Evanston and Oak Park: Communities Still Wrestle with Integration

By: Stephanie WilliamsEvanston and Oak Park have reputations as progressive communities where integration works.

“Diversity and integration have become a part of the community’s fabric,” said Paula Haynes, executive director of the Human Relations Commission of Evanston.

“Oak Park is different,” said 20-year Oak Park resident John Lukehart, who is also vice president for government and community affairs with the Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities, one of the nation’s largest fair-housing organizations. “They’re sort of bucking the trend with regard to communities that should have succumbed to dramatic racial transition.”

With 52,524 residents, Oak Park is nine miles west of downtown Chicago. Evanston is directly north of the city with a Lake Michigan shoreline, and 74,239 residents. The communities are different, but the suburbs are often lumped together due to their diversity efforts. Both share a border with Chicago neighborhoods that have experienced racial change and now have predominantly low-income and minority residents.

Five years ago, Claritas Inc., a marketing research firm, provided population estimates for Evanston and Oak Park that predicted a classic case of white flight: By 2002 the number of minority residents in both suburbs would increase while whites would continue to decline.

Claritas’ data foreshadowed that both Evanston and Oak Park would be one-third black by 2002. The Chicago Reporter published an analysis of the Claritas projections in 1998, triggering debate over whether these communities were losing ground in maintaining the integration for which they had labored.

A Reporter analysis of 2000 census data shows Claritas estimates were overstated, but the trends still hold: Evanston and Oak Park continue to show signs of growing more segregated, though not at the rapid pace predicted.

The Reporter’s analysis found:
• Neither town’s black population cracked 25 percent in 2000.

• Both towns show housing disparities. Whites represent the majority of homeowners, and blacks comprise the bulk of renters.

• Oak Park’s white population went down 13 percent in the last decade, and its black population continues to be concentrated in two belts.

• Evanston’s white population decreased by 6 percent in the last 10 years, but shifted significantly in several neighborhoods: One section in a predominantly black area in central west Evanston saw a 25 percent increase in whites, while a once racially balanced neighborhood in southeast Evanston turned majority black for the first time.

• Latino populations followed the national trend, increasing by 24 percent in Oak Park and 69 percent in Evanston. But Latinos are evenly dispersed through each community and still make up less than 7 percent of the population in Evanston and 5 percent in Oak Park.

These findings did not surprise many of the towns’ black or white residents. But many whites said that, while things could be better, they were glad that their community was at least working toward integration. While they also sought diversity, African Americans were more interested in the quality of the schools and the neighborhood.

Max Dieber, director of research for the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission and chairman of Oak Park’s Housing Programs Advisory Board, said that Oak Park is struggling with the ideas and concepts of integration. But he would prefer that over doing nothing.

“This isn’t Oak Park as Camelot, solving the problems of the world,” said Dieber, who is white and grew up in Evanston before moving to Oak Park in 1987.

Established Patterns
A flier this past summer announced the inaugural meeting for a group called the Oak Park River Forest Talented Tenth.

“You’re invited to break bread,” it read, to create “a sense of community” by networking and sharing fellowship among African Americans in Oak Park.

“It’s not so much a formal organization, as it is a movement,” said Edye Hughes, who has lived in Oak Park since 1996 and came up with the idea for the group.

The name comes from W.E.B. DuBois’ notion that the 10 percent of African Americans who were receiving an education in the early 1900s should and would drive the development of their communities to everyone’s benefit. Hughes doesn’t adhere to the elitist theme, but believes Oak Park blacks need to be more proactive and involved. She has held two gatherings already and hopes for a third in April.

“It’s really the ‘Talented Thirtieth,’ since the village is about 30 percent black,” Hughes said. Hughes’ unofficial count of black residents is fairly accurate on the village’s east side, where she lives, but not for Oak Park as a whole.

The Reporter analyzed data from Oak Park’s 12 census tracts. The analysis concentrated on the five tracts on the village’s west side bordering Harlem Avenue and the five on the village’s eastern border along Austin Avenue. Two tracts in the center of town were analyzed separately.

