The Outpost Observer

The Fight for Racial Integration in Housing: Park Forest, 1959-1989

By John A. Ostenburg

By late 1959, something of a mild housing revolution had been occurring for nearly a decade in a small suburban community south of Chicago. Members of the local Unitarian Church and some of their activist acquaintances decided that their community should rebel against the common standard that African Americans – they were referred to as Coloreds or Negroes by most people at the time – should not reside in the white suburbs. Instead, these activists determined that Black families should be invited to be residents of Park Forest, Illinois. Hence the significance of Christmas Eve 1959: the date the first African American family, the Wilsons, moved into the town of about 30,000 Caucasian residents.

Four years earlier, on December 1, 1955, the America Civil Rights Movement had its official birth in Montgomery, Alabama, when a 42-year-old African American woman decided that she would not give her seat on a bus to a Caucasian passenger as she had been ordered by the driver; after all, she already was seated in the “colored” section of the bus, but driver James F. Blake demanded she give up the seat because the “white” section was completely full. Arrested and subsequently convicted of violating Alabama’s segregation laws, Rosa Parks lit the spark that would create a bonfire across the country. The Montgomery bus boycott would propel a young African American Baptist preacher, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., into national prominence and the work he and others within the movement were doing was inspiration for Americans in many places far removed from southern Alabama to take action against racial discrimination. Many of those actions met with violent opposition; others were successful in bringing about social change.

Ironically, while Rosa Parks was the public face of the Montgomery bus boycott, her action had been preceded nine months earlier by that of Claudette Colvin, who also refused to give up her seat on a city bus and also was arrested. A teenager at the time, she was active in the NAACP Youth Council, but local leaders felt her public image was not as good as that of Rosa Parks, and so she remained one of the plaintiffs in the court case, Browder v. Gayle, that ultimately ended bus segregation in Montgomery by declaring it unconstitutional, while the public emphasis was on the actions of Rosa Parks. For a number of years, Colvin was given little recognition for her involvement.

Another figure active in the Montgomery boycott was Bayard Rustin, a longtime pacifist and Civil Rights activist. Rustin was a trusted and key advisor to Dr. King on methods of non-violent protest. However, Rustin’s work in Montgomery largely was kept hidden at the time because he was a known homosexual and local leaders believed that he – as was the case with the young and aggressive Claudette Colvin – might become a liability if his involvement became too public. The concerns of the local leaders regarding both individuals – Colvin and Rustin – show how worried Civil Rights leaders were in the early 1950s that the slightest “irregularity” might undermine their efforts.

Park Forest had been created in 1948 as a totally planned community. It was the idea of government housing official Carroll F. Sweet Sr. who brought together two of his acquaintances – Philip Klutznick, the person within the Truman administration responsible for finding housing for returning World War II veterans, and builder Nathan Manilow – and sold them on the concept of creating a “G.I. town.” Klutznick, of course, because of his familiarity with the scarcity of housing available to returning soldiers and their young families, was intrigued with the concept of building a residential community in the Chicago region. Also underway at the time was planning for Levittown in New York, soon to be followed by similar developments in some other eastern states. Manilow already was in the housing construction business in Chicago.

In Klutznick’s obituary written on his death in 1999 at the age of 92, the Los Angeles Times called the creation of Park Forest “his most historic achievement,” describing the town as “the first postwar planned community, just south of Chicago,” with “apartments and ranch-style houses clustered around shopping centers.”¹

The company that Klutznick and Manilow created, with guidance and help from Sweet, was called American Community Builders – ACB – and the first phase of the development consisted of townhouses that were rented with ACB being the landlord. The property the company had acquired for the development was in the furthest south portion of Cook County and actually included a bit of Will County. It was located between the already existing towns of Matteson and Richton Park on the west and Chicago Heights and South Chicago Heights on the east; the small community of Olympia Fields, noted for its impressive golf course, was to the north, and the territory to the south was unincorporated. The townhomes were in the section beginning at the eastern border, adjacent to a forest preserve, and progressing into the middle of the community. As single-family homes were built, they were located west and south of the townhomes. Eventually larger single-family homes were built in the northern section, and in the remaining area to the west. A small segment of custom-built homes filled in vacant space in the southeast section of town.

Klutznick and his family actually lived in Park Forest, first in one of the multi-family courts, albeit in a unit that was twice the size of what the renters in the complex enjoyed, and then in a sprawling custom-built home in the southern portion of the town, almost in the Will County section.

In the heart of Park Forest was the Park Forest Plaza, one of the nation’s first outdoor mall shopping centers. Eventually it was anchored by Marshall Field, Goldblatt’s, and Sears department stores, and contained a Jewel grocery store and the Holiday movie theatre, which in the very early days also was utilized by some local religious groups as their place of worship while their actual churches were being built. Klutznick had his office in an upstairs suite of one of the central buildings from which he could look out over the entire complex. A number of other offices, for doctors, insurance agents, lawyers, etc., also were located in the upstairs of the mall buildings. Completely surrounding the plaza were huge parking areas to accommodate not only Park Forest residents but also the large number of business patrons who came from the surrounding towns to do their shopping in the “modern” center that was so different from their downtown business districts.

Innovation seemed the hallmark of Park Forest. The actual incorporation of the town came as the result of a “Tent Meeting,” that Klutznick and his fellow developers held on November 27, 1948. The citizens themselves decided what the municipality would be, opting for the “Village” form of government available under the Illinois Municipal Code, and passed a referendum on incorporation on February 1, 1949, by a vote of 90 to 2. The first mayor, or village president as he was called in those days, was Dennis O’Harrow who served very briefly. He was the executive director of the American Society of Planning Officials and his job forced him to move from Park Forest after less than a year in his elected post. For a number of the residents of the Village during the early years, employment within the corporate business structure caused lots of relocation as workers were transferred from one place to another and he was not the only elected official to leave town before finishing his term in office.

One of the first trustees of the new village was Henry X. Dietch who subsequently succeeded O’Harrow as president. He later served several years as the village attorney and thus was responsible for writing most of the ordinances that were to govern the community. Even later, while continuing to reside in Park Forest, he served as a Cook County Circuit Court judge.

The innovative nature of things in the community also impacted the religious practices of the residents of the new town. When Park Forest was established, many of the new residents were of various Protestant denominations, too many for each one to have its own congregation. Klutznick had asked the United Church Federation of Chicago to recommend the best way to deal with the religious needs of the residents of the new community. From that request came the appointment of Rev. Hugo Leinberger as community chaplain. He, in turn, surveyed the folks he was serving and determined that the vast majority of them desired an interdenominational church that could serve all their needs collectively. As a result, the concept of “united Protestantism” emerged within the community and the first of this type of protestant church to be established was Faith United Protestant Church.

While the Catholics, Lutherans, Baptists, Episcopalians, Seventh Day Adventists, Jews, and Unitarians, eventually had their individual congregations in town, the remainder of Park Foresters – Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and various smaller denominations – worshiped at Faith or one of its companion congregations of St. Paul/Good Shepherd U.P. Church, Grace U.P. Church, or Calvary U.P. Church.

Perhaps part of the success for the united protestant movement came from the fact that so many of the early Park Forest families were mixed as regards religion. In his classic sociological work, The Organization Man, William H. Whyte – who lived in Park Forest for a period while doing his research – observed that “many mixed-marriage couples have come to Park Forest, for here, they have correctly sensed, is a refuge from the conflicting loyalties that would beset them elsewhere.”²

Eventually mixed-race couples also would come to Park Forest because they too recognized it as a community that was more inclusive than were others. At the time Whyte was writing his book, however, that certainly was not the case. During the early 1950s, Whyte observed, “The classlessness…stops very sharply at the color line.” He continued,

Several years ago there was an acrid controversy over the possible admission of Negroes. It threatened to be deeply divisive – for a small group, admission of Negroes would be fulfillment of personal social ideals; for another, many of whom had just left Chicago wards which had been ‘taken over,’ it was the return of a threat left behind. But the people who were perhaps most sorely vexed were the moderates. Most of them were against admission too, but though no Negroes ever did move in, the damage was done. The issue had been brought up, and the sheer fact that one had to talk about it made it impossible to maintain unblemished the ideal of egalitarianism so cherished.³

The efforts that eventually led to integration in Park Forest began in 1951, according to Larry McClellan, a retired Governors State University professor and sometime minister who for several years wrote a weekly column on south suburban history for The Star, a newspaper headquartered in Chicago Heights, where it had been founded, but with editions in Park Forest and several other south suburban towns.

“As early as 1951,” McClellan wrote in a February 2002 column, “prompted by racial confrontations in Cicero, some residents of Park Forest began to urge the village government to address issues related to racial discrimination.” He explained that an outgrowth of those efforts was the creation of the Park Forest Commission on Human Relations. “This new group,” he continued, “focused on ‘interfaith as well as interracial cooperation’ and saw housing integration as a possible future concern for the village.”

While the Commission on Human Relations was a formal group seeking to establish positive racial relations in Park Forest, the real efforts to integrate the community grew out of the work of a dedicated group of activists who called themselves “the floating crap game.” James D. Saul, the member of the group who gave it that name, recalled during a 1980 interview for the Park Forest Oral History Project the impetus for the integration effort:

“We talked about integrating Park Forest because of the concern of many of us that our children were growing up in a lily-white environment, the same as Cicero or one of the all-white northern suburbs and they simply were not having an experience that was representative of what our country is.”⁴

Saul said the “floating crap game” moniker came about because of the need to be secretive about the work they were doing. “You had to be careful to whom you talked about that because there could be economic retributions. And there were constant threats of that and of physical violence,” he said.

“We talked about where can we find a family and how to persuade them to move and we talked about what might happen to us if word got out to our employers, especially those who worked for, say, someone like a middle-sized merchant.” He said they felt persons who worked for larger operations were better protected from retaliation in the workplace.

While indicating that he personally had not suffered any harm to person or property for his involvement in promoting the racial integration of Park Forest, he did say that a Caucasian family in the far south section of the village once had a cross burned on its front yard because the woman of the residence was so outspoken in promoting better relations with African Americans. He said he thought some of her actions were designed “to pick a fight” and “to attract attention.”

Saul said the talk of integrating the community originated with members of the Unitarian Church. They had formed a Social Action Committee but “some of the hardest workers for social action were impatient with the Social Action Committee because it did a lot of talking and not much acting.” He said Harry Teshima, a Japanese American, was among the first to develop this feeling about the committee. “He went off entirely on his own. He would let anyone work with him, but he wouldn’t wait for you. He’d go. And he found out how to get around all the bureaucratic hang-ups and delays, and he found out just where the law was on the side of those who wanted to integrate.”

According to Saul, “Harry Teshima, himself being Japanese, had difficulty buying here. He could rent an apartment, or he could buy a lot, but he could not buy a completed house. So,” Saul said, “he bought a lot and he built a house.” Saul said that Teshima, like many other Japanese Americans, had been in an internment camp during World War II. That experience “really made a strong impact on him.” He added, “Every ounce of energy he could find went into integration work.”

Robert Dinerstein, the third Park Forest village president, agreed with Saul regarding Teshima’s difficulty in purchasing a home in the new suburban community. “Harry Teshima wanted to move into a single-family home and they would not sell him one of the regular massed-produced homes.” When asked why Park Forest Homes – the ACB entity that handled the single-family home development – had such a policy, Dinerstein responded, “I’m sure it was because they felt that it would be disadvantage to their real estate sales program to have Orientals as homeowners.”⁵

Former Village President Bernard G. “Barney” Cunningham echoed Saul in reference to Teshima’s commitment to integration. In his interview for the Oral History Project, Cunningham said Teshima went into military service after his family was sent to the relocation camp. “When he came out, he became very sensitive about racial matters and was active in pro – if you will – integration movements.”⁶

Robert Dinerstein said the Village Board was aware that the Commission on Human Relations had been having conversations with Phil Klutznick as early as 1953 regarding integration of the rental housing. He said the elected officials of the village had received unofficial word of these talks. “But Klutznick’s position, as it was related to us, was that he had no objection to allowing a Black family to rent if the village government would take the public position” that it favored such an action. “Well, the Commission on Human Relations then came to the Board of Trustees and said, ‘This is what Mr. Klutznick’s position is and would the Board of Trustees want to take a position?’” Specifically, the commission members asked if the Board was willing to affirm publicly, “We favor Black families living in Park Forest.”

“Well,” Dinerstein said, “The Board of Trustees was not interested in taking a position – other than that we would support the Constitution – that was going to say, ‘We think there ought to be – or oughtn’t to be – Black families in Park Forest.’ Our position was that we were neutral on the subject of that.”

Dinerstein was somewhat critical of Philip Klutznick regarding the failure of ACB to integrate its rental properties. He offered the opinion that Klutznick feared that residents of Chicago Heights would protest if Park Forest were to be integrated. Dinerstein pointed out that Black residents of Chicago Heights were confined to the far eastern section of that city.  “Chicago Heights had conducted a campaign for years to keep Blacks out of the west side of Chicago Heights,” he said. “There was no reason to expect that they would sit still and allow Blacks to move to the west of them, without producing violence,” He said he believed the integration of Park Forest could erupt into a disaster.

Dinerstein’s comment about African Americans in Chicago Heights being confined to the eastern portion of the city, adjacent to the industrial region, was confirmed in a local history article written by Dr. Richard Sherman that appeared in the September 15, 1988, edition of The Star. Sherman, a professor at Prairie State College – where he once served as president – wrote that “Until past 1960, nearly 99 percent of the Black population of Chicago Heights lived in this region, which covers about five percent of the land area of the city.”

“The question then is, what do leaders do in a situation like that?” Dinerstein asked. “Klutznick, as an international social activist, should have taken the position, in the eyes of many people here, of saying, ‘The hell with that! We think Black people ought to live here, like anybody else, and welcome them.’ He did not. He may have within the councils of ACB. We don’t know what went on within the councils of ACB.”

