartments--one with four rooms and the other with three. Neither had a toilet, and the only bath was in the rear and was shared by the residents of both apartments. The bath leaked into the rear apartment and its kitchen. Together with another three-bedroom apartment one half story above the other two, the apartments in this house rented for a total of $77. According to the League investigator, the whole house would have rented for no more than $20 in a white neighborhood Mid should actually have been condemned as unfit fir habitation [21].
Blacks often paid higher rents thaat whites who had recently occupied the same buildings, but they did not protest for fear that the landlord might order them out of their homes, leaving them with nowhere else to go [22]. For dilapidated three and four bedroom homes without baths and frequently without electricity or gas,[23] migrants in 1916 paid more than four times the rent paid by the average white citizen of Detroit [24]. From 1915 to 1920 some of the rents in the district increased by 500 percent [25]. The rents demanded of many workers sometimes amounted to as much as two-fifths to one-half of their monthly earnings [26], at a time when one-sixth of family's income was considered the appropriate amount to spend on housing [27].
Income-desperate residents frequently took in boarders so as to be able to meet high rentals. A 1926 survey indicated that over one half of the families in the St. Antoine district took in lodgers [28]. Boarders exacerbated crowding, limited privacy, and led to concern among families about the propriety of having unattached males in the company of young girls and impressionable boys [29]. Also, landlords who discovered that a family had taken in boarders generally responded by raising rents even higher [30].
Housing, understandably, was one of the major concerns of the Detroit Urban League. Forrester B. Washington claimed that "the character of the house into which the Negro immigrants go has a direct effect on their health, their morals and their efficiency" [31] After observing the state of many of the homes in the St. Antoine district in 1925, several employers remarked that housing conditions might be responsible for the unsatisfactory work habits of the district's residents. One of them asserted that "if white men had to live in the same sort of environment as the Negro, they would be very inefficient and irregular" [32].
One of the first projects at the League's Community Center in 1918 was to set up rooms to accommodate newcomers. The rooms were only furnished with beds, and food was not provided. The Center was able to house only about twelve people at a time, but the rooms did provide temporary shelter for many migrants without jobs or homes [33].
In many instances, the League was able to arrange with manufacturers to provide short-term credit for migrants to enable them to obtain housing and food.Employers would issue newly hired migrants vouchers for a room and the first week's board so that they could get something to eat and have at place to sleep while awaiting their first paychecks. To help migrants in their search for homes, the League also maintained a large list of houses and rooms not being handled by white real estate agents. League officials visited homes and interviewed landlords to determine whether the dwellings were fit to live in. Investigators reported any unfit homes they encountered to the Board of Health [34].
The League tried to encourage real estate agents to arrange for more sales of decent housing to African-Americans. Battling against the widespread myth that the presence of African-Americans decreased the property value of a neighborhood, League officials sought to educate whites about the realities of the situation. Most Blacks who moved out of the St. Antoine district, however, moved into houses in "declining neighborhoods," for which white renters could not be found. Property values (in terms of rent) actually rose when African-Americans moved in because Blacks were desperate to find decent housing and were willing to pay munch more for houses in working class white neighborhoods than working class whites were [35]. Still, the belief that Blacks brought trouble and depreciation to a neighborhood persisted. Even at an Urban League board meeting, one white member wondered whether Urban League headquarters should be moved out of the St. Antoine district since "few people were willing to come into the neighborhood because of the character of its population" [36].
The League participated in the Board of Commerce's annual "Clean Up, Paint Up" neighborhood campaign to try to counter beliefs that there was something wrong with the "character" of Black neighborhoods [37]. In addition, West Side citizens, under the direction of the Urban League, launched a neighborhood enhancement campaign in 1923. With the motto "The West Side is the Best Side," residents worked to make certain that every owner and tenant, in the neighborhood took a personal interest in his or her surroundings [38]. Residents trimmed hedges and lawns on a regular basis, painted their dwellings when needed, and cleared junk from the neighborhood [39]. Specially appointed captains patrolled every block of the neighborhood and awarded prizes for the best window boxes and cleanest premises. The West Side campaign was a source of pride For League officials, and they made efforts to extend the program to other areas of the city in the 1920s [40].
