Ongoing Exhibition

For those interested in viewing the Contract Buyers League exhibit, beginning on Tuesday, July 21, it will be at Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago, North Lawndale, 3555 W Ogden Ave.  The exhibit is open to the public from 10am-4pm.  Please feel free to come at any time, and tell your friends.

Thank you.

Contract Selling Diagrams

Some diagrams outlining the exploitative contract selling process that occurred.  A preview of the upcoming exhibit, opening at the Homan Square Community Center next Thursday at 5pm.

Ongoing Exhibit

Thank you everyone who has taken some time to read this blog and for those that dig deeper into the history of the CBL, North Lawndale, and the themes of this blog. It's been awhile since I've posted here, but in the coming month I hope to do so a little more often.  We are working to complete a small exhibit about the CBL to be displayed in North Lawndale.  Information and progress of the developing exhibit will be posted here.  Feel free to comment and share, give suggestions, edits, etc.  Look for more to come soon....

Chicago Tonight - August 7, 2014

Mr. Ross is featured on Chicago Tonight discussing the CBL's history in Chicago.

The Chicago Freedom Movement and the CBL

With the recent 50th anniversary for the March on Washington, I’d like to post about Martin Luther King, Jr.’s relation to contract selling and the Contract Buyers League.  In 1966, King and the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) brought their civil rights campaign north to Chicago.  With the Coordinating Council of Community Organizations (CCCO), a local group led by Al Raby, they began the Chicago Freedom Movement.  The movement was dedicated to ending housing discrimination in Chicago and focused on ending slums in the city.  They chose to focus on North Lawndale, and King even moved his family into an apartment at 1550 S Hamlin.1  John McKnight,  who was the Midwest Director of the US Civil Rights Commission (1965-1969), describes how he worked with Jim Bevel to try and persuade Dr. King to fight against contract selling, and ultimately the explanation of why they did not take on this fight:

...Bevel was the first person who was a real activist who seemed really interested in [contract selling].  ...And so I got him all set up to go to the next staff meeting and make a presentation about this whole thing.  And he did that, I mean I didn’t go, I wasn’t in their inner circle.  He came back and he said to me, it didn’t work.  And I said, why do you think that is.  He said, well, the other idea that we’re looking at is creating tenants unions.  He said, and the argument that won the day was tenants unions because if people have contracts they are at least well enough off to own property.  But the tenants weren’t, they were totally bereft of any resources.2

The Chicago Freedom Movement went on to organize tenants unions and lead marches into all-white neighborhoods where they were often met with violent responses.  They held a freedom rally at Soldier Field, and King posted a list of demands for open housing on the doors of City Hall that would have benefited contract buyers as well.  Here is a link to a collection of Tribune photos of King’s time in Chicago.

King speaking at Soldier Field rally (Tribune)

John McKnight had learned about contract selling a decade earlier from attending public meetings with Mark Satter.  His hopes of King and the SCLC fighting against contract selling were dashed, but something else was going on at the same time.  There was a new conservative bishop in Chicago, who didn’t want the church involved with the civil rights movement.  Monsignior Jack Egan was the spearhead of almost all church involvement in these activities.  So the bishop exiled Egan to a declining parish in North Lawndale, Presentation Parish.3

1 "Chicago Freedom Movement, 1966" pbs.org
2 Interview with John McKnight, Nov. 7, 2012.
3 Frisbie. "An Alley in Chicago". Ch. 16.

More CBL Homes Today!

(All photographs by John Wolf.)

I spent another afternoon recently going around part of the neighborhood to photograph CBL homes and talk to residents.  There were some vacant lots, but the majority of the homes were beautiful and well-maintained.  One woman that I spoke with was certain that her landlady was involved in the CBL, so she was going to talk to her bout all of this and respond back to us.  Another man I spoke with was a teenager during the time of the CBL, and he recalled his block being lined with sheriffs evicting some of his neighbors.  There are still many more CBL homes to photograph and document, and many residents to reach out to!  More to come...

CBL Addresses, Today!