Perhaps a little insight into what went on within the councils of ACB was offered by Edward Waterman in his Oral History interview. Waterman was one of the earliest of residents of the Park Forest multi-family property, having rented a townhouse in November 1948. At the time, he was an accountant with a Chicago firm but soon was recruited to work for ACB. “I started as an accountant and I managed the rental property during the latter part of the initial occupancy and for some time afterward,” he said.

When asked by the interviewer, “Was there a company policy about minorities,” Waterman replied, “There was never any kind of policy.” When the interviewer pushed further, asking about African Americans who may have made application to rent, Waterman gave a fuller explanation. “During the time I managed the rentals, I was never aware of a Black family’s application. Of course, if it came in by mail, we never knew anyway. I think in the normal process of management, we would have found out before they ever signed the lease. But there was never any consideration given to it.” To Waterman’s way of thinking, “Very few, very few Blacks could afford it. Many of those who could afford it were in types of employment careers where they didn’t want to be conspicuous or face trouble. They were insecure and unsure of themselves; felt they didn’t have the support they needed. And it just didn’t happen.”⁷

Regardless of whether ACB’s process for dealing with minorities was official or not, as Dinerstein, who was a Trustee at the time, admitted – and Barney Cunningham, who was to become a Trustee in 1955, acknowledged – the Park Forest Village Board wasn’t willing to take a direct and forceful stand on the issue either. Rather, the Board allowed the Commission on Human Relations to handle race-related matters without directly becoming involved. That practice in itself contributed to a level of unrest in the community that culminated in what Dinerstein described as a “big public meeting” in March 1953. He said one Trustee at the time was opposed to the work that the Commission on Human Relations was doing. “He attempted to kind of turn the discussion at this meeting as a way of embarrassing those of us who felt that, if the Village shouldn’t be actively trying to bring Blacks into the community, at least we should be more aggressively helping people who were trying to do that.”

According to an article about the meeting that appeared in the March 24, 1953, edition of The Star, “Douglas F. Stevenson, incumbent seeking re-election, declared that he was not in favor of the Commission because he felt it was creating a racial problem in the Village only for the sake of attempting to solve it. He charged there was a complete uniformity of opinion on the Commission regarding integration of minority groups in Park Forest and that it had assumed an activist role in attempting to effect the integration, charges he has made before, and which have in turn been denied by Mrs. Helen Zimmerman, Commission chairman, Village President Henry X. Dietch, and individual commission members.”

One thing that bothered the Village Board, Dinerstein said, was the independent way in which the Commission on Human Relations operated. “The feeling was not that there was an issue with anything that the Commission had done or not done on this issue, but rather that they had conducted themselves as if they were an independent arm of the Village government, when in fact they were an advisory board to the Board of Trustees.” The dispute in that regard, he said, resulted in all the members of the Commission resigning. “We passed a new resolution in which we emphasized that all the commissions of the Village government were advisory to the Board of Trustees and needed to consult with the Board, and a new Commission was appointed.”

Meanwhile, Dinerstein said, racial tensions also developed within local School District 163 during 1953. “A question came before the school board whether they would hire a Black teacher if they had an application from one. After a lot of discussion, they said yes, they would. And this then became an issue in the school election.” He said the campaign developed some nasty elements with flyers distributed to homes at night. “The school election was on a Saturday, and it was Friday night there were flyers circulated all around, about if you vote for so-and-so for school board there’ll be Black teachers and so on.” Dinerstein said the hate campaign didn’t work and the candidates on whose behalf the flyers were circulated lost the election.

A few other incidents of a racial nature also occurred in Park Forest prior to the successful late-1959 integration effort. Two apparently involved the town’s popular restaurant, Mickleberry’s.

Dinnerstein told the story that in 1958 he received a letter from a resident who was associated with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union claiming a discriminatory occurrence. According to Dinerstein, the resident said that a committee from Bloom High School, which was located in Chicago Heights, wished to have an event at the restaurant but when told that the group would include “one Negro member and a Negro guest,” the committee’s representative was advised by the restaurant’s spokesperson that the business “would rather not serve them.”

Dinerstein said he investigated the report. “I discussed it with the owner of the restaurant who told me that he did not recall the telephone call and he had served many Negroes.”

Henry Dietch told a different story about Mickleberry’s, one concerning Olympic gold-medal winner Jesse Owens. “He had come here evidently to speak before some group.” Dietch said, explaining that even though he was mayor at the time, he had been given no advance notice of Owens’ visit. “Evidently he had been refused service in that restaurant,” he said in reference to Mickleberry’s. “It’s hard to imagine,” Dietch added. Asked if the Mickleberry’s management had known who Jesse Owens was, Dietch responded, “I don’t know.” He quickly added, “We immediately put a halt to that practice by the restaurant and got the word out to everyone that Blacks were not to be discriminated against.”⁸

Dietch did not give any specific date for the incident involving Owens but it would seem to have happened prior to the one mentioned by Dinerstein, since each man’s story occurred while he was mayor and Dietch preceded Dinnerstein in that office.

Another troublesome incident reported by Dinerstein involved a police stop on Ash Street of a vehicle in which African Americans were riding. “Well, when the Black guests arrived at the hosts, they mentioned that the police had stopped them, and this guy called up and he was very, very angry. He wanted to know why the police stopped them. Well it was obvious that their suspicions were directed toward them because they were Black, and there were no Black families living in Park Forest. So they figured, you know, that they were looking for something to do that would be undesirable.” Dinerstein said that event drove him to approach Village Manager John Scott and order a training program for police officers that was conducted by the Illinois Commission on Human Relations.

By mid-1959, the social activists who had been advocating for voluntary racial integration of Park Forest finally were making inroads. Quietly they had been discussing among themselves what steps were needed in order to bring an African American family to the village. The effort, however, involved citizens who were not elected officials, albeit some were members of the Commission on Human Relations. Among those identified in the Oral History transcripts as the prime movers are Teshima, Saul, Tom Naughton, Shirlee and Ted Wheeler, and Bert Growald, the person who actually sold his home to the first Black family to move into the community. Also mentioned was Edward Pattullo who was chairperson for the Commission on Human Relations and, according to Dinerstein, “played a very important role” in the integration movement. He said Pattullo went to Harvard University when he left Park Forest and “held a high-ranking administrative position” there.  Pattullo actually became assistant dean to McGeorge Bundy who then was dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Bundy subsequently became National Security Advisor to President John F. Kennedy.

It appears that four specific incidents had significant influence on the activists: (1) the violent protest in Cicero, Illinois, in 1951 that was mentioned in the McClellan article, when the first Black family moved into that municipality and then was forced out; (2) the 1953 attempt to integrate the rental housing in Park Forest; (3) white unrest that occurred in Levittown, Pennsylvania, in August 1957 after an African American family moved into that community, which again resulted in the family subsequently moving out; and (4) a Park Forest incident in early 1959 when a couple was having difficulty selling their home in the Eastgate neighborhood and one of them made the flippant comment to a neighbor that they just might be forced to sell to a Negro, which caused a large protest.

The latter act resulted in a public statement from Park Forest government indicating that it neither favored nor opposed the presence of Black residents in the town, but “In the event that a Negro family should make its home in Park Forest, the village government will assure that family the same protection of the law that is afforded to any other resident or property owner in the village.” It was a statement perfectly in line with what Dinerstein had spoken of regarding the 1953 incident with the Commission on Human Relations and Philip Klutznick on integration of the rental area.

Dinerstein said the Board’s adoption of the public statement – he called it a “program” – was done in November 1959, which was very timely. Only two months earlier, he had received a letter from Bert Growald, a member of the Commission of Human Relations, indicating that he needed to resign because he was re-locating from the Village. Dinerstein said the letter did not indicate that the move had anything to do with integration of Park Forest, but on December 17 Growald went to Village Hall and told Police Chief Milan Plavsic that he had sold his home at 375 Wilshire Street to an African American by the name of Charles Z. Wilson and that the Wilson family would be moving in within a few days.

According to Dinerstein, on the very next day Plavsic and Rev. Joseph Hughes – described as the “unofficial Village chaplain” – met with Wilson to learn his plans for moving to Park Forest. “He had taken over Growald’s loan at a bank in Chicago Heights with the anticipation of getting a mortgage,” Dinerstein said. He explained that Wilson was an economics professor at DePaul University who resided on Chicago’s south side with his wife and two daughters. He had met Growald at a social event at the home of Ted and Shirlee Wheeler. Asked by the Oral History Project interviewer whether that meant that Wilson decided to move to Park Forest because of the actions of the Unitarian Social Action Committee, Dinerstein replied, “Well, he moved here through the efforts in the sense that he met the person from whom he bought the house at a tea given by a member of this group.” The interviewer then asked, “Was the sense that Growald deliberately sold the house to a Black family?” Dinerstein’s response was “I  think that Growald was very supportive of the idea of integration. Okay? But…so I cannot…I can’t say anymore.”

Anthony Scariano, an attorney and one of the earliest residents of Park Forest, told the Oral History Project that he played a key role in the sale of the Growald home to the Wilson family. At the time, he was a Representative in the Illinois General Assembly and Bert Growald appeared a little apprehensive in approaching him about being the attorney for the sale. “He said, ‘I’ve got a Black buyer. Are you still interested in representing me?’ And I said, ‘Why wouldn’t I be interested in representing you?’ He said, ‘Well, you are in politics. It might hurt you.’ I said, ‘Well, if it hurts me, fine. If people want a bigot in the legislature, they’ll have to go and get themselves one.’”⁹

Scariano said Growald did not know Wilson at the time. “He got to know him through friends who were interested in seeing to it that Park Forest was an integrated community.” He said all the people involved in helping Wilson were his personal friends and several warned him – as did Growald – that his involvement could have political repercussions. Scariano said he told them, “I’ve just not run away from anything like this before.”

In speaking of Wilson, Scariano said, “Chuck was intensely interested in breaking the racial barrier in Park Forest. He wanted to be a guinea pig and he was willing to take all the brickbats. So we thought this had better be well executed with as little trauma as possible. So we alerted the Village government. We alerted all of the clergymen.” The choice of Christmas week for the move-in was intentional, he explained. “The Village through the Park Forest Human Relations Commission went around talking to everybody, alerting them. Briefing them, and he moved in without incident.”

Barney Cunningham, who was a Village Trustee at the time, said Trustees went door-to-door with the members of the Commission on Human Relations. “We made personal visits on houses along Wilshire Street, and on those which backed up on Wilshire Street, to let the people in the neighborhood know what our thoughts and attitudes were on this.” He said the Village Board made three requests of Charles Wilson: (1) “That he use a professional mover so that the move could be carried out with a minimal delay.” (2) “The second thing we asked them to do was get a telephone, but to make it an unlisted number because we recognized that he would be subject to – the family would be subject to – prank calls.” (3) “We asked him to let us know what was going on.”

Dinerstein said the move-in on Christmas Eve was fortuitous. “The move-in was going to occur at about Christmas time, when people are supposed to be thinking cheerfully about good things and when you don’t have people out on the streets all the time because the weather is cold.”

But, Scariano said, some Park Foresters were upset with the integration effort. “Oh, there was a lot of noise about it, you know, but no violence, and Park Forest came of age and that is the biggest single and most important change that’s come about in the town. And I took my share of brickbats too. It became an election campaign issue the next year, you can be sure, but I came out with more votes than ever before.”

Dinerstein also recalled that some folks didn’t approve of the Wilsons coming to town, but he felt that preplanned action on the part of the Village government prevented the unrest from getting out of hand. “There were several people in the neighborhood who began to get nervous, to hear rumors, and they called the Village Hall,” he said. “Somebody would go over and consult with them.” He said he and Police Chief Plavsic were among those who went door-to-door, sometimes working as late as midnight in contacting every residence within several blocks of the Wilsons’ new home.

Despite those efforts to maintain calm in the community, a huge crowd of Park Forest residents attended the next Village Board meeting following the Wilsons’ arrival in town. According to the Park Forest Reporter, “An overflow crowd of 170 residents packed the Village Hall Tuesday night for an emotion-charged discussion of integration.” In reporting on the same meeting, The Star wrote “An overflow crowd of more than 200 villagers spent 87 soul-searching minutes airing their feeling over Park Forest’s first Negro family.”

Dinerstein said some of the folks in attendance at the meeting were more concerned about a zoning issue relating to the rental areas than they were about the Wilson family. He said the public discussion moved back and forth between the two topics throughout the evening. “At any rate,” he said, “the meeting came off alright and over the next several months the activity in the community died down about the Wilson family.”

One outgrowth of the meeting, however, was the formation of a citizens’ organization by Herschel Ward, who was described by Dinerstein as a resident of Winnebago Street, which was in the general neighborhood where the Wilsons now resided, who had moved into the Village in 1951. An article appearing in the January 20, 1960, issue of the Chicago Daily News described the effort Ward and some of his associates were undertaking. The article was written by Mike Royko, a young reporter at the time who eventually would become Chicago’s most popular newspaper columnist, first at the Daily News, then at the Chicago Sun-Times, and finally at the Chicago Tribune.

A residents’ association has been formed in Park Forest to bar Negroes from the suburb, the Daily News has learned. The organization plans to do it by system of social boycott and real estate dealing. It also intends to run a slate of candidates for the Village Board and Village President.

“For the next several weeks, there was more news about this Park Forest Residents Association and all the things they were going to do to keep Negroes from moving in,” Dinerstein said. But the movement seemed to lack any strength. “This Mr. Ward represented such an extremist point of view that he suddenly found himself without anybody else supporting him.” Dinerstein added, “That was the end of the Park Forest Residents Association. It was never heard of again.”