In addition to attempting to improve the reputation of African-Americans as neighbors, the League also persuaded several of the largest foundries to build affordable housing for their employees. Other manufacturers agreed to take over former "disorderly houses" and turn there into affordable residences [41]. Some Board members suggested that the League itself initiate construction projects [42]. The League made half-hearted attempts in this direction on Eight Mile Road, but it was not very successful. Henry Stevens, a League board member, sold his property to developers who subdivided it into sections to be allocated for African-American housing. Unfortunately, no one seemed to have the money to build houses on the land. Many Blacks had nevertheless taken up residence, erecting tents on top of wood floors that they had constructed. Since none of these "houses" had water or sewage service, residents had to walk a quarter of a mile to get water. Though intended to relieve the housing situation, these tents were not much of an improvement over life in the more crowded inner-city districts [43].
Young male migrants could seek lodging in at least two private institutions, the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) and the McGregor Institute. The St. Antoine district's branch of the YMCA served meals and had many rooms in which migrants could stay [44]. Although the YMCA dormitories were considered safe and wholesome, they also cost money. During times of recession, the rooms were rarely full, and ads appeared in African-American newspapers announcing the reduction of room rates at the St. Antoine YMCA [45].
The McGregor Institute was a private institution that provided temporary shelter for homeless men who were sixteen years or older. It also sought "to advise such men to economic independence; or, if that [was] impossible to make provision for relief" [46]. Since the Institute was located on the boundary of the St. Antoine district and since it courted men of the "floating labor" type, migrants were often directed there by police, ministers, and social workers. In 1916 only 6 percent of the men served by the McGregor Institute Were African-Americans. By 1919, however, 27 percent of those sheltered at the Institute were African-American [47]. Murray McGregor, the executive in charge of the Institute asserted that "probably none" of the individuals he had seen since 1914 had been born in Detroitt and that all of the men who had collie to the Institute in 1919 had been in Detroit less than one year [48].
Despite the efforts of the Urban League and other organizations to find housing for Blacks and to improve their neighborhoods, upper class African-Americans remained unconvinced that existing Black neighborhoods were a desirable place to live. It was not the race, but rather the class, of their neighbors that troubled wealthier Blacks. The more well-to-do, successful types wanted to escape neighborhoods they believed had become contaminated by filthy and uncouth migrants [49]. "As the Negro population grows," National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) assistant secretary Walter White noted, "it is inevitable that the districts in which the Negroes formerly lived cannot continue to house them. They will move into districts where they can find better conditions than exist in the restricted areas. American democracy would be a poor thing indeed if such a desire for better conditions did not develop" [50].
Middle-class Blacks insisted that they did not move into outlying white neighborhoods because they wanted to push their way into white society, which was the chief fear of whites in those neighborhoods. Rather, the more affluent Blacks simply wanted a safe and secure place to live, because "a twenty-thousand dollar a year man wants to live in a house commensurate with his salary" [51].
Real estate agencies propagated the myth of the relationship of Blacks to property devaluation. The Greater Detroit Realtor's Committee circulated a handbill alleging, "if our city is deluged by this Black flood of colored immigration it will decrease the value of Detroit real estate to the extent of two million dollars [52]. Also, neighborhood groups such as the Waterworks Park Improvement Association and the Grand River Improvement Association dedicated themselves to keeping Blacks out of white neighborhoods. Thinly veiled racism lay behind the advertisements and appeals of these associations for residents to join the "fight" for the value of their homes [53].
The height of power for the Waterworks Association came in 1925, when violence against African-Americans in white neighborhoods became a issue of major concern in Detroit. In July of that year, an undertaker named Vollington Bristol tried to move into a white neighborhood on the boundary of the West Side District. When a white crowd began to gather threateningly in front of the house, Blacks began to collect there as well. Hundreds of shots were fired, leading to the arrest of twenty-four Blacks. During the same week, another man who purchased a home in a white area was able to remain in his new residence for only forty-eight hours before succumbing to mob pressure and "relieving the situation" by moving out [54].
