Minneapolis spokesman., 1962-12-21
Chicago Negro
Develops Large
Middle Class
(Continued from Page I)

LhOEe EOSe ITOIn O,OOO III 1SOU 10
So, 900 in 1860.
The average annual income Of
non-white families rose from
$4,000 in 1850 to $4,70O in 1860.
In 1860 Negro home owners
numbered $1,000, a 13O per cent
rise in ten years. The average
value of a non-white home today
is over $4,000 compared to $4,000
ten years ago.
Non-whites 25 years and over
with one or more years Of college
rose from $4,000 in 1850 to 47,OO0
in 1860.
Non-whites employed in profess
.sional, white-collar, managerial,
sales, craft and supervisory posi-
tons rose from $4,000 in 1850 to
81 900 in 1860.
Today in the city there are 27
census tracts, predominantly Ne
gro, where the average family in
come is over $4,000. In three of
these tracts the average income is
$1,000 a year, in one, over $4,000
a year.
These are the families which
have moved into the University
Apartments in Hyde Park, into
Lake Meadows and Prairie Shores,
and who bought homes in the vari-
GUS suburbs. These are the fam
lilies that will move into Maria
City and the Carl Sandburg
Homes.
In the past when we discussed
equality of hospital care we were
chiefly concerned with care given
low-income Negro families that
wound up in hospital emergency
room. Today we must also ask how
our hospitals serve the city's Me-
gro middle class and its physicians,
who can pay for hospital care and
who enter not through the emer-
gency room but through the hos
pitals front door.
When we talk about Negro
teachers we are no longer talking
only about elementary schools or
high schools, but also about a
growing number of Negroes on
the faculties of the city's junior
colleges and our private colleges
and universities.
Today you can get the daily edi-
ton of the New York Times not
only at the University of Chicago
bookstore or at downtown news
stands but also at 35th and South
Parkway and 29th and Vernon.
When speaking of the middle
class" I hope we are not mis-
understood. We are not discussing
social standing, family background,
moral character, or personal in
tegrity. These are not the special
property of any class.
We refer only to a certain in
come, occupation, education and
home ownership. Nothing more.
Nothing less. The only people who
do not currently qualify as mid
die class" are those who admit to
being wealthy - and those who
are on relief or unemployed.
Many have hoped that walls Of
racial segregation and discrimina-
ton would crlmble as the years
went by. While some walls have
started to crumble, the crack-up Is
slow and at times painful. 1t Is
! obvious, as it has been true Of
Chicago newcomers for over 100
years, that 1t Is the second and
third generations that scale the
walls and seek new opportunities
in the wider community. The de-
velopment Of an educated and pro-
pertied middle class among Ne
groes now makes this possible,
probable - and inevitable.
Hence, we are at a turning point
in race relations in the metropoli-
tan community.
The presence Of a Negro middle
class - and the recent recognition
Of its existence by community
leaders - has for the first time
on the neighborhood level made
reasonable dis cussi o n possible
about Negro neighbors - instead
of panic and flight.
In the light Of the progress to
date, it Is doubly important that
, remaining barriers of racial dis