The Wilson family resided in Park Forest for a few years, according Dinerstein. “They were the only Black family in Park Forest and they moved out before the next Black family moved in.” Cunningham explained that the move-out was due to Wilson taking a teaching position with a university in a different locale. He noted that the Wilsons sold their home to a White family when they decided to move. Dinerstein said one thing he remembered about Chuck Wilson was that he was an excellent tennis player. “He used to play tennis with some guys on the courts on Lakewood Boulevard.”

Dinerstein was very forthright in emphasizing that several residents of the Village never warmed to the idea of Park Forest being an integrated community. “We had many people who were very antagonistic,” he said. “I had many obscene phone calls. I had all kinds of things happen, you know, that were very bad, but you had to look at the thing in terms of the overall gross community, and the overall community’s reaction was absolutely great. We had no incidents. The police were there all the time. Nothing happened.”

Park Forest received several letters of congratulations on its successful integration of its housing, Dinerstein said. “We got letters from people all over the country. We got all kinds of invitations,” including one from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to tell the Park Forest story at a conference that would be held in Chicago. “I took the position that our responsibility was to Park Forest, and not to anything else, and that if we suddenly appeared on every panel on this subject, in Chicago and elsewhere, that we would have the potential, at least, for weakening our own government’s position.” He added, “We were not seeking publicity for this. This was our job and we were doing it.”

He said some organizations also wanted to give the Village awards for what had been accomplished but those also were rejected. “We said, ‘Thank you, but no thanks.’”

***

When Philip Morris Klutznick was appointed Commissioner of the Federal Public Housing Authority by President Roosevelt in 1944, he became aware of the need for housing for families of soldiers returning from the war. Little if any new residential construction had occurred during the Great Depression and into World War II, so the demand as soldiers returned from combat was disproportionately greater than was the supply. As such, Klutznick was intrigued by an idea brought to him by Carroll Sweet Sr., who in turn introduced him to builder Nathan Manilow. The three men – Klutznick and Manilow, with assistance from Sweet – formed American Community Builders with the intent of putting Sweet’s idea into effect in the suburban Chicago region: housing and other amenities that would accommodate the needs of World War II veterans and their families, all located in a “G.I. Town.” They began their conversations about the project as early as 1945, but because of planning, financing, property acquisition, and related necessities, they didn’t announce the new project until a press conference at Chicago’s Palmer House hotel on October 28, 1946. Construction of townhomes began immediately and the first move-ins occurred in August 1948. Sale of single-family homes didn’t begin until late in 1951, and many of the early purchasers were renters from the townhome area.

Meanwhile, William Levitt had completed his Levittown, New York, development of 1,400 single-family homes in 1947. His firm, Levitt & Sons, began its second development – Levittown, Pennsylvania – in 1952. Other Levitt developments, in Maryland, New Jersey, and even Puerto Rico, subsequently were undertaken. Financing from the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the Veterans Administration (VA) assisted homebuyers in the purchasing. One caveat, however: the homes were sold only to Caucasians. In fact, federal funding programs in place at the time specifically excluded African Americans.

The development undertaken by American Community Builders, ultimately to be called Park Forest, was different from Levittown in several ways. First of all, housing in Levittown consisted entirely of single-family residences intended first as rental and then for sale, while the ACB development began with multi-family residences that were all rental, with ACB as the landlord, and then moved first to small homes, then to larger ones, and even included some custom-built residences, all of which were for sale. Secondly, ACB’s grand schema for its development included a large shopping complex in the middle of the community that featured department stores and a grocery along with several other shops, with a few smaller strip centers spread around the neighborhoods; Levittown did not follow such a plan and its initial commercial elements were much more limited, mostly provided by the communities to which it was adjacent but also with a central grocery shopping center. Thirdly, ACB’s initial concept for the development was based on a Greenbelt model, which subsequently was altered to better meet a more traditional suburban layout but nonetheless provided extensive open-space throughout; Levittown did not embrace that concept. And finally, Klutznick was insistent on the use of unionized labor for his development, whereas Levitt’s workers were non-union.

The differences between the housing developments of Levitt and Klutznick actually went far beyond the homes themselves; there were fundamental differences in how each of the two men viewed the work in which he was engaged. Nowhere was that more obvious than at a housing roundtable convened by the editors of LIFE magazine in December 1948. An article about the roundtable that appeared in the January 31, 1949, issue of LIFE, said the objective of the gathering was to find an answer to a fundamental question: “Can the housing industry produce more houses and better houses, cheaper?” According to the report, “It was to that question that 16 men and one woman sat down one Friday afternoon in December at the Westchester Country Club in Rye, N.Y., for 16 hours of strenuous debate.”

“The most aggressive member of LIFE’s roundtable, whether as builder or debater, was William J. Levitt, president of Levitt and Sons, Inc., of Manhasset, N.Y.,” wrote Russell W. Davenport, who served as moderator for the panel discussion. “He feels he has started a revolution, the essence of which is size. Builders in his estimation are a poor and puny lot, too small to put pressure on materials manufacturers or the local czars of the building codes or the bankers or labor.” The article states that Levitt’s key objective is to “build houses in concentrated developments where mass-production methods can be used on the site.” The Levitt approach to construction on an assembly-line basis won some level of support among the panel, according to Davenport. “He may not build the most attractive house in the world, but by becoming big enough to fight his own battles in an economy of giants he has brought down the price of a well-equipped house.”

By contrast, Klutznick is described in the article not just as a developer, but as “a city planner.” Davenport writes, “Mr. Klutznick’s project, called Park Forest, 30 miles from Chicago, is different from the ordinary housing development in that from the very beginning it was planned out as a whole city of 30,000.” He continues, “The most advanced planning has already gone into it. It will be a city without smoke, without clatter and without traffic jams. The houses will be situated in an informal but orderly way, with an integrated system of schools and playgrounds, churches (whose land is donated) and a loop design for its streets, so that traffic will flow freely.” An aerial photo of the portion of the development completed at that time shows only about two-thirds of the planned townhomes, no single-family homes, and no commercial elements. Davenport summarizes the project with praise. “In short, Mr. Klutznick and his associates are in the business of creating not just houses but a pleasant and convenient place in which to live. The encouraging aspect of this kind of work is that it shows how private capital, if sufficiently enlightened, can apply and develop those principles of social planning which are all too often assumed to be solely the province of the state.”

In a 1991 interview with Jane Nicoll, who at the time was assistant reference librarian for the Park Forest Public Library, Carroll Sweet Jr. – son of the originator of the idea of what became Park Forest – said that Klutznick had been offered the opportunity of developing the project that became Levittown, Pennsylvania. “I do know that Phil, from his connections in Washington, was offered the job of Levittown, Pennsylvania, before Levitt was,” he said. Sweet had been employed with ACB in a number of important posts from 1946 to 1956 and was familiar with nearly all the inner workings of the company during those early years.

“He took it up before the board, ‘Can we branch out and build this big project in Pennsylvania while we still have Park Forest on our hands here?’ It was the consensus of opinion, ‘Let’s do a good job with Park Forest rather than a questionable job in Pennsylvania and Illinois.’ So he turned that down, and Levitt undertook it.”¹⁰

While the ACB development and the Levittowns were different in many ways, one way in which they were not was in adherence to racial segregation in sales. ACB initially did not rent to African Americans, nor did they sell homes to them when that phase of the development was underway. The firm’s policy was to rent to Asians, but not to sell homes to them either. Asians, however, were allowed to purchase lots in the custom-homes section of the project and then to build for themselves.

In a Public Broadcasting System documentary that aired in 2003, World War II veteran Eugene Burnett, and his wife Bernice, explain how they wished to purchase a home in Levittown but were told by the sales representative with whom they spoke, “The owners of this development have not as yet decided to sell these homes to Negroes.” The program, called “The House We Live In,” illustrated how African American veterans were entitled to GI benefits such as financial assistance to purchase homes, but how that entitlement was compromised by discriminatory policies both on the part of housing developers and the federal policymakers.

Burnett, who became a police officer after his military service, was interviewed by the New York Times in 1997 on the 50^th anniversary of Levittown’s creation. “The anniversary leaves me cold,” he said. “It’s symbolic of segregation in America.”¹¹

The manner in which things were handled in Park Forest was not as blatant as it was in Levittown. In a piece written in 1999 for the 50^th anniversary of the incorporation of the town, Fred Peterman explained how potential sales to minorities were handled when he first joined the Park Forest Homes sales staff in 1957. “When a ‘Negro’ or an Asian showed up in a new home project, the standard practice was for the sales staff to disappear.” He explained, “We were told to lock the door, go down the basement, or get in the car and leave.”¹²

In 2003, Levittown still was “95 to 98 percent White,” according to a description provided by real estate broker John J. Juliano in an interview with the Times.¹³ Park Forest, on the other hand, succumbed to pressure from a small group of its Caucasian residents and welcomed its first African American family in 1959, only 10 years after the town was incorporated, and by 2003 was a community moving toward an even balance between Blacks and Whites. In 1981, in fact, while the town still was majority Caucasian, an African American – Ronald Bean – was elected as mayor. He became a Trustee in 1974, the first African American to hold such a post. In 1983 and 1985, he was re-elected to two-year terms as mayor and served in that post until 1986 when he moved from the Village.

But long before they were allowed residential status in Park Forest, African Americans were present in the Village in other capacities. Former Trustee Robert Furnace told the story, for example, of how his mother and several other Black women from Chicago Heights were employed as domestics by Park Forest housewives in those early days. Furnace, who worked for several years as a union organizer for the Illinois Education Association, said he took inspiration from how his mother had organized her fellow domestics to demand cab fare as a part of their salary, to cover the trip from and back to their homes on the eastside of Chicago Heights. Furnace also noted that as a young man he had been employed as a construction worker for some of the building of the Park Forest Plaza. He said other African Americans from Chicago Heights were similarly employed.¹⁴

One of the domestics who served Park Forest families in the early days was Beulah Glenn, about whom Park Forest resident Bill Adelman submitted a tribute in 1999 when the “Pioneering African Americans in Park Forest” were being recognized in connection with the town’s 50^th anniversary of incorporation.

“Beulah Glenn started working for my parents as cook and housekeeper in 1948, when I was 12,” Adelman wrote. “Her husband, Alan, a long-time chef on the Illinois Central, was away much of the time. I was an only child, with busy parents. Beulah and I adopted each other. I was her ‘Baby.’ She became my closest, dearest ‘Gramma.’”

Adelman said Glenn suffered from diabetes and arthritis and decided to retire when his parents left Park Forest and relocated to Arizona. “Her one dream was to get out of the city and find a house in a fresh, quiet and ‘right-thinking’ community. With help from the VA, she and Alan found their dream home at 429 Shabbona Drive” in Park Forest. He added that she “threw a big celebratory dinner” when he moved back to the community, now married, in 1965. It was at that time that she also relayed the story of her move-in day, about which he quoted her as saying the following.

“See, Alan got a last-minute call from his work to fill in for another cook on the New Orleans run, leaving me to make the move alone. Because I don’t drive, I had to get a taxi to bring me all the way out from Hyde Park. And when we and the moving van get here, what do I see but a police car sitting at the curb across from our house. “Baby, I’m thinking, what on earth is going on here? So I get out of the car and I say to him, ‘Excuse me, officer, but I’m Mrs. Glenn. Is there any problem here?’ And he gives me a big smile, touches his forehead in a kind of salute, and says, ‘No, ma’am. No problem. And Mr. Manilow says there isn’t going to be one either!’”¹⁵

When they arrived in August 1963, the Glenns were the third African American family to move into a single-family home in Park Forest.

But even after Park Forest became integrated, and after Klutznick had liquidated his financial interests in ACB, segregation in the multi-family rental housing component continued. In 1964, as a young African American social worker employed by the State of Illinois at a facility in Kankakee, Myrtle Martin was advised by a friend that she should explore the possibility of housing in Park Forest because it was an integrated community. In doing so, she learned that not every component of Park Forest housing welcomed Black residents, for she was turned away when she tried to rent an apartment. Fortunately, though, she was advised that a unit was available from one of the town’s housing cooperative corporations; in cooperatives, each resident is a part owner of the corporation, owning one share of stock that entitles him/her to reside in a specific unit, and then the resident pays monthly carrying charges that cover operational costs of the corporation. She applied for membership in the Park Forest Cooperative III (Area J) – the one-time membership fee at the time was $200 – and was accepted.¹⁶

The first of Park Forest’s five housing cooperative corporations was established in 1962 when ACB sold approximately 370 units to what eventually became the Birch Street Townhomes Cooperative. Included in that group of townhomes was the building in which the Klutznick family originally had resided when moving to Park Forest. Eventually approximately two-thirds of the townhomes in the town would become cooperatives, with the remaining units either staying as rentals or becoming condominiums. Ownership of the rentals has changed a few times over the years since ACB began selling off its assets in 1962, and the local government often has had problems with the way in which the rental units were maintained, resulting in major litigation in some cases. Martin Ganzel, former president of the Bank of Park Forest, once observed that the densely situated townhomes in Park Forest likely would have become a slum if the majority of the units were not converted to cooperatives. He believed the owner-occupants of the cooperatives maintained their properties in a manner much superior to what could be expected from an absentee landlord-owner.¹⁷

“I moved here from Champaign where I had been renting a room on a weekly basis, for a month, looking for permanent housing in or near Kankakee,” Martin – whose maiden name was Colston – explained. “I had been working for the Illinois Department of Mental Health in a child guidance clinic, the Institute for Juvenile Research (IJR).” She said she had interned at IJR while completing graduate work at the Atlanta University of Social Work. “IJR had opened a new clinic in Kankakee and hired me upon my graduation in June 1964.”

Martin has provided the following summary of her effort to find housing in Park Forest.

