War in the North

Chasing a 14-year-old Negro burglary suspect, a cop pulled his revolver, fired and wounded the boy in the neck. Moments later, the neighborhood swarmed with outraged Negroes. In the streets and from rooftops, several hundred Negroes hurled stones and bottles at police, as two dozen patrol cars with four dog teams screamed into the area. Negro vandals broke into a tavern, stole whisky and beer, started a fire, and then stoned firemen who answered the alarm.

This was not Birmingham. It was Chicago, with one of the nation's biggest, most potentially explosive Negro ghettos. In the wake of the Birmingham violence, Chicago's Negroes have been gathering in street-corner sympathy meetings and protest marches. But a more basic reason for Chicago's racial disturbances is to be found in a welfare crisis that has been seething throughout Illinois for months.

Pushcarts & Shopping Bags. The state's Negroes, about 1,000,000 of whom are jammed in Chicago's South and West Side slums, get 70% of the $300 million-a-year welfare and relief aid. Payments for aid to dependent children--of whom 65,000 are illegitimate--run to $150 million a year. Of the more than 50,000 women who give birth to children while on relief, 87% (three-quarters of them Negroes) are either unmarried or are not living with their husbands.

The crisis blew up in March when the state senate refused to approve a $5,100,000 emergency appropriation to cover welfare payments for May and June. The legislators wanted new ceilings clamped on payments to individual families, which sometimes exceeded $500 a month. While Illinois' ineffectual Democratic Governor Otto Kerner bargained and pleaded with the senate, 352,000 people on the relief rolls began to go hungry.

At length, federal shipments of surplus foods, along with contributions from individuals and private businesses, began flowing into depots set up around Chicago. In scenes reminiscent of the Depression breadlines, Negroes queued up for four days to get 35 Ibs. of food per person. Jostling, weeping, the people shoved their pushcarts and shopping bags into the dispensing lines and hauled away 500 tons of food. In Springfield Governor Kerner, who had vowed never to sign a bill with a welfare ceiling, gulped down his promise, approved a compromise bill that henceforth will limit the amount of money given to any one welfare family.

But the end of the race crisis in Chicago is not yet in sight. Says the Urban League's Executive Director Edwin C. Berry: "We have a possibly explosive situation here. My messages from the beer gardens and the barbershops all indicate the fact that the Negro is at war. All the ingredients of race riot are here."

In a secret meeting held in Manhattan last week, U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy got an earful about worsening race relations in the North. Kennedy went to New York after discussing the idea with Negro Author James Baldwin (TIME cover. May 17), who himself had been a breakfast guest at Bobby's home earlier in the week. For the Manhattan meeting, Baldwin rounded up a dozen or so other "unofficial" white and Negro spokesmen, including Entertainers Lena Home and Harry Belafonte, and Playwright Lorraine (A Raisin in the Sun) Hansberry. (Notably absent: top leaders from such organizations as the N.A.A.C.P. and the National Urban League.) Kennedy came in search of "new ideas" for dealing with segregation problems in the North. The group, echoing Baldwin's theme, warned of racial explosions to come, criticized President Kennedy for failing to use "the great prestige of his office as the moral forum it can be," urged that the President address the nation on civil rights. At one point, a former Freedom Rider shook his finger at Bobby in anger. Later, a participant called the meeting a "flop"; Baldwin thought it was not quite that, but agreed that the session ended in "some bewilderment." Added he: "Bobby Kennedy was a little surprised at the depth of Negro feeling. We were a little shocked at the extent of his naivete."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.