During that same week in July, ten thousand Detroiters attended a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) rally at which the main speaker asserted that whites should demand that Blacks reside only in certain designated areas in the city. In addition, over one thousand people responded to an advertisement for a Waterworks Association meeting that played on residents' fears that the "present high standard" of their neighborhoods would be diminished by the presence of Blacks [55].
Racial tensions over housing came to a head in the Ossian Sweet trials in 1925 and 1926. Dr. Sweet and his wife, both African-Americans, purchased a home in an area populated mostly by lower middle class whites [56]. The family moved into its new home September 2, 1925, and the following evening a crowd of approximately five hundred angry whites collected outside. The mob threw rocks at the house and rushed at two African-Americans Sweet had invited to his home that evening. At that point, the people inside the house began to panic, and someone fired shots into the crowd. One white man fell dead, and another was wounded in the thigh [57].
The police on the scene arrested all eleven people who had been inside the house at the time of the shooting. They interrogated them for approximately five hours that evening and charged all of them with attempted murder [58]. Two months later, in a trial in which Clarence Darrow was the chief lawyer for the defense, the jury declared it could not reach a verdict. In 1926 the prosecution called for a second trial for the only defendant who had admitted having fired a gun from the house on September 3, 1925. The defendant was acquitted after Darrow's eloquent closing argument, which exposed the racial hatred involved in the entire incident. In 1927 the cases against the remaining defendants were dismissed [59].
Despite Darrow's eloquence, which moved some listeners, including the judges, to tears, white community leaders blamed Blacks rather than white mobs for the violence resulting from Blacks moving into white areas. African-Americans who succumbed to threats and moved from their homes were praised by police, city officials and newspaper commentators [60]. Articles on the Sweet trial in white newspapers painted Sweet as the chief aggressor and showed far greater concern for the man killed outside the Sweet residence than for the right of the Sweet family to live in its own home. Newspapers also failed to question police claims that the Sweet residents fired "without warning or provocation" and that nothing out of the ordinary had been occurring that evening outside the Sweet home [61].
Mayor John Smith, in an open letter to the police commissioner, implied that Blacks who moved into white neighborhoods were traitors to their race [62]. Realtors pointed out that, according to National Association of Real Estate Board (NAREB) codes, agents who sold to Blacks were traitors to their kind as well [63]. A Committee on Racial Situations of the Detroit Real Estate Board, although acknowledging the desire of wealthier Blacks to live according to their "various situations in life," concluded that they should fulfill that desire within the confines of designated African-American districts. These districts, the committee concluded, might be expanded along their borders, but the number of districts open to Black settlement throughout the city should remain the same [64].
Responding to the effort to confine them to existing Black neighborhoods, Black elites formed a Colored Civic Pride League to defend their right to live wherever they pleased [65]. The violence against them, however, continued throughout the 1920s [66]. In 1928, when a Black man named Adams moved into a home in a white neighborhood, police allowed three hundred people to gather in front of the residence and made no effort to stop the mob from throwing rocks through the windows. Only when someone fired a gun did the police move to disperse the crowd [67]. W. Hayes McKinney, lawyer for the Detroit NAACP, sought and received assurance from the mayor that Adams would be protected from such violence in the future [68]. Only a month later, however, whites were again throwing stones at the Adams residence [69].
Migrants throughout the period before the Great Depression continued to be herded into already overcrowded neighborhoods. Migrants' homes were in disrepair before they owned them, and the buildings deteriorated even more as people with meager resources moved into them. Stereotypes about dirty Black homes were continually reinforced, not because Blacks did not want to live in cleaner environments, but because they simply did not have the money or the energy to invest in property maintenance. No solution to this endless cycle presented itself to institutional leaders, and no hope seemed in sight for migrants seeking a better life, an ominous portent for the future of their descendants.