“Since I was single, I made application to rent a one-bedroom townhouse. The gentleman that greeted me, in the rental office, very politely informed me that ‘We do not rent to Negroes, but you can go to the cooperatives and get a two-bedroom townhouse for the same price as our one-bedroom rentals.’ I shrugged and said, ‘Okay.’ Remember, I grew up in North Carolina and had lived in the South all of my 28 years, so I was not surprised or upset. I still have the completed application, so, obviously, he did not take it.”

The application has no reference to race among the information it requests.

She said the rental agent had referred her to the Area J Cooperative and upon going to the office there she was greeted by Leo Jacobson, who not only served on the cooperative’s board of directors at the time but also was a Village Trustee. “He allowed me to complete the application and asked me to return in a few days. I brought a Black girlfriend with me when I returned so that she could witness this history I was trying to make. Mr. Jacobson kindly informed me that my application had been accepted and said, ‘Welcome. You are number 20.’ Now that did surprise me and I decided not to write home about that. My folks were already worried about me taking a job so far from home where I – and they – did not know anyone.”

According to records of the African American families that moved into Park Forest, Jacobson was off by one in telling Martin, “You are number 20.” According to the roster that was used for the 50^th anniversary “Pioneering African Americans in Park Forest” program, she actually was number 21 when she moved into Area J in October 1964. Her monthly carrying charge at the time was $91.

“Mr. Jacobson showed me the Area J map which had the vacancies highlighted. I chose 108 Forest Boulevard because it seemed to have the easiest route to Governors Highway, my road to work. When Police Chief [William] Hamby visited me, the night I moved in, he thought it was a good location because ‘little single, 16-year-old-looking’ me was close to the police station.” She added, “I didn’t write home about that either.”

Barbara Moore, who later would become director of community relations for Park Forest, said it was with some trepidation that she and her husband, Carol, moved to the predominately white town in March 1974, even though Park Forest had been an integrated community for nearly 15 years by the time they did so, with more than 200 African American families having already moved in.

“When we arrived at our new home, my parents, who lived in my home town of Joliet, were already there sweeping out the garage. Because of my fear of moving to a community that was predominately White, my dad’s first comment was ‘Well, it is still standing.’” She explained that he meant there had been “no bombs.” She said her husband, even though he had grown up in Selma, Alabama, didn’t share her fears.¹⁸

The Moores had made the decision to move to Park Forest after consultation with the Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities, which was based in Chicago and was among the most respected open housing organizations in the country. “Carol and I had visited several south suburban communities that we felt we would be welcomed in. We were moving from Chicago with three children because we wanted better schools. After taking into consideration schools, housing values, transportation to Carol’s job in downtown Chicago, we decided to move to Park Forest.”

The Leadership Council had been established at the close of Dr. Martin Luther King’s 1966 Chicago Freedom Movement. It subsequently gained a national reputation for its 40 years of legal battles on behalf of fair and open housing before being disbanded in 2006 because of fiscal issues. While the Gatreaux Program – a concerted effort to keep housing authorities from steering minority residents to specific locations – may be the most significant aspect of the Council’s work, effort also was placed on education and training of real estate professionals to deal with all segments of the population in an equitable manner. It undertook that mission because it also had become common practice among real estate practitioners throughout the Chicagoland region to steer minority buyers to specific locales. When its positive efforts failed, the Council then would turn to litigation to assure equity; in that regard, it won a number of notable housing cases.

“It was serendipity,” Barbara said, “that Myrtle Martin – whom we had never met – heard of our decision (to move to Park Forest) and warned us about racial steering. With that advice, and keeping in mind our desires, we moved to 202 Hickory Street which was in walking distance to the IC (Illinois Central Commuter Line) and in Matteson School District 162,” she said.

“Not only were there were there no bombs, there were welcoming neighbors bringing donuts and cakes. One of the interesting things that happened was that two Black girls who lived on Homan Street excitedly rode their bikes to our house to greet us because they heard that a Black family had moved in. Additionally, we were welcomed by the ‘Welcome Wagon.’ After living here for a few months, our Black friends continued to check with us to see if our White neighbors had moved out yet.”

As regards her neighbors, Moore made an observation of a uniqueness that was fairly common in the early days of integration in Park Forest. “The house at 204 Hickory has changed hands three times: first a Black family, then a mixed couple – she was native American and he was Caucasian – and finally Georgia O'Neill and her family.” O’Neill, who is White, later became a Village Trustee. The phenomenon, though, was the way many homes in Park Forest were occupied by Black families and then subsequently by Caucasian ones; it began when the town’s first Black family, the Wilsons, sold their home to a White buyer in the early 1960s. Real estate sales persons observed that movement back and forth between races was not a common occurrence in Chicagoland homes sales.

Bill and Juanita Simpson were the tenth Black family to move into Park Forest and preceded the Moores by ten years. “My move here was a civil rights move,” Bill Simpson said in his 1980 interview for the Park Forest Oral History Project.¹⁹ “During that time, the Civil Rights Movement was beginning to get impetus,” he said. “President Kennedy signed a presidential proclamation which had to do with fair housing. Any houses that were taken over by the FHA or the VA were open to be sold to anybody wherever they were.”

Simpson explained, “I wasn’t testing the waters, I was consciously taking advantage of opportunities as they came to be, opportunities that I felt were things that I felt were right, you see. Which was that citizens in this country could move where they want to move.”

Simpson said he became aware that a group of Park Forest citizens – he mentioned specifically Harry Teshima and Shirlee and Ted Wheeler – were making themselves available to assist African American families that had an interest in moving to Park Forest. “What they would do is, feeling that the Blacks might be kind of timid about the move, they would say, ‘You come to our house, and we will take you around, and we will tell you about the community, and then we will take you around and show you what houses are available.’” He said most of the homes were ones that had been financed with Federal Housing Administration loans but had gone into foreclosure.

Asked if he had received a better deal on the purchase of his home because it had been a foreclosure, Simpson was adamant in his response. “No, no, no. Because the federal government didn’t do things in that manner,” he said. “They had an appraiser come out and appraise the house. I tried to get it cheaper, as a matter of fact, but they said, ‘No dice.’”

When Larry Clark and his family moved into Park Forest in March 1966, they were the twenty-fourth African American homebuyers to do so. “We were interested in finding a community in which we could raise our children, where we would be comfortable and perhaps have better schools and a nice home,” he told the Oral History interviewer. He explained that his efforts to achieve that goal had been rejected by real estate sales persons in Glenwood, Homewood, and Matteson. “We finally ended up in Park Forest.”²⁰

Clark said he had received “the typical runaround” in his efforts to buy a home in the South Suburbs. “Little things were done, such as raising the price of the home beyond your limitations. I can recall so well, there was a home in Glenwood that we were crazy about called the ‘Riviera,’ and we went out, took a look at the home, and the salesman raised the price by $10,000, so that we were required to put approximately $10,000 down on it.” That was in 1965 and Clark explained that the usual down-payment was approximately ten percent and a good home could be obtained for about $30,000 to $35,000. “They raised the price of the home and the down-payment, and it was quite depressing.”

Even after raising the price and down-payment on the home he liked, the developer there told him the firm would build the house for him in East Chicago Heights (now Ford Heights), a predominantly African American community, but not in Glenwood. “I told them that if they couldn’t build it where I wanted it, they couldn’t build me a home at all. So we left.” He said sales people in both Homewood and Matteson were not interested in selling to him either.

Coming to look at homes in Park Forest, Clark noted that “We found a very pleasant salesman by the name of [Fred] Peterman.” He said Peterman didn’t inflate any of the prices or dodge questions. “We thought things were going to go along pretty good, until it came time to sign the papers and he stated that he would have to turn me over to the owner of the construction company.” That began the same routine he had found in the other towns, Clark said. First the initial down-payment of $3,000 was raised to $5,000 because he was so young; he was 24-years-old. Then the down-payment was raised to $6,000 because he had not been on his job long enough. Each time the down-payment was raised, Clark agreed to meet it, until finally it hit the $8,000 mark and Clark said that was as high as he would go. He thus was able to purchase the home and to obtain financing through the firm of Park Forest Savings & Loan. He said he believes he was the first African American to obtain a conventional loan to purchase a new home in Park Forest. “At that time, to the best of my knowledge, all the Blacks that had lived in the Village of Park Forest had purchased their homes through government foreclosures or FHA.”

Clark said both the developer and the Commission on Human Relations had concerns that there would be unrest in the neighborhood because his family was moving in. He said the commission sent representatives to the homes of several of his new neighbors, “And much to their surprise, the neighbors stated that if the man can afford to buy that home, they had no objections whatsoever.” He said some of the neighbors came over to greet them the day they moved in, “And from that time on our children were picked up, bundled up, and taken to the movies, and established friendships in the community right away. We never had any problems whatsoever.” Contrary to the fears of the developer, he added, all the other lots around him were sold and “What the owners feared never materialized.”

The action undertaken by the Commission on Human Relations when the Clark family moved to Park Forest in 1966 had been underway since the Wilsons became the first African American residents of the community on December 24, 1959. Not only did the CHR make such visits, but Village officials also circulated written memoranda among themselves in order to keep everyone alert as to the move-ins and to guard against any problems arising. One such memo was prepared by Robert Dinerstein on November 16, 1962, and circulated to the Board of Trustees, the Village Manager, the Village Attorney, and the Chief of Police, relating to the second Black family planning to locate in Park Forest. By that time, the Wilsons already had left the Village because Dr. Charles Wilson had taken a job in another region. Although he relinquished the post of mayor in April 1961, Dinerstein apparently continued to function on behalf of the Village in dealing with minority move-ins.²¹

“I held a lengthy conversation with Mr. Terry L. Robbins at his place of employment, NALCO Chemical Company,” Dinerstein wrote. He then enumerated things he had learned from the visit, including information about how Robbins was seeking Veterans Administration approval to purchase a home at 273 Blackhawk Drive; what church he and his wife attended; whether he and his wife were members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); whether the Robbins had any intention of altering the appearance of the house they were purchasing; and whether they had met any of their prospective neighbors. He said he also advised Robbins that he should discuss his plans with Park Forest Chief of Police William Hamby.

Dinerstein also reported that he had quizzed Robbins on the history of his seeking housing in Park Forest. From that he learned that Robbins had submitted an application and a deposit check for a rental unit but that he had been told his request would not be honored and his check was returned. He subsequently had communication with Harry Teshima who suggested he consider a home purchase rather than a rental unit. According to Dinerstein’s memo, “Mr. Robbins reported to me the information we have already about his contact with the realtors in Park Forest, whom he considered to be devious, following which he placed his deposit with a Chicago realtor.”

Dinerstein concludes his report by indicating that he had informed Robbins that “We did not care whether or not he moved to Park Forest, and certainly were not intending to encourage or assist him; that he should not over simplify the possible complications of such a move either because of our experience, or because of the optimism of his friends; that some might question the desirability of his selected location; and that our sole interest is the welfare of the community which could be best served by following the procedures I recommended once he had made the decision to move.”

Within a month, Robbins had purchased his home and was ready to move in. That prompted Mayor Bernard “Barney” Cunningham to issue a set of directives to members of the Commission on Human Relations that were specific in detailing how they were to visit homes in the vicinity of the Robbins’ new residence. He said, in the memorandum dated December 4, 1962, that the directions were intended “to establish a pattern of similarity in our calls in the vicinity of 273 Blackhawk.”²² The following are the six procedures that Cunningham listed, in his words.

1. Please do not start the calls until 7 p.m., Tuesday, December 4.
2. Please mention no move-in date. If the question comes up, please state only that the Robbins are entitled to the occupancy of their residence as of last Saturday.
3. Please leave a copy of the State of Illinois Civil Rights booklet. Copies were furnished to you last Saturday. In addition, you may want to leave a mimeographed copy of President Kennedy’s remarks which appeared in the Sun-Times. Five extra copies are herewith.
4. During the interview, please point out that the Village neither discourages or encourages residents by any race, color, or creed; however, there can be no question about the intention to keep the peace and preserve law and order.
5. Also point out that VIOLENCE is the worst thing that could possibly take place. It will not only discourage future home purchases in the area by other buyers, but it will also accelerate the selling of dwellings on the part of law-abiding citizens who want no part of any such activities. Request each family’s cooperation. Ask them to contact the Police Department if there are suspicious or unusual occurrences in the neighborhood.
6. When you complete this interview, please partially record their reactions on the back of the 3x5 card. When you have completed your calls for the evening, please leave the cards at the Village Hall with Mr. Pierce.²³

Despite the efforts of the Village Board and the Commission on Human Relations to assure no negative happenings in connection with African American move-ins, one less than pleasant incident was reported in connection with the Robbins family move-in. It concerned what some called a “spite fence” that had been erected between the Robbins property and that of one of their neighbors. Cunningham said in his Oral History interview that “The house was vacant because it needed some work done on the inside.” Explaining that a fence ran between the drive-ways to separate the Robbins property from the property to its east, he said the neighbor decided to paint the side of the fence facing the Robbins home black and the side of the fence facing his own home white. Cunningham said he called the Village Hall custodian and asked him to get the situation corrected immediately. “I didn’t care how he did it, if I had to pay for it myself, we wanted to get that fence repainted.” He said that was accomplished and the situation was kept hush-hush. “I would say that probably – except that we tell the story now – at that time, very few people knew about what the owner was trying to do.”

The next African American move-in occurred the following August, and those after it came at a more rapid pace. A total of seven families moved in during 1963, followed by six more in 1964, four more in 1965, and fourteen more in 1966. The move-ins occurred throughout the town and were not concentrated in any one location.

***

The once all-White suburb of Park Forest in the south suburban Chicago region continued to grow its African American population, mostly as a result of the concerted effort being put forth by Harry Teshima and a handful of community activists who worked with him. When Donald DeMarco joined the Village of Park Forest staff on December 1, 1971, as assistant village manager, more than 200 Black families resided in the community, and their residences were located throughout the Village and not concentrated in one locale as was common in so many other municipalities.

