1950's-1980's

By 1960 Chicago's black population reached over 800,000, almost a quarter of the total-up from 14 percent just 10 years earlier. In black neighborhoods schools were overcrowded, with many on double shifts. Class sizes were smaller in white schools than in black ones, even though more new buildings had been erected for black students.  The Catholic school enrollments grew by nearly 30 percent in the city and nearly tripled in the suburbs. Most of these students were white students whose parents did not want their children in schools with the growing population of African Americans and other races. Under the leadership of George Cardinal Mundelein and Samuel Cardinal Stritch, parishes scrambled to build schools to meet the demand, particularly for high schools. By the early fifties, nearly 200,000 students attended Catholic schools, about 70 percent of them in the city, most of the students being white. The loss of white students from the Chicago Public Schools can be explained partially by “white flight” from the city to suburban communities; but it also reflected a shift to private and parochial school education for many whites. In 1963 school superintendent Benjamin Willis rejected calls for desegregation, and the portable classrooms added to black schools were derisively labeled “Willis Wagons.” In 1963 massive demonstrations were staged by students and parents to protest Willis's policies. Public outcries intensified in the wake of commissioned reports recommending dramatic steps to redress educational inequality. Threats by the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to withhold federal funds until a desegregation plan was developed were thwarted by Mayor Richard J. Daley's intervention. Then Willis's term ended in 1966, James Redmond, his successor, attempted to develop integration plans that would send black students to predominantly white schools. Hostile demonstrations greeted such efforts on the city's Northwest and Southwest Sides. Redmond and other school leaders found themselves hampered by board members and local politicians reluctant to anger whites opposed to integration.  Showing serious strains on the racial situation in Chicago during the height of the Civil rights movement.