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Black Chicago's New Deal Congressmen: Migration, Ghettoization

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Black Chicago's New Deal Congressmen: Migration, Ghettoization BLACK CHICAGO’S NEW DEAL CONGRESSMEN: MIGRATION, GHETTOIZATION, AND THE ORIGINS OF CIVIL RIGHTS POLITICS By MICHAEL EDWARD BRANDON A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2015 © 2015 Michael Edward Brandon To my courageous family of migrants and our dearly departed ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I thank my Mom, Dad, Brother, and extended family for love and encouragement in the pursuit of all my dreams. I’m forever indebted to Charles Irons, Watson Jennison, and William Link, whose confidence in a young historian made my academic career possible. At each major stage of my intellectual development, they’ve committed their time and hearts to my words and ideas. I also thank the Elon faculty, who ensured that I was a student and an athlete. In particular, Clyde Ellis, who guided me to a master’s program, and, John Sullivan, who taught me to “choose large mind.” Go Phoenix! In Greensboro, I was extremely fortunate to work with Charles Bolton, Thomas Jackson, Jeff Jones, and Karl Schleunes, who taught an inexperienced historian a lot about civil rights, human rights, public policy, Soviet Communism, Nazi Fascism. In Gainesville, I’ve had the great fortune to work with Paul Ortiz and the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, which has impressed upon me a fundamental belief that academics have democratic commitments outside of the classroom. My graduate training at the University of Florida would not have been possible without a McKnight Doctoral Fellowship and financial support from the Graduate School and the History Department. The staff at the Chicago History Museum was incredibly welcoming and provided crucial assistance in the archives. My final research trip was enriched by conversations with Lorenzo, a local resident and unofficial historian, who recited gripping tales of South Side ghettoization with both candor and humor. I’ll never forget good times at the Seventh Street compound with my roommates, our cats, and comrades. I would have never survived adolescence without the LTS, my 4 crew from NAPS, and P-104. Thanks for all the “kicks.” Last, I had the best teacher of all-time as a kid, Rodney Ortiz, my life’s inspiration. I miss you. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. 4 ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... 7 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: BLACK REPRESENTATION & THE PARALYTIC ORIGINS OF CIVIL RIGHTS POLITICS ................................................................................... 9 2 THE “TALL SYCAMORE OF THE PRAIRIES”: OSCAR DEPRIEST’S GREAT MIGRATION TO THE LAND OF LINCOLN & SOUTH SIDE GHETTOIZATION .... 18 3 “LOOK OUT FOR YOURSELF… NO ONE ELSE WILL”: ARTHUR MITCHELL’S GREAT ESCAPE FROM THE JIM CROW SOUTH ................................................ 66 4 WHITE CITY, BLACK METROPOLIS: VIOLENCE, VICE, & POWER IN THE “ROARING TWENTIES” ....................................................................................... 113 5 CONGRESSMAN DEPRIEST, RACE MAN: BLACK REPRESENTATION IN HERBERT HOOVER’S AMERICA ........................................................................ 168 6 CONGRESSMAN MITCHELL, “UNCLE TOM”: CHICAGO’S DEMOCRATIC MACHINE & THE RISE OF CIVIL RIGHTS POLITICS ......................................... 220 7 CONCLUSION: A CENTURY OF GHETTOIZATION & THE “LONG CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT” ......................................................................................... 269 LIST OF REFERENCES ............................................................................................. 279 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .......................................................................................... 299 6 Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy BLACK CHICAGO’S NEW DEAL CONGRESSMEN: MIGRATION, GHETTOIZATION, AND THE ORIGINS OF CIVIL RIGHTS POLITICS By Michael Edward Brandon May 2015 Chair: William A. Link Cochair: Paul Ortiz Major: History “Black Chicago’s New Deal Congressmen” examines the lives and careers of two forgotten politicians from the Great Migration-era South Side. Civil rights historians have emphasized World War II as the spark which began the definitive years of the black freedom struggle. However, this dissertation’s examination of Oscar S. DePriest (1929-35) and Arthur W. Mitchell (1935-43), Alabama-born sons of slaves, demonstrates that the Great Migration was the foundation for both black political empowerment and effective civil rights politics. Republican