There are 11,788 African American residents in Oak Park—nearly 23 percent of the total population, according to the census data. The majority of Oak Park’s African Americans live in rental housing on the east side. The 2000 census data show about 70 percent of Oak Park’s black residents live in the areas along Austin Boulevard and Washington Boulevard—a pattern that has held since 1980.

On the village’s east side, 58 percent of residents are white, and 33 percent black. The west side is 76 percent white and 15 percent black. The two middle tracts are similar, at 80 percent white and 20 percent black.

“I don’t think it’s only a matter of color—it’s also a matter of economics,” said Agnes M. Stempniak, executive director of the Oak Park Regional Housing Center, which works with local financial institutions and co-sponsors homeowner seminars.

“In this village, its [integration pattern is] from east to west,” said Chet Stewart, one of the 1,811 African Americans who own a home in Oak Park, accounting for 14 percent of all homeowners in the village. “It starts in the east, where blacks originally purchased, and has slowly—very slowly—moved west.”

When Stewart and his wife first came to Oak Park in 1978, “we were one of the few black families,” he said. The couple purchased a newly built townhouse in the center of town, a few blocks from the Oak Park Avenue Green Line elevated train stop.
“Apartments are another story—you obviously can only go where they are,” said Stewart, “and that’s what you see along Washington Boulevard and the east side.”

“Because blacks tend to rent more instead of owning, this may not just be an Oak Park problem as much as a societal problem,” said Dorothy Reid, a resident and realtor with Baird & Warner in Oak Park.

Reid, 37, is the daughter of Sherlynn and the late Henry Reid, who in 1968 became one of the village’s first black couples to receive a mortgage after the fair-housing ordinance was passed there. Dorothy Reid is now running for state representative in a newly created 78th District, which includes most of Oak Park.

“We arm our clients with as much information to rent or buy as we can,” said Stempniak.

“To thumbnail the [types of] people we see each year, I’d say it’s half [black] and half [white] of mostly long-term renters who now want to explore ownership options,” said Cynthia Breunlin, housing programs manager for the village. “Would I like to see more [homeowners]? Sure, [but] our programs are sensitive to income and home purchase price requirements.”

Though she acknowledged the challenges, Hughes said, “I can appreciate a town that celebrates the history of Hemingway while at the same time has schools that are named after prominent African Americans.”

Integrated Pockets
In 2000, Evanston’s African American population totaled 16,704—45 fewer than in 1990, according to census data.

Four of Evanston’s 18 census tracts have populations that are more than 40 percent African American, according to the 2000 census. Similar to Oak Park’s integration pattern, for the past 20 years, the bulk of Evanston’s black residents—more than 65 percent—have lived in two areas of town, census data show.

The historically black neighborhood that fills the western 5th Ward lost 8 percent of its African American residents in the last decade, according to census data. But at 83 percent, the area remains predominantly black.

Resident Dickelle Fonda, who is white, said she is keenly aware of the changes in her neighborhood in south central Evanston. The area surrounding the 1200 block of Darrow Avenue is 54 percent African American and 31 percent white, according to census data. In 1990, it was 69 percent black and 26 percent white.

White buyers have snapped up about 10 nearby homes, resulting in a mix of white, black, Latino and interracial families on her block, said Fonda, who has lived in her house for 17 years.

“Evanston may be diverse, but for [real] integration you come to south central Evanston,” Fonda said proudly.

She remained concerned, however, that integration would be lost in 10 years. “It’s like a domino effect—once a few start to move in, more follow,” she said.

But 80-year-old Elaine Memsinger saw the increase of whites as a sign of stability. Memsinger worked at the Unitarian Church of Evanston, 1330 Ridge Ave., when the neighborhood was going through racial transition in the 1970s. “All of Evanston was in turmoil,” said Memsinger. “We worked to keep the neighborhood integrated. … It’s better to be an integrated area than to turn all one way.”

Memsinger added that, while some of the prejudices people held about changing neighborhoods still linger, nearly three decades later, she believes “our efforts were well worth it.”

Fonda said she’s also concerned that both black and white young people who have grown up in Evanston are not going to be able to stay. “A house on the corner near us—a nice little bungalow with two stories—sold for $350,000,” she said.