“That was certainly not by accident,” DeMarco said. “That was – I think – something that Harry Teshima, and the people that Harry Teshima rallied around himself, were responsible for.”  DeMarco said Teshima sought to attract Black buyers to purchase homes in Park Forest. “He recruited people to sell. He recruited people to buy,” DeMarco said. “That resulted in sudden growth like weeds of ‘for sale’ signs in the immediate vicinity.” According to DeMarco, Teshima talked people into taking down the signs, not to sell, or if selling not to put signs in their yards. He encouraged new Black families not to locate in the same neighborhoods as other Black families. “By the time that I got on the scene, there were still people who thought that Harry Teshima’s approach was a municipal approach and that the municipal approach was called ‘Black-A-Block,’” DeMarco said. “Some people thought this was wonderful, that Park Forest had come upon something that ought to be replicated, generally speaking, that it resulted in avoidance of all kind of problems, had a lot of benefits to it. Then there were others who felt that this was some kind of nefarious social engineering, inappropriate manipulation, an effort in order to deflect Blacks from moving into areas where they would be most comfortable, and the assumption was that they would be most comfortable in areas that were occupied by other Black families, because the assumption was that people are threatened by folks who don’t look like other folks who live in the area.”²⁴

DeMarco credits Teshima entirely for the successful way in which racial integration in housing occurred in Park Forest, and said his leadership led elected officials to embrace the program of integrated housing. “If there had not been intervention by Harry, and if those interventions hadn’t been taken with the knowledge and – first tacit but then actual – considered support of the Village Board and the manager, things wouldn’t have gone so well,” DeMarco said. “Because there originally were people that were upset.”

Village Manager Robert Pierce hired DeMarco specifically to deal with racial matters. DeMarco previously had served as staff to the Human Relations Commission in another Chicago suburb, Maywood, but was looking for a new position because a dispute between the Maywood Village Board and the commission had eliminated funding for the commission and thus for his job. Pierce was looking for someone who could help the Village resolve some racial issues that had arisen within the student body at Rich Central High School in Olympia Fields, which served a large segment of Park Forest at the time. In seeking a recommendation from the Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities, he was referred to DeMarco and subsequently hired him. Pierce gave DeMarco responsibility for overseeing matters relating to the integration of village neighborhoods.

A few years before his arrival in Park Forest, DeMarco said, many Park Foresters – including Manager Pierce, the Village Board, and the Commission on Human Relations – thought passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968 meant that what was happening in Park Forest would become commonplace throughout the United States and that racial ghettos would disappear. In DeMarco’s opinion, however, federal enforcement action was not stringent enough. “By 1970 it was pretty obvious that wouldn't happen. Even if they had been vigorous in enforcing prohibitions, there hadn't been unanimity at all in terms of affirmative action to promote integration, to promote housing markets that were equally attractive to people of all races.” He said the work of Democratic Senator Walter “Fritz” Mondale of Minnesota – later vice president under President Jimmy Carter – and Republican Senator Edward Brooks of Massachusetts – the first Black senator since reconstruction days – had anticipated “the replacement of ghettos with integrated and balanced living patterns,” but their efforts failed. “The Affirmative Action clause (was) interpreted as there’s an affirmative duty to make people aware that the law of the land is fair housing,” DeMarco said. He said the addition of the “little equal housing sign” in real estate ads was all that resulted.

“People in Park Forest thought pretty well of themselves related to racial things,” he said. “They thought that most of the nation within a generation or two would follow the lead of Park Forest and other such communities.” But, he said, “any outsider from Park Forest would say that’s super optimistic.” He added,” “They had not invested in understanding what was happening in civil rights and in fair housing.”

To illustrate that point, DeMarco explained that Village Manager Pierce had asked him to hold individual meetings with some of the mayors and managers of other south suburban communities. “He thought others might be interested in concerted action,” DeMarco said. “I sought these meetings and was not surprised to be underwhelmed with the responses.” He said some met with him, but he wasn’t very successful in convincing them to undertake programs such as the one in place in Park Forest. “While several were cordial and appreciative of any intelligence, no one was interested in joining anything then. It was PF’s problem, not theirs. Years later, after these towns became home to Black residents, it was different.”

The South Suburban Mayors & Managers Association, which was the council of governments for the region, played a big role in eventually gaining support of more municipalities in the south suburbs for open housing and pro-integration initiatives, according to DeMarco. He said the SSMMA played “a significant role, thus allowing PF to avoid looking too much as though it was telling sister municipalities what they should do, when and with whom.” He credited Beth Ruyle, then SSMMA executive director, with helping other towns “get in and stick with it.” He said that allowed the South Suburban Housing Center to begin “concerted training and cooperative actions” among communities and that was very satisfying for the Park Forest leadership.

Shortly after joining the staff, DeMarco discovered that the Public Works Department had been maintaining a card file “with every address in the municipality listed, and you had little codes that told you who was White and who was Black.” He said the practice was referred to as the "anti-clustering program." He said there even was a map on a wall at Village Hall that showed where Black residences were located. “By the time I got there, they had stopped keeping it up.” He explained, “They stopped it and it was evidentially as a result of thinking that it was no longer necessary to be involved in this.”

As late as 1977, however, some sort of tracking of Black residents in Park Forest apparently was taking place again. According to an article in the Star on August 25 of that year, African American resident Robert Brooks, a local certified public accountant, appeared before the Village Board and requested that the practice be discontinued. He presented a petition that contained names of Black residents of the community. The petition stated the demand that “The count be halted now.” It continued, “We quite well understand that you can go through with the action, regardless of our collective protest, but we emphatically point out that you do it over protests of the undersigned, and we fully intend to take the steps judged necessary to stop the count should you not see fit to honor our request.” The count apparently was being undertaken by outside agencies and was funded through a federal grant of $11,500. The Village’s first African American trustee, Ronald Bean, had been serving on the Board for three years at the time the objection was raised.

Even before DeMarco’s arrival in Park Forest, Bill Simpson had established a reputation as an activist, appearing before Village Board meetings and writing frequent letters to newspapers and elected officials. “Barney Cunningham named me to the Human Relations Commission,” he told the Park Forest Oral History interviewer in 1980. “I was the chairman of it for a few months.” He said he quit the commission after DeMarco had been hired and given responsibility for developing affirmative marketing policies to combat racial steering by various real estate entities. “I was there when Don DeMarco came,” Simpson said. “It wasn’t very long [after] he was here that I quit,” he explained. “There was a kind of flap about that.” When asked why he had quit, Simpson replied, “I quit because right off the bat, they started trying to introduce their program of integration maintenance. And I have been opposed to integration maintenance.”

DeMarco said the disagreement came about when the Commission on Human Relations began to develop a glossary of terms relating to race and housing. He said Simpson disagreed with other commission members regarding some of the definitions that were developed. “I think he was alone in opposition,” DeMarco said. “He said that such definitions denigrate Black neighborhoods. For him, segregation only meant White-only neighborhoods and thusly restricted services. He left the meeting angry and resigned by the next CHR meeting when his meaning was not accepted.” According to DeMarco, others on the commission were concerned about Simpson’s objections. “Shock ensued. Bill would not reconsider. He was adamant.”

According to DeMarco, Simpson had been vice chair of the commission but moved up when the chair resigned because he was relocating due to an employment change. “At the time, the CHR was working on defining terms prompted by my observation that our discussions sometimes were confusing as various members used an assortment of words differently,” he explained. “Bill especially wasn’t making himself understood, I felt. Sometimes disagreements weren’t real. Other times agreements weren’t real. Commissioners and I worked on a glossary of terms.”

Simpson’s methodology as chair was to hold his comments until the end and first let other members of the commission discuss matters thoroughly, DeMarco said. “He would speak last. He would allow other people to kind of coalesce around a meaning, and then he would want to come in and have a meaning that was not compatible with it. He did that several times, but it was particularly with respect to ‘segregation’ that he made a fuss.” DeMarco explained, “If you have Bill Simpson defining segregation as he did, segregation was when Blacks were kept out of White neighborhoods.” That was how he defined segregation, DeMarco said. “Nobody said that wasn't segregation, but other people could see that it’s segregated whether it’s White, or whether it’s Black, or whatever it is, and if anybody’s being kept out, that’s discrimination.”

DeMarco supplied the following as the definition of “segregation” as established by the Commission on Human Relations.

The separation of residence area, services, and other facilities on the basis of race, religion, ethnic group or social class, whether voluntary or involuntary, the latter often being the present consequence of past discrimination.

He said the CHR also defined “re-segregation” as “change of an integrated (or de-segregated) residential area to a segregated one.” However, according to DeMarco, neither of the definitions was yet to be finalized by the commission at the time of Simpson’s resignation.

“I believe that Bill could see that if the CHR would become an advocate for integration and against segregation that something like IM [integration maintenance] would become a goal when he wanted only to fight the root evil of White segregation,” he said. “Bill’s public letters and letters to officials prompted an assortment of people to make inquiries,” he continued. “Some were PF and other citizens and business people. Some were officials of government. I answered their questions and they appeared to be satisfied.” He added, “No doubt other people beside Bill felt that Blacks rather than Whites should guide the fight against White racism and may well have taken umbrage with PF insisting on doing integration race-inclusively.”

But in public, according to DeMarco, Simpson stood alone – except for his wife Juanita – in opposing integration maintenance. “I think that Bill’s inability to locate a Black complainant who had a putative claim to being limited from exercising any choice or otherwise experiencing injury served to ‘inoculate’ PF’s IM policy and program,” he said. “Bill’s seemingly obsessive campaigning for it, perhaps made other persons disinclined to wade in the water. The people who were initially concerned enough to inquire for themselves in response to Bill’s missives were among those who then got educated about IM. And some of them participated in making outreach to attract whichever race was underrepresented in their geography and/or areas of activity.”

The two terms that dominated discussions of race as it related to housing in Park Forest and Chicago’s far south suburbs at that time were “integration maintenance” and “affirmative marketing.” The Affirmative Marketing Handbook: A Guide to Integrated Housing – authored in 1979 by DeMarco and two of his colleagues on the Park Forest staff, Dudley Onderdonk who was the Village planner, and Judy Wunker who had been the assistant planner, along with Wilma Scott who then was a housing counselor with the Fair Housing Center of Home Investments Fund in Chicago – defined the terms as follows.

INTEGRATION MAINTENANCE: The use of educational and service programs to encourage the continuance of integration in the community.

AFFIRMATIVE MARKETING: A special effort to attract to a development or a community members of racial and ethnic groups which would not ordinarily be expected to be attracted through the normal mechanisms of the commercial market.²⁵

Perhaps Simpson’s best characterization of what he perceived as the evil of integration maintenance and affirmative marketing came in a letter he wrote to the Star newspaper on July 31, 1983. In it he offered three circumstances in which he believed the programs were destined to have wrongful effects on the African American population. In the first, he offered the example of his three college-educated children wanting to live in close proximity of one another in one of the towns using the programs but being counseled against doing so because it would interfere with integration. In the second, he relayed a scenario in which a regional housing center would maintain a huge map of the area, with black and white pins stuck in it to designate where African Americans and Caucasians resided and how that would be used to deny other of his family members from living close to one another. In the third, he described a “Federal Bureau for Stabile, Racially-Balanced Living” which would permit Blacks to move only to certain states in order maintain a racial balance in the population all across the nation.

“Are such imagined scenarios just so many fanciful meanderings?” he asked. Answering his own question, he continued, “I think not. Consider. When the backers of then called ‘integration maintenance’ began to promote racial balancing, the emphasis was on individual communities. As time has passed, however, the emphasis has shifted to regional implementation of the idea. Attending this shift has been the drive to change ordinances and laws to abet publicly enforced population balancing.”

The “regional housing agency” that received the brunt of Simpson’s criticism was the South Suburban Housing Center which was incorporated in April 1975.

John Petruszak, who became executive director of the South Suburban Housing Center in 1995, explained that the idea originated with members of some chapters of the League of Women Voters in the south suburbs. “They observed Realtors in the south suburbs steering people by race to subdivisions and communities,” Petruszak said. “That was the reason for starting the Housing Center.” He explained that a similar group had been organized in Park Forest South – now University Park – and the two bodies eventually merged together for the purpose of addressing practices of housing discrimination and steering on a regional level.

“DeMarco was responsible when I first came on the scene, the late 70s, early 80s, for pushing forward the idea of regionalism in the efforts to try to maintain diversity in the south suburbs,” Petruszak said. “That came from Park Forest. That came from DeMarco.” He said DeMarco also was the driving force behind creation of the Fair Housing Legal Action Committee (FHLAC) which eventually, in concert with the Housing Center, was responsible for lawsuits against real estate sales persons who were charged with violating the Fair Housing Act. “That was the starting point for regional planning for dealing with affirmative marketing of the communities,” he said. “But Don DeMarco was really the architect of this regional concept.” He added, “He always liked to sort of be in the background too, I think. He’d get things started but then kind of stood in the background and kind of guided things.”²⁶

According to DeMarco, his “tendency to get things started and then hang back” was attributable to a lesson he was taught while on the staff of the Toledo Board of Community Relations in the late 1960s. He said he learned from the Board’s executive director, George Nelson Smith, that “When you stand out and get credit, others hang back and hedge, positioning themselves to bale when controversy comes, and in racial matters, it’s almost assuredly coming.” DeMarco said those words became his operational philosophy. “I thereafter looked for opportunities to plant notions, phrases, write letters, papers, and a couple of books where I would take secondary or no credit.” He said he would take ownership only in cases where it was needed to protect the job safety of others, or where it was necessary in order to gain funding.