DePriest, the first black member of the Chicago City Council (1915), served as the first black representative on Capitol Hill since the Reconstruction era. Mitchell was the first black Democratic congressman in U.S. history, a beneficiary of Franklin Roosevelt’s coattails who aided the party’s machine in Chicago. On one hand, the southern exodus to the Windy City produced a segregated Bronzeville ghetto, whose residents faced discrimination in employment, education, and social services. On the other hand, Jim Crow refugees, enfranchised by their travels, formed a concentrated, organized bloc of voters that was courted and rewarded by 7 ruthless political machines and notorious mobsters. The South Side Congressmen – and Black America – gained political power as Dixie migrants poured into the urban North and formed political leverage for direct action protests (among disfranchised southern voters) and Washington lobbying campaigns that restored Reconstruction’s legal legacy. Ghettoization was the paralytic political foundation for a civil rights movement that achieved its greatest aims amidst a new “urban crisis” and a Second Great Migration. 8 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: BLACK REPRESENTATION & THE PARALYTIC ORIGINS OF CIVIL RIGHTS POLITICS In 1901, Congressman George White (R-NC), the final representative of the Reconstruction era, departed Capitol Hill. White predicted that his departure was “the Negroes’ temporary farewell to the American Congress… Phoenix-like he will rise up some day and come again.”1 Courageous Jim Crow refugees in the Yankee North assured White’s prediction with the elections of Oscar S. DePriest (1929-35) and Arthur W. Mitchell (1935-43), Alabama-born sons of slaves. According to famed sociologists Horace Cayton and St. Clair Drake, “The story of how the black migrants of the South gathered their strength to fulfill George White’s prophesy is a story of machine politics – Chicago style.” The Black Metropolis authors argue that White’s idealistic aspirations for the race’s “God-fearing people, faithful, industrious, and loyal people” had been “yoked with the gamblers, prostitutes, and the demimonde.” Chicago’s black congressmen revealed “the relationship between democracy and political expediency,” a ghettoization process “led by forceful personalities to the conquest of political power.”2 Civil rights historians have overlooked the historic black politicians in a research field – and American popular culture – dominated by the postwar movement and the Sixties. Republican DePriest, an “Exoduster,” became the first black member of the Chicago City Council (1915) amidst the Great Migration. Mitchell, a Cotton Belt educator, rode Franklin Roosevelt’s coattails to become the nation’s first black Democratic congressman. On one hand, DePriest, also known as the “Tall Sycamore 1Benjamin R. Justesen, George Henry White: An Even Chance in the Race of Life (Baton Rouge, 2001), 311. 2 Horace Cayton and St. Clair Drake, Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City (Chicago, 1993), 361. 9 of the Prairies,” was a popular Race Man and steadfast NAACP ally. On the other hand, Mitchell was a notorious Uncle Tom and token Democrat, a civil rights opportunist who red-baited the NAACP and obstructed antilynching legislation. Nevertheless, the New Deal’s only black congressmen were both Alabama migrants who reached Capitol Hill as capitalists and pragmatic politicians, not as fearless activists committed to the collective advancement of their people. An examination of DePriest and Mitchell provides an alternative narrative for black political organizing, partisanship, and protest. “Blockbusting” real estate deals, machine politics, graft, blackmail, and racketeering drove the black congressmen to fame and fortune in Jim Crow America. Despite the absence of metropolitan ordinances, Chicago policy makers, bankers, real estate dealers, homeowners, and vice lords produced a segregated South Side ghetto. Black voters ultimately formed a concentrated, well-organized bloc vote, which was absorbed by Republican and Democratic regimes as southern migrants poured into the Windy City. The power of the black bloc vote in obtaining high-level representation and patronage came at the expense of dilapidated dwellings, white clientage, corruption, and substandard public services on the South Side. Congressmen DePriest and Mitchell were the fruits of longstanding demographic patterns. Their lives and political careers demonstrate the central role of the Great Migration – and ghettoization – in creating a foundation for black capital accumulation and politicization. The southern migrants rose to power in a historic Bronzeville that once sheltered several stations
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