For the 5th year in a row Chicago’s population is declining, due to African-Americans’ continuous exodus. The history of the White family members shows the migration dynamics in the 3rd largest US city that was shaped by black people.
Chicago’s population is made of almost one third of whites, blacks and latinos. However, the equilibrium has been shifting every year since 2014: more people have left than come. Among them, it is nearly 50,000 black residents who have emigrated. Hardis, Dora, Tshena and Ke’Oisha are part of the same family, whose story in Chicago started more than six decades ago. Each of its members were faced with the choice of staying or leaving the city due to different reasons, which are the same ones causing black Chicagoans’ decision to vacate or remain.
Hardis White is one of those who chose to move out of the city he called its home since he was a teenager during the 50’s. He arrived in Chicago during the Great Migration when African-Americans moved north by millions, hoping for a better life. With his wife Velma they were among the first colored people in their suburb. It’s in 2018 that they moved out due to Velma’s health problems, to live with Dora their eldest daughter, growing the cohort of 200,000 African-Americans who moved out of Chicago in the last twenty years. On a Saturday in front of a two-stories brick house on Laporte Avenue, Tshena knows her father is going to pass by to attend the local church.
““He doesn’t need to stop. He just slows down and looks.
He likes to know that the family is still there.”
The Laporte Avenue’s house is now Tshena Whites’. When her parents wanted to sell it, she decided it was not leaving the family. She bought the house she grew up in for her and her sister with her children. Tshena noticed a shift in demographics in her neighbourhood: “It’s a mixed neighborhood now — we have different races”. In 2017 the number of whites in Chicago is superior to that of Blacks, and according to the 2020 census there will be more Latinos than Black people.
Even if the wealthier and whiter parts of the city are booming, Chicago and more broadly the the midwest, are the epicenter of a reverse Great Migration impacting African-Americans. According to the U.S. Census’s annual American Community Survey, among ten largest US cities, only four are losing black residents. However, between 2010 and 2017, Chicago did so at four to ten times the rate of the other three (Los Angeles, San Diego and San Jose), which is unprecedented for any major American city over the last hundred years. Dora Whites, unlike her sister Tschena, grew concerned about Chicago’s violence, drugs and guns. She bought a house in a suburb, 10 miles away from the city, worried about the future of her daughter. She wanted to get her out of that environment. She does not doubt she did what most parents would have done if given the chance. By pulling her child Ke’Oisha out of a dangerous environment she helped her secure a path to college and a successful career.
“It wasn’t too bad until the grandkids started coming — the next generation under me,” explained Ms. Dora White.
By 2003, no other city in the country had as many homicides as Chicago, which has long struggled with gun violence. In January 2020, the 34 murders reported were an increase of half the shooting (22) reported last year during the same period, according to Chicago’s police.
Ke’Oisha the granddaughter of the Whites family moved out of Chicago with her mother during the early 2000’s. After graduating, she applied for jobs after jobs in the city however every time she was under the impression that if she didn’t know someone, she wasn’t going to get the position. She needed to look for job opportunities out of the city. Finally, she got an internship in a Texan company. It was a blow to her parents since no one in their family had ever left Chicago or its suburbs. She ended up making her career in Houston,
Black Chicagoans are actually moving to the suburbs but also leaving the region altogether. It is Sunbelt hotspots cities which are gaining population at Chicago’s expenses, drawn by perceived greater opportunities and the possibility to relink with their old southern families and friends.
In one sense, the Whites are an archetypal Chicago family, said Rob Paral, a demographer who studies the city’s population. They are being driven out of the city by segregation, gun violence, discriminatory policing, racial disparities in employment, and the uneven quality of public schools. At the same time, white, Latino and Asian residents are flowing in, and Chicago’s wealthier downtown are booming. Many black Chicagoans have taken only small steps away from the city, resettling in nearby suburbs in Illinois or Indiana that offer more highly rated schools and a lower cost of living. Others have followed suit of a reverse migration, making homes in places like Atlanta or Houston, many decades after black families came to Chicago and other Northern cities in large numbers in search of opportunities.
Written by Timaelle Martin
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