Over the past several months of collecting information on the CBL, I have been compiling a roster of CBL members and addresses.  Many of the addresses we found are from a photograph in the 1972 Atlantic Monthly article, some names were listed in court documents, but not their addresses, and a few more were taken from various newspaper articles written about individual members of the CBL.  We don't know if any CBL members are still living in these homes.  We aren't even sure if many of these homes are still standing.

So this past Monday, I started going to these addresses to see what condition the buildings are in, and to ring some doorbells and talk to the residents to find out if any CBL members are still living or if their families are still living in the same homes that were bought on contract in the 50s and 60s.  I didn't really know what to expect.  It started out pretty discouraging;  4 of the first 5 addresses I went to are now vacant lots.  There was hope though.  I talked to the residents in the one house still there and explained the CBL to them.  They did not know anything about it, but the last name of the CBL resident for that address is the name of their landlady, so they were going to tell her about our interest and plans for an exhibit.

I made it to about 30 addresses that afternoon.  I came across a few more vacant lots and a few vacant, boarded up buildings, but many of them are still standing and have someone living there.  I talked to one man whose mother was in the CBL, another woman said her in-laws had bought their house on contract and were a part of the CBL but are now deceased, and a teenage boy who was going to relay the information to his 82-year-old grandmother.

Here are some photos of CBL homes that were owned with pride.  More to come...

(All photographs by John Wolf.)

Emergence of Exploitative Contract Selling, Part 4: The Fair Housing Act of 1968 and the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977

The Fair Housing Act of 1968 and the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 are two key acts of federal legislation that were passed to combat various discriminatory housing practices around the country.

The Fair Housing Act of 1968, also known as Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on April 11, 1968, one week after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.  It was the final piece of Civil Rights legislation in the 1960s, and came from the recommendations of the Kerner Commission, which stated that residential segregation was the primary cause for urban unrest, only after the rioting following Martin Luther King’s assassination.1  The Fair Housing Act made illegal the discriminatory practices of redlining, racial covenants, and blockbusting that resulted in segregation.  It prohibits discrimination in the sale and rental of housing by landlords, real estate companies, banks, lending institutions, and insurance companies on the basis of race, color, religion, or national origin.  Sex, disability, and familial status were included in later amendments.2  The Civil Rights Act of 1866 had prohibited discrimination in housing, but there were no enforcement provisions until 1968 with the creation of HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity.3 

The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 was passed to ensure banks make credit available to all parts of the communities they serve, including low- to moderate-income, and minority communities.4  Banks would accept deposits from African Americans, but then refused to extend credit to those families because they were in "redlined" neighborhoods.  The CRA was passed to promote banking services in these communities and to move private funds back into urban neighborhoods.  Gale Cincotta, of Chicago’s National People’s Action, led the fight to pass the CRA through Congress and enforce it.5  The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975 was passed to collect data and ensure disclosure, and the CRA was passed to use that data to implement policy.  The two were meant to work together.  It was Gale Cincotta’s belief and efforts to get these acts of legislation passed to improve the lending conditions in urban neighborhoods.

Emergence of Exploitative Contract Selling, Part 1: An Introduction  

Emergence of Exploitative Contract Selling, Part 2:  Restrictive Covenants and Real Estate Boards

Emergence of Exploitative Contract Selling, Part 3: The Federal Housing Administration

1  “Kerner Report”. Wikipedia.
2 “1968: Federal Fair Housing Act”. bostonfairhousing.org.
3 “The Fair Housing Act of 1968”. legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com.
4 “Community Reinvestment Act (CRA)”. occ.gov.
5 “Community Reinvestment Act”. Wikipedia.

Great Migration and Segregation

Black Population Change,  North Lawndale outlined in red.
(Source: ProPublica, Housing Segregation: the Great Migration and Beyond by Jeff Larson and Nikole Hannah-Jones)

Isabel Wilkerson, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning The Warmth of Other Suns, described the Great Migration as "six million black Southerners [moving] out of the terror of Jim Crow to an uncertain existence in the North and Midwest."1 

