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Woodlawn (Chicago, Illinois)

Community Area 42 - Woodlawn Location within the city of Chicago
Latitude Longitude	41°46.8′N, 87°36′W
Neighborhoods	Woodlawn
ZIP Code	parts of 60637
Area	5.36 km² (2.07 mi²)
Population (2000) Density	27,086 (down 1.41% from 1990) 5,052.2 /km²
Demographics	White Black Hispanic Asian Other	2.81% 94.2% 1.06% 0.76% 1.15%
Median income	$21,482
Source: U.S. Census, Record Information Services

Woodlawn is a neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, USA bounded by Jackson Park to the east, the University of Chicago (and Hyde Park generally) to the north, Martin Luther King Drive to the west, and, mostly, 67th to the south. The all-boys Catholic high school Mount Carmel is in this neighborhood.

In the 1990 census, Woodlawn had twenty seven thousand individuals, living in ten thousand households. Over 98% of the population was African American, over half were on some form of public aid, and the median household income was over $13,000.

Up until the 1950s, Woodlawn was a middle class white neighborhood, which grew out of the floods of workers and commerce from the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. During the first half of the century, many University of Chicago professors lived in Woodlawn. With the Supreme Court ruling outlawing racially restrictive covenants in 1948, the combination of the expanding African American urban population, their limited housing options, and exploitive real estate maneuvers that divided up apartments into kitchenettes, Woodlawn began to have its first African American residents.Cayton and Drake described the anxieties and clashes that took place at the edge of the ghetto in Black Metropolis, and Lorraine Hansberry whose family was one of the first to move in, based Raisin in the Sun on her parents' experience.

Like other communities bordering the ghetto, Woodlawn experienced intense bouts of white flight when the first African Americans moved into the neighborhood (especially the Washington Park Subdivision). Many institutions and people moved to the suburbs, a process that was facilitated by new federal housing loans. Realtors routinely subdivided the vacated large apartments and hence often made out well with the combination of white outflight and the high demand African Americans had for housing. From this, buildings were over-filled with families and often the absentee landlords did little to maintain the buildings.

A closeup of Woodlawn

Others attempted to integrate this area but met with limited success. For example, the First Presbyterian Church (6400 S. Kimbark) integrated in 1954 and by the 60's had a markedly mixed character. However, older members often felt put out by the demographic and "cultural" changes that came with integration and by the mid 1960s the Church's finances and membership were in trouble. For better or worse there had been an across the board change in the community.

By the early 1960's Woodlawn was a predominantly African American neighborhood with a population of nearly 90,000 people. 63rd street was one of the busiest streets on the South Side and was famous for its jazz clubs. Despite its bustle, Woodlawn was an economically deteriorating community and attempts to revive its citizenry were short-lived and fractured. In Hyde Park to the north, a similar process occurred in the 1950's but with radically different results. The University of Chicago, a large land owner with vested interest in the character of the neighborhood, through many avenues fought against what it saw as the encroachment of blight.

As Arnold Hirsch argues in his chapter "Neighborhood on a hill" in Making the Second Ghetto, the University, through the SECC and at times with brute force, made Hyde Park the site of one of the first "urban renewal" projects in the country. In an attempt to maintain a number of white families, the University tore down "slum" areas, often employing eminent domain powers. In the process, many African Americans were displaced from Hyde Park and cultural centers like 55th Street were leveled.

After their success in Hyde Park, the University moved quickly to begin a second urban renewal project in Woodlawn. A one mile wide area from 60th to 61st in Woodlawn was scheduled for renewal and the University's planned South Campus. The plans were drawn and there was a press conference.

This area between 59th and 60th Streets is known as the Midway Plaisance, incorporating Midway Plaisance North (south of 59th Street) and Midway Plaisance South north of 60th Street. Now dominated by a green space of low valleys, the Plaisance is widely known as the site of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, in which the green space was to be designated as the Fair location (but was never utilized). The Plaisance is now a well-maintained walking and bike riding thoroughfare amidst the University's campuses. Between 60th and 61st Streets (with Dorchester Street to the east and Cottage Grove Avenue to the west) are several of the University's South Campus buildings including: University of Chicago Press, the law quadrangle and law library, the school of social service administration, the school of public policy, NORC (National Opinion Research Center), the Center for Research Libraries, and Chapin Hall. Some of the University's faculty and several hundred of its graduate and undergraduate students live south of 60th Street in University-owned real estate and dormitories.

The Woodlawn Organization coalesced around the threat of the University bulldozing the whole neighborhood, and has its roots in the pastors's Alliance of Woodlawn. Several years earlier, the Alliance had called in Saul Alinsky, founder of the Industrial Areas Foundation, to discuss plans to organize the community. But several major members of the Alliance at that time were displeased with Alinsky's brashness and controversial direct tactics. After the University's plans were known, several prominent churches gave the seed money for the organization which began in 1961.