Petruszak had begun his work in housing in the south suburbs while he was an undergraduate at the University of Illinois. “I started looking at integration patterns in the south suburbs.” That research, which resulted in a paper on racial integration in Park Forest South won him a scholarship to complete his baccalaureate degree. Later as a law student at DePaul University, he took a position with the Housing Center as a testing investigator. After receiving his law license, he became the Center’s staff attorney. He returned as the executive director after trying private practice for a few years but not finding it as rewarding as his Center work. He also had spent six years on the staff of the Legal Division of the Illinois Department of Human Rights.

“The Housing Center started with enforcement programs and counseling came later,” Petruszak explained. He said staff first engaged in rental counseling, but eventually got into home-buyer counseling and all the other forms of counseling. Testing and legal action were where the serious work took place.

Two groups were influential in assisting the Housing Center when it was getting started, according to Petruszak. One was Business and Professional People for the Public Interest (BPI), a public interest law firm headed by Alexander Polikoff, the attorney in the famed Gautreaux case that brought a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that resulted in scattered-site public housing. “We came up with some of the most progressive fair housing ordinances that were thoroughly researched by Harvard-trained attorneys that BPI had. State-of-the-art things at that time: anti-solicitation ordinances, data-tracking ordinances.” He added, “Then the federal government amended the Fair Housing Act in 1988 and in order to get the federal funds your local ordinances had to be substantially equivalent with the federal law. In the late 80s, then, there was another rash of changes to the ordinances, to beef them up to be substantially equivalent to federal so you could continue to get federal funds.”

Polikoff and BPI worked in companionship with the Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities, and that was the group that provided training for Council staff and volunteers to conduct investigations.

Park Forest, the Housing Center, BPI, and even Bill and Juanita Simpson, all became involved in a lengthy legal case beginning in 1983. Petruszak called it, “the war.” It centered on three houses along Apache Street in Park Forest that had been obtained by the Housing Center, rehabbed, and placed on the market through an area real estate firm. A few years earlier, another home on Apache – one that had been abandoned – had been rehabbed in cooperation with a local not-for-profit agency, and then sold in something of a pilot effort. Regarding the three new homes that were on the market, Ronald Bean – who had become mayor – told the Star, “If you take houses that have been deteriorating and get them on the tax rolls, you’ll also have a family which may well be participating in the community.” According to the May 22, 1983, article, Bean said that “Profit is not a high priority in this case,” adding, “We want our homes to be in good shape and have people living in them.”

The Center had requested that the firm affirmatively market the residences to assure that potential White homebuyers were as aware of them as would be Black homebuyers. Initially the three houses were listed in the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) book, but then they were pulled because the Greater South Suburban Board of Realtors objected to affirmative marketing, claiming it to be both illegal and unethical. The South Suburban Board was supported in that action by the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Nine communities that were part of the Housing Center and FHLAC sued the realtors in federal court. Alexander Polikoff was their attorney. The nine south suburban municipalities were Blue Island, Calumet Park, Country Club Hills, Glenwood, Hazel Crest, Matteson, Park Forest, Richton Park, and University Park (formerly Park Forest South).

“The FHLAC communities brought the action, along with the Housing Center, and then they were counter-sued by the Greater South Suburban Board of Realtors, the Illinois Association of Realtors, and then the NAR – the National Association of Realtors – jumped in,” Petruszak said. “It was a full-fledged war by that time, on the concept of ‘Can municipalities use affirmative marketing programs and techniques in trying maintain stability in their communities?’ That’s what all these communities were grappling with at that time and they were passing very progressive fair housing ordinances that had been thoroughly researched by BPI.” He continued, “The real estate community, the National Association of Realtors, attacked us head-on in trying to do that. And it was all over this affirmative marketing plan for these three properties in Eastgate in Park Forest.”

Petruszak said that the Simpsons opposed the affirmative marketing attempt on the three properties. Because of their deep involvement with the Far South Suburban Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), they influenced the chapter to take a similar position. “They were very adamantly against all types of integration maintenance efforts,” Petruszak said of the Simpsons. “They believed that what the communities were trying to do was to exclude African Americans. They believed from a moral standpoint, that was wrong. We butted heads with the NAACP, mainly because of their position. There were people on the NAACP that had much more progressive viewpoints but they [the Simpsons] were very suspicious of all the community efforts.”

Petruszak said he found it ironic that Bill Simpson sided with the real estate community on the matter. “I believe that he during ‘the war’ sided with the realtors. Actually sided with the realtors because their position is that fair housing is just observing that people in protected classes were not discriminated against. He wouldn’t go beyond that, wouldn’t go to the second step of the Fair Housing Act, which is the battle we’re still having today over affirmatively furthering fair housing, that in order to replace patterns of segregation that there has to be some type of affirmative actions taken to level the playing field. And he would never go in that direction.”

The court case was heard by federal Judge Harry Leinenweber over several months during 1987 and 1988, with attorneys from the Chicago firm of Schiff, Hardin and Waite arguing along with Polikoff, who had been a member of the same firm before joining BPI in 1970. In the decision he issued late in December 1988, Leinenweber sided with the Housing Center and its member communities and against the Realtors, albeit he did strike down some restrictive practices regarding regulation of “for sale” signs and imposition of anti-solicitation ordinance restrictions. “Special outreach efforts which further promote racial integration and diversity are not now and never have been a discriminatory housing practice under the Fair Housing Act,” he said in his decision. “Indeed, the promotion of integrated housing and neighborhoods is one of the primary goals of the act.”

The Washington Post, in an article published on December 31, 1988, called Leinenweber’s ruling “a setback for the National Association of Realtors.” It also referenced a statement by Polikoff that the judge’s ruling affirms that the Fair Housing Act guarantees the right to encourage integration in housing in addition to outlawing discrimination.

The Far South Suburban Chapter of the NAACP remained persistent well beyond the settling of the Apache Street lawsuit in voicing its opposition to integration maintenance and affirmative marketing. A Star newspaper article of August 13,1989, gives an account of a hearing of the Illinois Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights at which Peter Flemister, then president of the chapter, called such efforts “nefarious” and described them as “racial discrimination…in the name of integration.” Flemister told the panel that “To accept these programs is to accept our own inferiority and buy into myths perpetrated about us as a people.” He continued, “I don’t care what the racial makeup is. Blacks have a right to move where they want. If Whites want to stay, fine.” He was especially hard on the Housing Center, saying “I am tired of Whites leading the efforts of fair housing. Foxes cannot be trusted to guard the chicken coops.”

Karen Martin, executive director of the Housing Center at the time, called Flemister’s remarks “defamatory.” A few months earlier, in a letter that appeared in the February 2, 1989, issue of the Chicago Tribune, Martin attacked both Flemister and William North, executive director of the NAR, for statements they had made regarding the Housing Center and its programs. “The South Suburban Housing Center tries to ensure that the total real estate market is completely open to people of all races,” she wrote. “We expand choices for all homeseekers. We do not set acceptable percentages of Whites or Blacks for any community. To say so is inflammatory and completely false.” She closed her letter by defining integration maintenance as something that “suggests quotas and acceptable levels of Blacks and Whites, something we do not advocate.” On the other hand, she said, Judge Leinenweber “consented, even applauded, affirmative marketing.”

Her distinction between the two terms underscores a difference in the actions of the Housing Center when compared to the initial undertakings of Harry Teshima and his cohorts in Park Forest. Teshima was very much concerned about fostering neighborhood balance predicated on unstated quotas, principally because he was operating within a framework that predominantly was White and in which he hoped to integrate an entire community without causing White flight. The work of the Housing Center, on the other hand, was focused on guiding the sale of real estate in a fashion that did not steer one ethnic group over another into an entire neighborhood. It also was designed to curb White flight, but through a different approach. A set of guidelines for promoting pro-integration moves was prepared by the Housing Center and was included in the Affirmative Marketing Handbook. Those guidelines were as follows.

[W]here the buyer is White, it is safe to say that a move to any area which is 20 percent minority or over would be considered a pro-integration move, especially if the percent of minorities has been increasing.

Additionally Whites buying a home within a neighborhood which is 20 percent minority or over, and which itself is within a White community, would be considered an affirmative marketing move.

Where the buyer is Black, it is safe to say that a move to any area which is over 95 percent White would be counted as a pro-integration move, except where close to a Black neighborhood or a heavily Black neighboring community unless that community is so separate geographically or politically as not to matter.²⁷

According to Kathleen McDonough, who as Kathleen Cardona at the time was executive director of the Park Forest South Community Information Center (CIC) and later director of community relations in Park Forest, the 20 percent threshold was “not an arbitrary number.” Rather, she said, it was “indicative of the regional racial makeup at the time.” McDonough had worked closely with DeMarco and others in establishing affirmative marketing standards for municipalities in the south suburban region of Chicagoland.²⁸

Martin’s attack on North was not likely to upset anyone in fair housing circles. Certainly North was not a favorite of DeMarco. “He’d long been an opponent of fair housing law,” DeMarco said, “saying it violated basic private property rights.” He said North supported “neighborhood integrity,” which really meant racial integrity and segregation maintenance. “His position expressed to me directly in his office and in assorted statements to his membership nationally and to the south suburban brokers was this: to cooperate with PF and its so-called affirmative marketing policy would violate national law and Realtor commitments to fair housing.” DeMarco said North insisted that Realtors shouldn’t take race into consideration at all, and to do so “violates good practice and would subject violators to discipline, including possible expulsion.” It was the same argument that NAR lawyers unsuccessfully used in their defense of the organization before Judge Leinenweber in the Apache Street case.

DeMarco had a softer feeling toward Bill Simpson than he had toward North. “I began to appreciate that Bill’s challenges led to an assortment of interested people ‘lining up’ to be educated about integration and our intentional efforts to increase and sustain it.” As such, DeMarco said, Simpson contributed to the success of integration maintenance in Park Forest even without intending to do so. “It’s a major reason why I nominated Bill – and Juanita who very much valued integration even while being wifely supportive of her husband – for the PF Hall of Fame.” In the final analysis, DeMarco said, “Bill was a Black man who sought to intimidate with his intellect, but was otherwise quite non-menacing and exceedingly civil.”

While a number of successful legal actions were taken by the Housing Center and FHLAC, DeMarco – who actually offered courses on affirmative marketing for interested real estate agents – said he felt a majority of the sales people were willing to accommodate the affirmative marketing requests, even if their preference would have been not to be forced to do so. “Few brokers wanted to start a fight over race which could end up in court, as such trouble hurt business, especially listings even if resolved satisfactorily later,” he said. “Many agents were interested in referrals of prospects from the non-profit housing services with which we worked. They accepted our fair housing expectations if it brought rewards as well as avoided problems. And we weren’t asking them to start uncomfortable race discussions with anyone. Change wasn’t cheered. Reluctance and desires that we not complicate their lives were easy to see. But big blow ups and total blow offs were few.”

As the files at the Housing Center indicate, many complaints about abuse by real estate agents were settled before court action was finalized, albeit a few – such as the Apache Street case – needed court resolution because both sides held fast to their positions. In that connection, a few real estate offices and a few developers in the south suburbs were cited by the courts for violations. Overall, the records indicate, the Housing Center and FHLAC were extremely successful in either winning in court or in achieving out-of-court settlements to their advantage.

Petruszak made a point that the processes used by the Housing Center had evolved with time. The Center had been incorporated in April 1971 and merged with the Park Forest South Community Information Center and the Far South Suburban Housing Service during the 1977-78 period. In reference to the guidelines that appeared in the Affirmative Marketing Handbook, he said he believes the specific “pro-integration move” listed in those guidelines was in place during the “infancy of the organization.” But, he said, “By the time I was hired as the test coordinator in late 1981 and then continued as the staff attorney until 1985, I do not recall ever seeing this precise guideline being implemented by the Center’s homeseeker counselors, education, or other staff.” He said he believes the guideline was “a theoretical concept statement made in the first couple of years of the Center’s existence.”

By contrast, Petruszak said, “The benchmark I recall being used for pro-integrative moves was roughly determined on percentages derived from the demographic makeup of the entire metropolitan area. On a practical basis, once African American families started moving to the south suburbs in large numbers, no accurate or updatable data were available to determine any precise demographic percentages, particularly in the sales market. Nearly all the individual counseling efforts by the Center during those years,” – he explained he was talking about the early 1980s – “were directed to the rental market homeseekers and options in large multi-family complexes.” As regards home sales, he said the focus was on efforts to change Realtor practices, since those practices had the major influence on location choices made by buyers. “Obtaining accurate data to address remedies to segregated patterns in housing through affirmative means was as key an issue then as it is now, in efforts to implement the Fair Housing Act’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing protections.”

¹Los Angeles Times, August 17, 1999.

²William H. Whyte, The Organization Man, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), 310.

³Ibid., 311.

⁴Park Forest Oral History Project, interview of James D. Saul by Glenda Bailey-Mershon, September 1980 [All subsequent Saul quotations from same source],

⁵Park Forest Oral History Project, interview of Robert Dinerstein by Glenda Bailey-Mershon, October 1980 [All subsequent Dinerstein quotations from same source].

⁶Park Forest Oral History Project, interview of Bernard G. Cunningham by Beverly Helm, December 1980 [All subsequent Cunningham quotations from same source].

⁷Park Forest Oral History Project, interview of Edward Waterman by Glenda Bailey-Mershon, November 1980 [All subsequent Waterman quotations from same source].

⁸Park Forest Oral History Project, interview of Henry X. Dietch by Chip Shields, September 1980 [All subsequent Dietch quotations from same source].

⁹Park Forest Oral History Project, interview of Anthony Scariano by Judy Mathias, November 1980 [All subsequent Scariano quotations from same source].

¹⁰Park Forest Oral History Project, interview of Carroll F, Sweet Jr. by Jane Nicoll, April 1991 [All subsequent Sweet quotations from same source].

¹¹The New York Times, December 28, 1997.