African Americans left the South in large numbers from 1910 to 1970.  They were leaving behind the white oppression of segregation, the Jim Crow laws, and lack of opportunity in the South, in search of industrial jobs, better schools, and the right to vote in the North.  Many found work in sectors such as railroad expansion, meatpacking, the stockyards, and the steel, auto, and shipbuilding industries.  The first major phase of migration occurred during WWI, which effectively stopped immigration from Eastern Europe.  Increased manufacturing during the wartime economy opened up jobs for many African Americans in northern cities.  WWII similarly stimulated an increase in the northern migration of African Americans. 2

(Source: University of Illinois at Chicago, The University Library, Special Collections Department, Chicago Urban League Records [CUL neg. 53])

Upon arrival to northern cities, African Americans would be confined to live in certain areas because of racial segregation and racial restrictive covenants.  In Chicago, this area was on the south side and called the "Black Belt", which today is the Bronzeville neighborhood.  In the "Black Metropolis" of Chicago, the African American community was able to develop their own infrastructure of newspapers, businesses, jazz clubs, churches, and political organizations.  Between 1940 and 1960, the African American population of Chicago increased from 278,000 to 813,000.  The Bronzeville neighborhood became so overcrowded that African Americans searched for housing in other parts of the city, particularly on the west side and in North Lawndale.3

In North Lawndale and elsewhere, realtors induced panic in white homeowners who feared the arrival of African Americans to their neighborhoods.  Thus, white homeowners sold their homes to realtors for less than the actual value of the home.  Then by exploiting the desperate need for adequate housing within the African American community, the realtor would sell the property to black families on contract at well-above market value.  This was a system of blockbusting, panic-peddling, and contract selling, when a contract buyer would be evicted for missing a single payment on their property without the right to recover any of the payment they had already put into that home.

1 "Great Migration(African American)", Cultural Changes. Wikipedia, Online.
2 Encyclopedia of Chicago. "Great Migration". Online.
3 "Great Migration(African American)". Wikipedia, Online.

Blacks and Jews #2

This is the second of three clips taken from the documentary Blacks and Jews.  This clip shows some of the protests and actions of the CBL.  Mr. Clyde Ross talks about his view of the sellers.  There is NBC news footage from 1969 explaining the terms faced by the contract buyers.

Blacks and Jews is a documentary that examines the relationships and conflicts between Black and Jewish activists.  For more information on the film, click here.

The Beginnings of the CBL

In January 1966, Monsignor Jack Egan was assigned to Presentation Parish in North Lawndale by the newly appointed Archbishop Cody.  Egan was a well-known priest in Chicago who worked tirelessly to maintain the church’s presence in the inner city and assist the urban poor.  Looking back on his assignment to Presentation, he said “I’m living with black people for the first time in my life.  Archbishop Cody couldn’t have given me a greater gift.  I don’t think he thought of it that way.  I think he thought he was getting rid of me.”1 

While at Presentation, Egan visited seminaries to recruit students to come work with him on Saturdays.  He assigned each seminarian a block in the neighborhood as their “parish”.  They were to get to know everyone on that block, and then gathered in the afternoons to discuss what each had learned that day.  They called this Operation Saturation.  Jack Macnamara was one of those seminarians, and visiting his “parish” once a week was not enough.  With Egan’s support, Macnamara and another Jesuit seminarian, Jim Zeller, received permission from their Jesuit superior to move to Lawndale for the summer of 1967 and continue this work.2 

Macnamara and Zeller recruited college students to volunteer and live together in Lawndale for the summer to help organize the community.  They listened to many problems that the residents were having, but nothing added up to an issue they could organize around.  Until one resident confided in Macnamara about her struggles with making her monthly housing payment.  Macnamara was stunned by the amount she owed each month, and knew that something was wrong.  Around the same time, Ruth Wells went to Egan to ask what she could do about the fact that her seller wanted another $1000 when she had never been late or missed a payment over a ten year period.  With the guidance of Egan and John McKnight, midwest director of the US Commission on Civil Rights, Macnamara and the college students began researching an 8-block area of Lawndale at the Recorder of Deeds, finding that the majority of properties in that area were sold on contract.3

They finally had an issue to organize the community around, and by January of 1968 the first community meetings took place to present this data.  Out of these meetings was born the Contract Buyers of Lawndale,  and later the Contract Buyers League when it expanded to include homeowners beyond Lawndale. 