TWO, like other IAF organizations, was a coalition of existing community entities such as churches, business and civic associations. These member groups paid dues, and the organization was run by an elected board. The TWO moved quickly to establish itself as the "voice" of Woodlawn, mobilizing existing leadership and bringing up new leadership. A prime example of the newly empowered leadership in TWO was Reverend Arthur M. Brazier, who was the first spokesperson and eventual president. Starting out as a mail carrier, a preacher in a store front church, and then through TWO bolstered into a national spokesman for the black power movement, Brazier has since become a very powerful pastor in Chicago. In the initial years, when TWO was still under the IAF umbrella, Nicholas Van Hoffman, Alinsky's second in command, planned most of the actions.

As Fish argues in Black Power/White Control TWO picked issues that mobilized resident participation, and at the same time built power for the organization to take on large outside entities like the University and the City (i.e. Mayor Daley). The group took part in the flurry of activity surrounding the Freedom Rides and the Civil Rights Movement by loading up over 40 buses of people from Woodlawn and riding to City Hall to register to vote. They also rallied against slum landlords and cheating business owners. TWO also took action on the University and were able to gain a seat on the City planning board (which stopped the University's plans).

TWO faced continually worsening conditions in the neighborhood, and there are many arguments about its efficacy. Especially controversial was Brazier's opposition to a planned and nearly completed Chicago 'L' extension to the neighborhood, which forced the CTA to tear down the station and tracks and forfeit millions of dollars in federal funds in 1996

In the late 1950s early 1960s, Jeff Fort, (aka Chief Malik, Angel) and Eugene Hairston (aka Chief Bull) ran a small clique around 63rd and Blackstone in Woodlawn called the Blackstone Rangers. By the middle of the 60s, Jeff Fort and Chief Bull had pulled together 21 street organizations, and the Blackstone Rangers, now known as the Black P. Stone Nation had a strong political identity, while also, of course, involved in criminal activities. After Eugene Hairston was locked up and released in the late 60s, Jeff Fort took sole leadership of the street organization of 50,000 members. In the 70s the Stones became more political and more involved in community power structure. It even received funding from the Federal Government to run a job training program in Woodlawn. Predictably, it was not long before the government came down on the Stones for malfeasance, and Jeff Fort went to prison until 1976. While in jail, Jeff Fort was influenced by the Nation of Islam and upon his release renamed the Rangers the Moorish Temple of America, and eventually the El Rukns. The Black P. Stone Nation ( AKA the Moes), whose territory is in between the Stone streets (i.e., Blackstone and Stoney Island), are still a very strong force in the Woodlawn Community. It's even grew to south suburban areas like Calumet Park and Harvey,and often at war with the Gangster Disciples.

"Black youngsters cool off with fire hydrant water on Chicago's South Side in the Woodlawn community. The kids don't go to the city beaches and use the fire hydrants to cool off instead. It's a tradition in the community, comprised of very low income people. The area has high crime and fire records. From 1960 to 1970 the percentage of Chicago blacks with income of $7,000 or more jumped from 26% to 58%." - June 1973. Photograph by John H. White

Woodlawn has made great strides into stabilizing as a neighborhood and community. The demolition of much of the eastern branch of the Green Line helped reduce crime and has helped make a remarkable difference in East Woodlawn. There are many new hopeful developments and infill projects as greater education and more stable income slowly drips back into the area. While West Woodlawn and the Green Line tracks still have problems with crime and have had a slower recovery, Woodlawn, on the whole, seems to be slowly improving. The University of Chicago formerly had a "stance" on the neighboring communities to help inform students of stable and safe areas. Before officially abandoning such "stances," the University's stance on Woodlawn changed to allow that it was a generally stable and safe area, which seems to match a general trend of the improvement of the South Side of Chicago. Yet, at the same time, some at the University argue that the best policy towards Woodlawn should be one of showing no economic quarter to those who oppose the Universities' expansion. Subsequently, there exists a level of tension between some of the residents of Woodlawn against the University, despite a long standing promise by the University to minimize expansion into Woodlawn.

To replace the decaying Shoreland Hotel, The University of Chicago began construction in the summer of 2006 on a new fourteen-story residence hall on the corner of 61st St. and Ellis. The new residence was designed with input from residents of both Hyde Park and Woodlawn and was explicitly designed so as to minimize possible alienation of the Woodlawn community (which could occur via blank walls, etc.). Some see this as an attempt by the University to encroach upon Woodlawn, but it remains to be seen how this new development will affect Woodlawn residents. Although the university police patrol area extends two blocks farther south to 64th St. the University has a longstanding agreement with Woodlawn residents not to expand south of 61st St.LIFE'S A BITCH!!!

• Official City of Chicago Woodlawn Community Map

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