¹²The Chicago Reader, February 17, 2005.

¹³The New York Times, May 11, 2003.

¹⁴Private conversation with the author.

¹⁵Bill Adelman, “Beulah Comes to Park Forest,” February 1999 [From the private collection of Myrtle Martin.

¹⁶Interview with the author.

¹⁷Private conversation with the author.

¹⁸Interview with the author.

¹⁹Park Forest Oral History Project, interview of Bill Simpson by Chip Shields, November 1980 [All subsequent Sweet quotations from same source].

²⁰Park Forest Oral History Project, interview of Larry Clark by Glenda Bailey-Mershon, January 1981 [All subsequent Sweet quotations from same source].

²¹Jacqueline F. Scott, James Blackman, Robert Thayer. Park Forest African American Pioneers: When and How We Entered, 1958-1968. Retrieved from Open Portal to University Scholarship. http://opus.govst.edu/region­_parkforest/7.

²²Ibid.

²³Robert Pierce was Park Forest Village Manager at the time.

²⁴Interview with the author.

²⁵Judy Wunker, Wilma Scott, Donald DeMarco, Dudley Onderdonk, Affirmative Marketing Handbook: A Guide to Integrated Housing, (Park Forest, Illinois: Planning Division of the Village of Park Forest, 1979).

²⁶Interview with the author.

²⁷Ibid., 10-4.

²⁸Interview with the author.

Another example of racial inequity in access to health services

out·post, \ˈaut-ˌpōst\, noun: an outlying or frontier settlement

ob·serv·er, \əb-ˈzər-vər\, noun: a representative sent to observe but not participate in an activity

Friday, April 10, 2020 

By John A. Ostenburg

A few days ago, I heard Dr. Wayne A. I. Frederick, president of Howard University in Washington, D.C., being interviewed regarding the high number of African Americans who are succumbing to the COVID-19 virus. In addition to being an academic, President Frederick is a medical doctor. Howard is one of the most highly regarded HBCUs (historically Black colleges and universities) in the nation.

The interviewer zeroed in on the commonly held opinion that a fundamental reason for the disproportionate impact is that health insurance benefits are not as prevalent among African Americans and other citizen groups that suffer more greatly from poverty than do most Whites. That opinion is based on a theory that the lack of insurance limits the opportunity for a larger number of Black and Brown persons to avoid health problems, especially heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension.

But Dr. Frederick shot back that more limited insurance coverage may be a part of the problem, but it’s far from being the principal cause. He explained that in Washington, for example, upwards of 80 percent of Black residents have health insurance – I presume that’s because so many are federal employees – but that a 15-year-difference exists between the life expectancy of residents of one neighborhood that is almost exclusively African-American and those in a neighborhood three miles away that’s predominantly Caucasian. The reason for such disparities, Dr. Frederick said, is access.

Listening to his explanation, I thought, “Access?” Then it hit me: a major access problem is right here in our region. I recalled how Chicago’s south side and south suburbs have suffered for decades with the lack of a Level I trauma center. A few years ago, the city’s south-side residents got a reprieve in this connection when the University of Chicago locked arms with some other healthcare providers to create a trauma center in the Chicago Lawn area, but that’s of no benefit to south suburban residents. For them, the nearest Level I trauma center continues to be at Christ Hospital, more than 100 blocks away at a minimum, and given traffic patterns 45 to 60 minutes away. Meanwhile, such trauma centers are everywhere in other portions of Chicago and in other suburban regions of Chicagoland.

So what’s the common denominator for Chicago’s south side and south suburbs? Answer: a predominantly African-American population. The bottom line is, in neighborhoods where the population is mostly White, access to a trauma center at times of healthcare emergencies – work accidents, automobile accidents, injuries resulting from crime – is relatively easy whereas access on such occasions in neighborhoods where most non-Whites reside is virtually non-existent.

And to echo what Dr. Frederick was saying, such access is not based on whether the individual needing Level I trauma care has insurance or not; in fact, it’s not based on economic status at all. The truth is, Black residents of some regions of the trauma-center-blighted territory are as wealthy, or wealthier, as/than most Whites: many residents of the affluent suburbs of Flossmoor and Olympia Fields, and neighborhoods of many other south suburban municipalities, are not financially challenged. But do they have access to trauma care when they need it? No.

To be accurate, of course, it must be pointed out that the much smaller percentage of White residents who live in these deprived communities also must go without ready access. Their numbers probably correspond to some degree with the relatively small population of non-Whites who reside in the neighborhoods that do have easy access. Those statistics, however, relate to outliers: the persons represented by them do not influence access or lack of access in their respective regions because decisions on what will, or will not, be available clearly are determined on the basis of the majority population.

About mid-way in my 20 years as mayor of south suburban Park Forest, I undertook the task of doing something about this major healthcare discrepancy. That was before the UofC embarked on its facility, so my efforts focused on the entire south region of Chicagoland, basically everything from 95^th Street, location of Christ Hospital, south. I decided we needed a public hearing on the issue and gathered a group of volunteers to help me with the planning. We wanted to be as comprehensive as possible in examining the issue and all the attendant reasons for why our residents lacked ready access to a Level I trauma center.

In preparation for the meeting, I sat down with some Park Forest paramedics to get their take on the need for Level I trauma facilities as it related to their day-to-day work. I was shocked by what I heard. They were very direct in explaining that the trip from Park Forest to Christ Hospital took a minimum of an hour when traffic conditions were good. Furthermore, because Christ served so many patients who had trauma needs, often it would be on override, which meant that the patient had to be transported ever further to Stroger Hospital, which was the next most accessible site. “Sometimes we just can’t take the risk of having a patient go that long without emergency room attention,” one of the paramedics explained. “We have to get them to another facility as quickly as we can.”

On the day when the public gathering was held, among the items we had on display was a map that had been prepared by one of the volunteers. It had little red dots to show the locations of Level I trauma centers in the Chicago and suburban region. As you might suspect, multiple red dots were present in the west and north regions; none was present in the south, the region with the greatest concentration of non-White residents. [If that same map were to be viewed today, it would show one lone red dot on Chicago’s south side to represent the UofC facility.]

The program for the event included remarks by policymakers and others and some panel discussions of issues and possible solutions. An impassioned keynote was delivered by former Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., whose district encompassed the entire affected region, as he outlined how his constituents suffered levels of deprivation that were less common among the constituents of many of his congressional colleagues. The panels featured state legislators, county board members, hospital representatives, and social service agency folks. In the audience were other elected officials and several clergy who represented those who were most directly affected by the lack of access. Questions were asked, answers were given, ideas were exchanged, pledges were made, but for the most part it simply was a case of words, words, words: nothing has changed in the decade since that gathering as regards Level I trauma center access for residents of Chicago’s southland.

I remember in particular how some of those who spoke that day gave explanations for why no Level I trauma center was present in our region. Mostly they focused on economics. Hospital representatives explained that their emergency rooms already were overcrowded because of uninsured clients who used them for regular health care in addition to emergencies; they also noted that the type of medical personnel needed to maintain a Level I trauma center was harder to access in the south suburbs because so few of those professionals resided in the region; and they said a Level I trauma center really needed to be associated with a teaching hospital and none was present in the south suburbs.

As I listened, I recalled an experience I had several years earlier during my first administrative job in higher education. I was director of alumni affairs at an area university at the time and I reported to the alumni association board of directors. I had gotten far behind in delivering an issue of the quarterly alumni newsletter and I had to explain the reasons at a meeting of the board. I gave one explanation after another, all of which I thought were very significant, and then the president of the association looked me directly in the eye and said, “John, you have very good excuses. But they’re still excuses.” That’s the way I felt about what I heard at our local gathering that day. Excuses.

So now a major health crisis is facing the U.S. and the statistics are clear in confirming that the same population in our region that is deprived of a Level I trauma center is also the population that is being most directly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Different circumstances with different needs and different effects, but the bottom line remains the same. Believe me, elected officials in the areas affected by the dramatic number of African Americans suffering from COVID-19 are not surprised that this is the case, for they know that their constituents are more severely impacted by the lack of access to all types of healthcare than is the population in general. The question is, can they convince a sufficient number of their fellow officials – those whose constituencies don’t suffer from such lack of access – to join the efforts to find remedies?

Whatever the costs associated with such potentially preventative efforts, they are miniscule by comparison to what it costs to deal with the aftermath. As such, it truly is in everyone’s best interest to address these issues and not allow the disparity in access to grow any wider. Every policy decision that develops out of this healthcare crisis must be made with total consciousness of the racial inequity that is present in our society and must include clear and decisive steps to remedy that problem. No more excuses!

John A. Ostenburg retired in 2019 after 20 years as mayor of Park Forest, Illinois. He previously served in the Illinois House of Representatives, and before becoming mayor, served seven years as a member of the Park Forest municipal council. While mayor, he was an active member of the National League of Cities and served during 2017-18 as co-chair of the NLC Race, Equity And Leadership (REAL) Council. He was chair of the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus, a group of more than 270 Chicago-region municipalities, for 2018-19 and was a member of the MMC Executive Board for several years. He also was chair of the MMC Environment Committee for five years. He retired in July 2010 as the chief of staff for the Chicago Teachers Union after holding various CTU posts over a 15-year period. A former newspaper reporter and editor, he also has been a teacher and/or administrator at elementary, secondary, community college, and university levels. Presently he is a Senior fellow at the Chicago-based Metropolitan Planning Council. E-mail him at [email protected].

The role of racial equity in establishing environmental justice

out·post, \ˈaut-ˌpōst\, noun: an outlying or frontier settlement

ob·serv·er, \əb-ˈzər-vər\, noun: a representative sent to observe but not participate in an activity

Thursday, April 9, 2020 

By John A. Ostenburg

From 2014 through 2019, I served first as co-chair and then as chair of the Environment Committee of the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus, an organization representing more than 270 municipalities in the greater Chicago region, including the City of Chicago. Simultaneous with that service, I was active in the Race, Equity, And Leadership (REAL) Council of the National League of Cities, a group of 19,000 communities around the U.S., and had the honor of serving as co-chair of that group during 2017-2018. As such, I was very pleased last fall to be invited to address some remarks on climate and racial equity at the Regional Planning Kickoff Meeting that was hosted by the MMC. The following is the text of those remarks.

REGIONAL CLIMATE PLANNING KICKOFF MEETING

Metropolitan Mayors Caucus Environment Committee

October 8, 2019

233 S. Wacker Drive, Suite 800 (Cook County Room), Chicago

SUSTAINABILITY AND EQUITY

John A. Ostenburg

Senior Fellow

Metropolitan Planning Council

 

When Robert Frost wrote the words, “The worst that you can do / Is set me back a little more behind,” in his poem “A Servant to Servants,” he wasn’t thinking about environmental justice or racial equity. Yet the admonition is applicable nonetheless when we consider how today’s problems relating to climate change have a disparate effect on those who already are suffering most greatly from many of the problems that plague our society.

 

A century after Frost wrote his poem, we find that much of our nation’s non-White population struggles to succeed on an unlevel playing field – already “set back” as it were – and the impact climate change is having on that population indeed is further setting it back, even more than just “a little.”

 

Racial inequity means that persons of some races or ethnic groups don’t enjoy the same opportunity to achieve success as do those who are White. That’s what White privilege means: that it’s easier for Whites to succeed than it is for non-Whites. It’s easier for Whites to gain good and full employment, more affordable and better housing, more educational opportunities for their children, better health care for their families, and so much more.

 

But now that the world finally has awakened to the reality of climate change, we discover another arena which is inequitable toward non-Whites. As a 2009 study by the University California, Berkeley, concludes: “Climate change does not affect everyone equally, and it is people of color and the poor who will be hurt the most.” In the decade since that study identified The Climate Gap – which was the title of the study – the evidence of its authenticity has been proven over and again.

 

Perhaps that is why the NAACP in April 2019 issued a toolkit that it titled Our Communities, Our Power: Advancing Resistance and Resilience in Climate Change Adaptation. Created by the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program, the 478-page document has the basic premise that “The root causes of the problems our communities face – like climate change, racism, and economic inequality – are all deeply connected.” But, the authors note, “Since the problems are connected, so are the solutions.”

The NAACP toolkit offers a great opportunity for local elected officials to take a look at their jurisdictional settings and analyze how the effects of environmental problems in their regions may be disproportionately impacting their non-White residents. Although designed primarily as tools for local activists, the directives offered in the toolkit have great potential for opening the eyes of elected officials who previously may never have made the connection between sustainability and racial equity.

 

The authors of the toolkit explain that “Research has documented the link between where people of color live and where hazardous waste facilities and coalfired plants are located – the institutional racism of land use policy, industrial zoning and siting, and housing policies.” Even for communities that do not have such facilities as the two listed, the essence of the statement should be a wake-up call to the reality that zoning, economic development programs, road and highway construction, etc., must be undertaken with a concerted commitment to assure no harm comes to those who reside in the neighborhoods where projects are coming to fruition. If they cannot give that assurance, leaders need to abandon the projects or see that they are undertaken in places where the potential for harm does not exist.

 

As Katherine T. Egland, chairperson for the NAACP National Board of Directors Environmental and Climate Justice Committee stated when the toolkit was released, “Our communities must transition from a situation where we are on the losing end of too many socio-economic equations because of systemic inequities.” She added, “Climate change impacts are already deepening the marginalization that our communities face, and more is on the horizon.”

 

Certainly many municipalities – in the Chicago region and elsewhere – have identified the need to put in place specific programs dealing with a variety of ecological problems, including climate change. In creating such programs, most of those municipalities have tied them together by a “sustainability” plan that receives official codification by the local municipal council. In doing so, though, the local officials need to give full consideration to the word “sustainability” and thus assure that the plans they approve indeed fulfill the responsibilities that the word implies. Who or what needs to be sustained?

