How much influence did white supremacist groups have on Chicago housing?

Curious City

WBEZ Chicago

Society & Culture, Education, Public, Chicago, Arts, City, Radio, Curious, Investigation

4.8 • 642 Ratings

🗓️ 9 April 2025

⏱️ 7 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Extremist groups of the 1950s played a violent part, alongside real estate and neighborhood organizations, in keeping Chicago segregated.

Transcript

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0:33.0	It's Curious City, where we take your questions about Chicago and the region and investigate.
0:38.8	Report.
0:39.5	Explore.
0:40.4	From WB.E.Z.
0:42.2	What's up, Chicago? I'm Erin Allen.
0:44.6	Chicago is a city of neighborhoods, but those neighborhoods are pretty segregated, which got one researcher wondering about white supremacist groups from the 1940s and 50s, and how much
0:55.1	influence they had on housing in Chicago. Joe DeSoe picks up this week's story.
1:01.7	In the summer of 1951, Harvey and Janetta Clark, a black family, were set to move into an apartment
1:07.7	in Cicero, a then all-weight suburb of Chicago.
1:11.7	The landlord and tenants were good with it, but...
1:14.4	The night before, as police are quote-unquote, watching the home, a mob shows up.
1:19.5	A mob.
1:20.4	Assembled by a guy in his mid-50s named Joseph Boharnay, a local white supremacist.
1:26.0	Completely destroys the building, takes the family's possessions out and burns them in the street.
1:32.4	There's pictures of Bo Harney there, like cheering people on.
1:35.5	That's Bo McMillan, a Ph.D. researcher in urban history and housing policy.
1:41.3	Over several days, thousands gathered until international outrage finally pushed the governor
	...

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