Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/221

 CRIME AMONG THE NEGROES OF CHICAGO 20;

property and worship in their own edifices. The others are what are popularly known as mission churches. These twenty-four places of worship have an approximate seating capacity of 10,000 persons. The membership is about 6,500 persons. The church attendance, including all casual attendants at funerals and like occasions, is about 12,000. This would leave some 10,000 non-churchgoers among the negroes, out of a total popu- lation of 22,742, or 44 per cent.

In all social studies of the negro the church must be consid- ered, for it is one of the greatest factors in his social life. It is not only the religious, but also the moral, intellectual, and social center of his community. When the church removes from a district inhabited by negroes, nothing else comes in to take its place. Hence in this study we must notice the relation of the negro churches to the negro slum population.

The proximity of the negro churches to the negro slum population. The negro slum population of Chicago may be said to be com- prised within two districts, viz., the levee district in the south division, and the seventeenth and eighteenth wards in the west division, or that part of them that is bounded on the east by Jefferson street, on the north by Grand avenue, on the west by Ann street, and on the south by Madison street. These two wards had in 1896 a negro population of 895. About 800 of these are found within the limits just defined.

The negro slum population of the levee district is comprised within the following boundaries, viz.: Michigan avenue on the east, Van Buren street on the north, the Chicago river on the west as far south as Sixteenth street ; from this point by Clark street to Twenty-second street ; on the south by Twenty-second street. This district had in 1896 a negro population of 4,900. Adding to this the 800 in the west division, we have a total of about 5,700 negro persons living in the slums of Chicago in 1896.

In the districts mentioned above there are no negro churches, excepting one or two struggling missions. These 5,700 persons are practically outside the influence of the church. Of the numer- ous social settlements located in Chicago, none are in localities where the negroes dwell in any large numbers ; so that the