amounted to more than $100,000. Of these fifty-eight bombs, thirty-two were exploded within the square bounded by Forty-first and Sixtieth streets, Cottage Grove Avenue and State Street. With an average of one race bombing every twenty days for three years and eight months, the police and the state's attorney's office succeeded in apprehending but two persons suspected of participation in these acts of lawlessness. One of these, James Macheval, arrested on the complaint of C. S. Absteson, a janitor, was released on a $500 bond. At the writing of this report, one year after the arrest, there has been no trial. Another man was apprehended, questioned, held under surveillance for two days by the police, and finally released.
News of threatened bombings in many cases was circulated well in advance of the actual occurrence. Negroes were warned of the exact date on which explosions would occur. They asked for police protection, and, in some instances where police were sent beforehand, their homes were bombed, and no arrests were made.
The persons directing these bombings did not limit their intimidations to Negro residents in white neighborhoods; residences of Negroes and white real estate men were bombed because they had sold or rented property in these exclusive areas to Negroes, and Negro bankers' houses were bombed because they made loans on Negro property and supported their mortgages.
These bombings increased rapidly in frequency and damaging effect. The six months' period ended October 1, 1920, witnessed as many bombings as the entire thirty-five months preceding. Prior to 1919 there were twelve bombings. Four of these were directed at properties merely held by Negro real estate men as agents, two of them in Berkeley Avenue just north of Forty-third Street, and near the lake. Five were in the 4500 block on Vincennes Avenue, two at 4200 Wabash Avenue, and one at 4732 Indiana Avenue.
Bombing of real estate men's properties appears to have been part of a general scheme to close the channels through which the invasion proceeded rather than a protest of neighbors. The four explosions in the 4500 block on Vincennes Avenue appear to have been deliberately aimed at the tenants. This block is at the center of the neighborhood most actively opposed to the coming in of Negroes. In January, 1919, a white and a Negro real estate agent were bombed; in March, Jesse Binga's real estate office at 4724 State Street and an apartment at 4041 Calumet Avenue were bombed. In April there were two more bombings, one of a realty office. Following a public meeting on May 5 to arouse white property owners of the Hyde Park district against Negro invasion, there were four bombings. Between January 1, 1920, and March 1, 1920, there were eight bombings in eight weeks. Responsibility for the creation of the sentiment thus expressed was in some instances assumed by organizations. For example the Property Owners' Journal, in its issue for February 1, 1920, said:
Our neighborhood must continue white. This sentiment is the outgrowth of the mass meeting of property owners and residents which was held Monday, January 19. Mr. George J. Williams furnished the climax of the meeting when he informed the audience in terse, pithy language that "Hyde Park enjoys a reputation too splendid as a neighborhood of white culture to allow Negroes to use it as their door mat."
In the issue of December 13, 1919, white and Negro real estate men and owners selling property to Negroes in the district were "branded as unclean outcasts of society to be boycotted and ostracized in every possible manner," and W. B. Austin, white, was accused of violating a gentleman's obligation to his community in selling a home to a Negro. It was asserted falsely that the house which he had sold had been used during the race riots as a "rendezvous for Negroes who fired volleys of revolver shots from doors and windows at white boys in the street who, according to the testimony of neighbors, had not attacked the premises."
On December 26 the home of J. H. Coleman, a white real estate man who had sold a house to a Negro, was bombed. The transaction was not public, and occupancy was not to take place for five months. On December 27 the home of Jesse Binga, a Negro real estate man, was bombed. One week later, on January 6, came the bombing of W. B. Austin, on the North Side.
During 1919 and 1920 committees and delegations of whites and Negroes appealed to the chief of police, the mayor, State's Attorney Hoyne, and the press, but nothing was done. The mayor referred these matters to his chief of police. The police were unable to discover the bombers or anyone directing them. The state's attorney, in response to appeals, emphatically defined his duty as a prosecuting rather than an apprehending agent. All the while, however, the bombings continued steadily; no arrests except the two mentioned were made; and the Negro population grew to trust less and less in the interest of the community and the public agencies of protection.
1. TYPICAL BOMBINGS
The circumstances of the bombings were investigated by the Commission, and details of what happened in several typical cases are here presented.
Bombing of the Motley home.—In 1913 S. P. Motley, Negro, and his wife purchased a building at 5230 Maryland Avenue through a white agent, and on March 15, 1913, the family moved in. For four years they lived there without molestation save the silent resentment of neighbors and open objection to the presence of Negro children in the streets. On July 1, 1917, without warning or threat, a bomb was exploded in the vestibule of the house, and the front of the building was blown away. The damage amounted to $1,000. Police arrived from the station at Fifty-second Street and Lake Park Avenue ten minutes after the explosion. No clews were found and no arrests were made. The original owner of the building was bitterly opposed to Negroes and was a member of an organization which was seeking to keep Negroes out of the district.
Some time after this incident it was rumored that Motley was planning to purchase the building adjacent. At 4:00 a.m. June 4, 1919, a dynamite bomb was exploded under the front of the house adjacent and tore up its stone front. The neighbors were in the street immediately after the explosion. No clews were found and no arrests were made. The Motley family on this occasion was accused of inviting another Negro family into the block. The new family in question negotiated for its own property, and before an actual settlement had been made, received numerous telephone messages and threats. It moved in, but was not bombed.
HOMES BOMBED IN RACE CONFLICTS OVER HOUSING JULY 1, 1917-MARCH 1, 1921
Bombing of Moses Fox's home.—Moses Fox, white, connected with a "Loop" real estate firm, lived at 442 East Forty-fifth Street. The house was too large, and he decided to move to smaller quarters. The building was sold through a real estate firm to persons whom he did not know. On March 10, 1920, a few days after the sale, he received a telephone call informing him that he must suffer the consequences of selling his home to Negroes. At 7:30 that evening an automobile was seen to drive slowly past his home three times, stopping each time just east of the building. On the last trip a man alighted, and deposited a long-fuse bomb in the vestibule. The fuse smoked for four minutes. Attracted by the smoke, Fox ran toward the front of the house. The bomb exploded before he reached the door. It was loaded with dynamite and contained slugs which penetrated the windows of buildings across the street. The evening selected for the bombing was the one on which Patrolman Edward Owens, Negro, was off duty and a white policeman was patrolling his beat. The bombing was witnessed by Dan Jones, a Negro janitor, and Mrs. Florence De Lavalade, a Negro tenant. The front of the building was wrecked and all the windows shattered. Damage amounting to $1,000 was done. No arrests were made.
Bombing of Jesse Binga's properties.—Jesse Binga is a Negro banker and real estate man. His bank is at 3633 State Street, his real estate office at 4724 State Street, and his home at 5922 South Park Avenue. He controls more than $500,000 worth of property and through his bank has made loans on Negro property and taken over the mortgages of Negroes refused by other banks and loan agencies.
On November 12, 1919, an automobile rolled by his realty office and a bomb was tossed from it. It left the office in ruins. The police were soon on the scene, but the car was well beyond reach by the