Diversity's Cost
Back in 1978, when Stewart and his wife moved from St. Louis and needed to find a house in the Chicago metropolitan area, there were not a lot of choices.

“It really came down to Oak Park and Evanston,” Stewart said. “We were looking for a place to live that was integrated—for us at that time, that meant a community that was not all white,” said Stewart, who added that schools were also a priority since they were expecting their first child.

According to the census, while African Americans make up 23 percent of the village’s population, they make up 14 percent of the homeowners. Whites, who represent 69 percent of the population, own 10,551 homes, accounting for 81 percent of the homeowners.

The average price for a single-family home in Oak Park was $232,236 in 2000.

“When looking at housing, it’s a matter of economic diversity,” said Dieber, who lives in the 800 block of South Elmwood Avenue.
“While we may still have some work to do in integrating the west side of Oak Park, it frankly comes down to affordability and housing stock.”

In both Oak Park and Evanston, white homeowners outnumber their black counterparts about five to one.

“Until African Americans reach parity with whites, in terms of occupations, incomes and wealth, there are going to be the disparities in income and housing in these kinds of communities,” said sociologist James Lewis, executive director of the Institute for Metropolitan Affairs at Roosevelt University.

Lewis, an assistant professor of public affairs, is currently working on a study measuring integration patterns over the last decade in Chicago and the six-county area.

Lewis said the housing disparities in places like Oak Park and Evanston cause the pace of integration to slow or hold. So while they may “act as an impediment for further integration, they also help with keeping the status quo,” and a community avoids complete racial change.

“In a housing market that has huge disparities, you don’t see that rapid neighborhood change where whole towns turn from white to black within 20 years,” he said.

The “extremely wealthy,” for instance, may live a few hundred yards from Evanston’s poor, Lewis said.

In Evanston, African Americans account for 23 percent of the city’s population and 16 percent of homeowners. Whites were 65 percent of the population and 79 percent of the homeowners, according to census records.

Second Ward Alderman Lionel Jean-Baptiste said the housing pattern is another example of economic inequalities.

“People are going to live where they can find suitable housing, and my focus is to see that the resources in Evanston are equally accessible and shared with the minorities living here.”

Great Expectations
Many of Oak Park’s housing activists offer the adage that they would manage change, not have it manage them. It describes a proactive stance the community took to maintain racial balance during the white flight that plagued Chicago in the 1970s.

Evanston saw the number of Latino residents rise 69 percent, to 4,539, while Oak Park’s Latino population increased 24 percent, to 2,374. But despite increases, the Latino population barely tops 7 percent in Evanston and 5 percent in Oak Park, so the issue remains black and white.

The 1998 Claritas numbers projected the town’s white populations would drop dramatically. In 1990, Evanston’s white population was 71 percent; it dropped to 65 percent. Oak Park’s white population went from 77 percent to 69 percent in the last decade. The projections had Oak Park’s white population at 56 percent by 2002.

But residents from both suburbs said that the numbers don’t tell the whole integration story.

“The community remains stable,” Stewart said, but what you get is “diversity as defined by a percent.”

Dieber and Stewart, who are active on community boards, both agreed that the village needs more black representation and participation. The village’s seven-member governing board has two black members.

And while Evanston has an African American, female mayor and two black aldermen, minority representation on government advisory boards, commissions and community organizations remains scant.

Last year, Stewart ended a nine-year run on Oak Park’s local school board, District 200, including two years as board president. Stewart said he gained a great deal of insight about Oak Park and its people and sees integration as a long process.

“There is much mental, emotional and cultural understanding that has to be sifted through, and Oak Park is just learning how to do that,” Stewart said.

Fifth Ward Alderman Joe Kent describes Evanston similarly.

“Diversity is appreciated at meetings,” said Kent, who was born and raised in the 5th Ward. “But on the whole we don’t deal with diversity.

“Large segments of the black community are still left to fend for themselves, to deal with the crime, to deal with the lack of economic development, to deal with the lack of much assistance from anybody.”

Tarshel Beards and Julia Steinberger helped research this article.