 

In the final analysis, it is the individual human citizen the plans are intended to sustain. The sustainability of human life requires clean water to drink, non-polluted air to breathe, the oxygen that is provided by trees, etc. If, in developing zoning policies, local governments allow for plants to be sited where they will be pumping pollutants into the air or into local water sources that will negatively impact those who reside near those plants, they certainly are not living up to the commitment of their sustainability plans.

 

According to the Berkeley study that identified The Climate Gap, “Research demonstrates that sources of toxic pollution that contribute to poor health are often concentrated in neighborhoods with the highest populations of low-income families and people of color.” The authors of the study point out that “Policymakers have an opportunity to be efficient and effective stewards of taxpayer dollars by focusing on climate polluters disproportionately responsible for regional greenhouse gas emissions and creating toxic air in the most polluted neighborhoods.” They acknowledge that taking such action will have some negative consequences, “but the benefits of fairness and public health far outweigh the modest costs of extra complexity in the system.” 

 

However, if local elected officials want to assure that their efforts truly are tools for an equitable sustainability of human life, their need to combat climate change must reach into a number of other areas also. For example, their basic responsibility for lowering global warming is to diminish the carbon footprint for the jurisdiction which they oversee. While doing so will have positive benefits for the whole of their constituencies, because it subsequently will reduce the potential for extreme weather events that impact everyone, The Climate Gap study shows that it will be of extraordinary benefit for non-Whites. The study points out that an analysis of nine counties in California during the period of 1999 to 2003, showed that every 10-degree increase in the temperature resulted in a 2.6 percent increase in cardiovascular deaths, but that the increase for African Americans was higher, as much as twice as high for Los Angeles residents.

 

In large part, the reason more African Americans and other non-Whites suffer from such weather changes as extreme heat or extreme cold is because of the level of poverty is so much greater in those communities. According to the Henry K. Kaiser Family Foundation, for example, in 2017 only 8 percent of the White population in America was at the poverty level, while 20 percent of African Americans and 16 percent of Hispanics were in that category. The Climate Gap authors cite studies that show far less access to air conditioning and other temperature-modifying amenities among poorer non-Whites than among others. Regarding heat-related deaths, the study states that “Nationally, African Americans were found to have a 5.3 percent higher prevalence of heat-related mortality than Whites and 64 percent of this disparity is potentially attributable to disparities in the prevalence of central AC technologies.”

 

Among the many responsibilities of elected officials is the twofold one of assuring that all public policies promote a sustainable existence for all residents and guaranteeing that all public policies are racially equitable. Unfortunately, these are not obligations that fit within the traditional framework of municipal government. As such, leaders have the obligation of forcing into the mix true and genuine consideration of each of these topics in developing public policies. When developing budgets and other long-range planning, assuring a sustainable existence for every constituent must be one of the highest motivators in the decision-making process.

 

Organizations that represent municipal leaders have tackled both the problem of racial equity and climate change. The National League of Cities, for example, created its Race, Equity, And Leadership (REAL) program with the goal of making more municipal leaders aware of endemic conditions in their cities and towns that may contribute to racial inequity. The Chicago region’s Metropolitan Mayors Caucus took on a broad range of sustainability issues – including climate change – in creating its Greenest Region Compact, to which more than 100 municipalities in the greater Chicago area have become signatories. A host of similar programs exist on both topics. The time may be at hand, however, to assure that the two subjects are not viewed separately but as one. As stated in The Climate Gap,

 

The climate gap is an issue of human rights, public health, and basic fairness. But it’s more than that. If we protect those who are most vulnerable, we will effectively protect all of us…by choosing policies that shield against the very real dangers facing poor neighborhoods and people of color we will insure that climate policy will be effective for the nation as a whole.

 

Truly a lofty goal for any elected official. By joining efforts such as those of the National League of Cities and the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus, elected leaders take a giant step toward achievement of that goal. But it is not enough just to acknowledge that a problem exists: rather, elected officials have the obligation to take definitive steps toward solutions.

John A. Ostenburg retired in 2019 after 20 years as mayor of Park Forest, Illinois. He previously served in the Illinois House of Representatives, and before becoming mayor, served seven years as a member of the Park Forest municipal council. While mayor, he was an active member of the National League of Cities and served during 2017-18 as co-chair of the NLC Race, Equity And Leadership (REAL) Council. He was chair of the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus, a group of more than 270 Chicago-region municipalities, for 2018-19 and was a member of the MMC Executive Board for several years. He also was chair of the MMC Environment Committee for five years. He retired in July 2010 as the chief of staff for the Chicago Teachers Union after holding various CTU posts over a 15-year period. A former newspaper reporter and editor, he also has been a teacher and/or administrator at elementary, secondary, community college, and university levels. Presently he is a Senior fellow at the Chicago-based Metropolitan Planning Council. E-mail him at [email protected].

COVID-19 stats clearly illustrate racial inequity in America today

out·post, \ˈaut-ˌpōst\, noun: an outlying or frontier settlement

ob·serv·er, \əb-ˈzər-vər\, noun: a representative sent to observe but not participate in an activity

Tuesday, April 7, 2020 

By John A. Ostenburg

The presence of racial inequity in America is dramatically illustrated by statistics relating to the COVID-19 health crisis. Areas with high concentrations of African-American residents have seen far more cases and deaths resulting from the presence of the pandemic in the U.S. The Chicago Tribune reported on April 7, for example, that 68 percent of the Windy City's deaths from coronavirus were African Americans, while that group represents only 30 percent of the overall city population. Disproportionally higher levels of illness and death among Blacks also is occurring in the Chicago suburbs and also in other major metropolitan regions.

The reasons behind these statistics are many. The bottom line, however, is that a more prevalent presence of poverty within African-American communities results in fewer benefits such as adequate health care; because the primary source of jobs open to many Black workers is in the service industry, many are required to work as store clerks, fast-food restaurant staff, etc., while the majority of Whites who enjoy different jobs have the opportunity to work from home at such times.

Certainly those circumstances are not the case for everyone in either of the two racial categories, but as the number show a very definite difference does exist. And the presence of that difference is a very clear illustration that Whites in our society enjoy benefits that are not available to many Blacks. America must wake up to this reality, and elected officials must begin to take steps to correct the imbalance. We cannot allow these differences, based solely on race, to continue.

In order for municipal leaders to implement programs of racial equity, they first must be committed to the concept that racial inequity indeed exists. Many elected officials – almost exclusively White ones – do not see it, and many who do see it nonetheless refuse to acknowledge it. Yet, it is everywhere, albeit the way in which it is manifested may be quite different from place to place. 

For the last four of my 20 years as mayor of Park Forest, I was engaged in the Race, Equity And Leadership (REAL) program of the National League of Cities. When the REAL Council was established 2015, I was one of the original approximately 40 members, each of whom represented a specific constituency within the organization. The NLC services 19,000 municipalities in the U.S. and I was appointed to the Council as a mayor of a suburban community in order to provide the perspective of municipalities similar to mine. In fall of 2017, the Council became a permanent part of the NLC and I had the honor of being appointed the group’s first co-chair, along with Councilwoman Lovanna Mayfield of Charlotte. My experience with REAL, and more than 50 years of active involvement in efforts for racial justice, have brought me to a clear perspective on the issue of racial inequity: it does indeed exist, and it makes a mockery of the American ideal that all persons are created equal.

The one universal mark of racial inequity is the presence of high poverty rates in places where it is most prevalent. If one wishes to see racial inequity up close, one need only examine poverty rates to learn where to look. The extent to which poverty is present in a community seems to correspond directly with the amount of blight that the neighborhood experiences. However, as many African Americans and other minority citizens can attest, racial inequity is present elsewhere also; in fact it is woven into the very fabric of our nation.

In communities that are predominantly minority, the inequity infects the entire region. Towns and neighborhoods that are predominantly African American in population suffer as it relates to economic development, property taxes, housing opportunities, jobs. The list goes on and on. If the communities are suffering, then likewise are the residents. Neighborhoods that are most blighted are overwhelmingly non-White. Good examples are found on Chicago’s south and west sides and in Chicagoland’s south suburbs.

By contrast, the vast majority of predominantly White neighborhoods suffer less from violence, less from blight, less from inferior educational opportunities, less from disproportionately high property tax rates, etc. The concentration of minority residents is much less in those neighborhoods than it is in areas where the opposite conditions are present. When non-White residents are found in those neighborhoods, the opportunities afforded them are quite different as regards housing, jobs, educational opportunities, etc., from those available to their relatives and friends who remain in totally segregated regions. For those African Americans, the experience of racial inequity comes most often in a general attitude toward them as “newcomers.” The “newcomer” status carries with it a clear connotation of superiority for those who are the more traditional residents. Changing one’s ZIP code, therefore, can bring with it some benefits but it does not automatically result in removing all the tenets of inequity.

Why is poverty so heavily concentrated in minority neighborhoods? While it is true that White poverty also exists, it most often is found in rural areas where jobs are fewer or in regions that have experienced sudden loss of factories, coal mines, etc. It is not as universal a condition as is found in virtually all communities where minorities are the majority population. According to the Henry K. Kaiser Family Foundation, for example, in 2017 only 8 percent of the White population in America was at the poverty level, while 20 percent of African Americans and 16 percent of Hispanics were in that category. Given such statistics, how can anyone deny that White privilege exists in the United States? And if White privilege exists, then so does its twin-sister: racial inequity. To eradicate racial inequity, therefore, we must eradicate White privilege. That, my friends, is a much harder task to complete than one might imagine! And why is it so difficult? Because it’s the work of Whites. And, frankly, many of us don’t want to give up our privilege.

So the statistics show that a larger segment of minority citizens live in poverty than do Whites, but does that mean all the other African Americans, Latinos, etc., don’t face racial inequity? If that question were asked to any representative of those or other minority groups, they would laugh in your face. No matter at what level of the economic ladder on which they may function, Blacks, Browns and other minorities in America simply do not enjoy the same opportunities as do the Whites within their economic grouping. That is an important point to make from the outset in any analysis of racial inequity and how it might be corrected, for too often those who defend themselves or their entities from the charge of being racially inequitable will point to persons who enjoy benefits that on the surface seem to be equal to the benefits enjoyed by Whites. Those are false examples. Until the same percentage of minorities within any economic stratum enjoy the same advantages at the same percentage level as do Whites within that stratum, racial inequity – and therefore White privilege – exists.

Among the things I have learned in my work for racial justice is the fundamental reality that I never can tell an African American or any other person of color anything at all about racial inequity. They know it more completely, more intimately, more experientially than I or any other White person can relate based on our academic learning on the subject. Therefore, my job as a White person who wants to advance racial equity in our society is not to talk to Blacks, Browns, and other people of color on the topic: my job is to speak directly and honestly to other Whites. If I have any role whatsoever, it is to make White leaders aware that they preside over an inequitable system and to persuade them that they should become a part of the effort to correct it.

I stated earlier that I believe it is the work of Whites to eliminate White privilege. Why is that? Well, it is because supremacy is dependent on power, and power in the America of today rests in the hands of Whites. While individual members of minority groups may have access to elements of power, the gestalt of power at present is exclusively White. The use of that power is a necessity for the elimination of White privilege. The only alternative course would be a revolutionary overthrow of White power through violent means. While that is a long-term probability as our minority populations in America grow, it is not a likelihood in the immediate future. In truth, the non-violent, voluntary relinquishing of White privilege is the only viable alternative to the eventual violent achievement of the same.

As an aside, I believe the rise in overt White supremacy in America today largely is connected to the realization by many Whites of the inevitable course we presently are embarked on as a nation. They are not willing to share present-day power with Blacks or Browns, and they fear that the day is approaching when such power will be in Black and Brown hands exclusively. Their extreme supremacist efforts are designed to prevent both from happening, albeit I believe their efforts in that regard are doomed to failure.

Therefore, if White leaders cannot be altruistic enough to eliminate White privilege because it is the correct thing to do, perhaps they can be self-serving enough to recognize that sharing power is a better course of action that losing it entirely. White privilege means that the playing field is tilted in favor of Whites as regards economics, social benefits, opportunity for education, health care, the judicial system, etc. Leveling the playing field through the elimination of White privilege does not mean that Whites will suffer – though the existence of White privilege does mean that African Americans, Latinos, and other minority residents do suffer – but rather that everyone will have an equal chance and no one will suffer.

What is obvious, then, is that legitimate efforts to address racial inequity must begin with a careful survey of the local landscape. If one accepts the premise that racial inequity exists in some form or another throughout the U.S., then we likewise must accept that it is present in some way or another at our local doorstep. For many municipal officials, however, it is very difficult to take the necessary steps toward recognition of the presence of racial inequity in their communities. They maintain, with total sincerity, that they do not discriminate, that everyone is given the opportunity to apply for jobs, that home purchase in all neighborhoods is open to anyone who is interested. For them to acknowledge the presence of racial inequity is to acknowledge that their home turf is less than perfect: that indeed is a very difficult, although necessary, acknowledgement to make.

John A. Ostenburg retired in 2019 after 20 years as mayor of Park Forest, Illinois. He previously served in the Illinois House of Representatives, and before becoming mayor, served seven years as a member of the Park Forest municipal council. While mayor, he was an active member of the National League of Cities and served during 2017-18 as co-chair of the NLC Race, Equity And Leadership (REAL) Council. He was chair of the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus, a group of more than 270 Chicago-region municipalities, for 2018-19 and was a member of the MMC Executive Board for several years. He also was chair of the MMC Environment Committee for five years. He retired in July 2010 as the chief of staff for the Chicago Teachers Union after holding various CTU posts over a 15-year period. A former newspaper reporter and editor, he also has been a teacher and/or administrator at elementary, secondary, community college, and university levels. Presently he is a Senior fellow at the Chicago-based Metropolitan Planning Council. E-mail him at [email protected].