1 Satter. “Family Properties” 234.
2 Frisbie. “An Alley in Chicago” Ch. 17-18.
3 Macnamara, personal interview.

Blacks and Jews #1

This is the first of three clips taken from the documentary Blacks and Jews.  This clip introduces the racial transition of Lawndale from a Jewish to an African American neighborhood, and some effects associated with that transition.  Martin Luther King, Jr. brought the southern Civil Rights campaign north to Chicago, and received support from white activists such as Monsignor Jack Egan and Rabbi Robert Marx of the JCUA.

Blacks and Jews is a documentary that examines the relationships and conflicts between Black and Jewish activists.  For more information on the film, click here.

Photos from the Lawndale Conversations Series: the Contract Buyers League

The audience listens to Professor Satter.

Jack Macnamara and Clyde Ross tell of the accomplishments of the CBL.

Jack Macnamara, Clyde Ross, Beryl Satter, and Charles Leeks (L-R)

The discussion with Mr. Ross continues.

NLHCS, NHS, Jane Addams Hull House Museum, and JCUA would like to thank all those who attended.  We received great feedback in our post event survey.  It was a wonderful and enlightening evening for all.  Please feel free to post and share your experiences or any comments below.

Look for audio postings from this evening in the near future.

(photos by Gordon Walek)

Lawndale Conversations Series: The Contract Buyers League

Thursday, January 31, 2013, 6pm

A panel discussion with Beryl Satter, author of "Family Properties" and History professor at Rutgers University, Clyde Ross, North Lawndale resident and former CBL co-chairman, and Jack Macnamara, community actvist and CBL organizer, discussing the efforts and legacy of the Contract Buyers League, a collective of black Chicago homeowners which originated in North Lawndale in the 1960s to protest exploitative contract selling.

Jane Addams Hull House  Museum
800 S Halsted Street
Chicago, IL 60607

Partners in this event include the North Lawndale Historical & Cultural Society, Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago, the Jane Addams Hull House Museum, and the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs.

3555 W Ogden Avenue: Paint City to NHS

NHS North Lawndale Offices, 3555 W Ogden Ave., photo taken Dec. 19, 2012

Several weeks ago, a client came to NHS whose mother was known as an activist in Lawndale.  We asked her questions about the Contract Buyers League and if she had any memories of how her parents bought their home.  When asked for proof of ownership for possible repair work on her home, the client presented a credit application her mother had applied for from Al Berland.  The application indicated that Berland sold the house to her mother on contract.  And one thing she did remember was going along with her mother to make her contract payments to Berland at Paint City, 3555 W Ogden Avenue. 

Like many others, the Berland family faced hard times living in Lawndale during the Great Depression.  But in 1936, at the urging of a family friend, Mr. P G Berland opened a paint store on Ogden Avenue, and it prospered.  After the Depression, many homes required maintenance that had been put off for so long, so they came to P G Berlands Paint City for paint and supplies.  Albert Berland worked at his father’s store after college and would go on to take over and expand the family business.  Through contacts from working at Paint City and influence from a longtime friend, Berland began to invest in real estate and became part of a small group of men that exploited the housing market on the West Side, though not the only group. 1

The building at 3555 W Ogden remained Paint City until 1982 when the chain was sold to Sherwin Williams. 2  In 1999 Neighborhood Housing Services opened their North Lawndale office within this very building, however, by that time the building’s past life as an office for contract selling had been forgotten.  It is ironic that today NHS is supporting homeownership and strengthening the community of North Lawndale in the same building as a contract seller’s business. 

P G Berland’s Paint & Wallpaper City commercial from 1982 3

1 Satter, "Family Properties". 32-34.

2 “Albert E. Berland Owner of Paint Stores.” Chicago Sun-Times 26 Jan. 1994, LATE SPORTS FINAL, NEWS: 69.

3  “Berlands Paint & Wallpaper City (Commercial, 1982).” YouTube.

The importance of the Contract Buyers League

The story of the Contract Buyers League has the power to promote the history of activism in Lawndale and the individuals who were instrumental in making change, raise awareness of recurrent housing issues by providing historical context, and empower individuals and the community in achieving stable homeownership and community development.