On one hand, Illinois
Democrats played on racial prejudice to further their political
interests. They accused Republicans of intending to colonize
large numbers of Negroes from the South in order to enlarge the
Republican vote.
On the other hand, labor unions feared that Negroes would
be imported as strike breakers. During an attempt to organize a
union at the Aluminum Ore Company which led to a strike in April
1917 this atmosphere increased racial tensions. In 1913, the
company had hired no Negro workers at all. By 1916, there were
two hundred Afro-American employees. Within three months at the
end of 1916 and the beginning of 1917, the company fired some two
hundred whites while, at the same time, hiring approximately the
same number of Negroes. The city had been totally segregated, and
the white citizens intended to keep it that way. The school
system had been segregated in spite of a state law of 1874 which
forbade segregation in education. Jim Crow was also standard in
theaters, restaurants, and hotels in opposition to the 1885 law
that had outlawed segregation in public accommodations.
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