Jump to ContentJump to Main Navigation
The Negro in IllinoisThe WPA Papers$
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content.
The Negro in Illinois: The WPA Papers

Brian Dolinar

Print publication date: 2013

Print ISBN-13: 9780252037696

Published to Illinois Scholarship Online: April 2017

DOI: 10.5406/illinois/9780252037696.001.0001

Show Summary Details
Page of

PRINTED FROM ILLINOIS SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.illinois.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Illinois University Press, 2022. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in ISO for personal use.date: 28 June 2022

Houses

Houses

Chapter:
(p.156) 19. Houses
Source:
The Negro in Illinois
Author(s):

Arna Bontemps

Publisher:
University of Illinois Press
DOI:10.5406/illinois/9780252037696.003.0019

This chapter discusses the rent strikes staged by Illinois Negroes with the help of Unemployed Councils in the early years of the Great Depression to resist evictions from the Chicago South Side. Chicago suffered during the depression which began in 1929, and the ill effects of the crisis were graphically reflected in the housing situation. Finding rents hard to collect, many owners agreed to condemnation and demolition of rundown houses as the cheapest way out. This chapter examines the alliance between militant Negroes and neighborhood Unemployed Councils in 1930 to fight Negro evictions from the South Side, culminating in riots on August 3, 1931. It also considers a few bright spots with regards to the Negro housing picture in Illinois, citing the high rate of home ownership among Negroes in Chicago; the provisions made in the State Housing Act in 1933 for the creation of the Illinois State Housing Board; and the completion of the Ida B. Wells Homes, a project built expressly for the colored citizens of Chicago, in 1941.

Keywords:   rent strikes, Illinois, Negroes, Unemployed Councils, Great Depression, evictions, Chicago South Side, housing, rents, riots

Illinois Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.

Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.

If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.

To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.