Discrimination and Disparities

by Thomas Sowell

The later massive migrations of Southern blacks to Chicago in the twentieth century created acute polarization within the black community there.21 The Chicago Defender, a black newspaper, was highly critical of the newcomers for behavior that gave blacks in general a bad name. So were other blacks from the pre-existing black community there and in other Northern cities, where both the existing black residents and the local black press denounced the new arrivals from the South as vulgar, rowdy, unwashed and criminal.22 Like other black newspapers in other Northern communities, the Chicago Defender published many admonitions to Southern blacks arriving in Chicago, including “Don’t use vile language in public places,” “Don’t allow yourself to be drawn into street brawls,” “Don’t take the part of law breakers, be they men, women, or children,” and “Don’t abuse or violate the confidence of those who give you employment.”23 As with other racial or ethnic groups, in other times and places, blacks in these Northern communities feared that the arrival of less assimilated members of their own race would provoke negative reactions in the larger society that would not only jeopardize the progress of their race, but would even threaten retrogressions, as the larger society turned against blacks in general.24