How Beverly maintained racial integration and fought off white flight

Curious Citizen Erin McDuffie asked how Chicago's Beverly neighborhood was able to maintain racial integration while the rest of the South Side experience white flight.
We head to Beverly's Ridge Historical Society to learn about integration efforts from the neighborhood's planning association - and how they've held up today.
For more, visit wbez.org/curiouscity
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[@crowbird213]

Morgan Park high school is 98% black. This is the integration success story? Lol

[@wrotedog]

In the1980s it was integrated..

[@GODDESSHUNIMUSIC]

Right like come in now it was 2019- 2022 now😂😂

[@C_71]

When I started there in the 80s it was pretty racist and the majority was white.

[@cody4916]

Integration is impossible. People naturally move away to be with their own kind. This is why even in diverse places like London each neighborhood is segregated

[@hasansheikh3680]

@@cody4916 Yes it can also be dangerous to live among certain groups. In addition, people like to associate/befriend/meet with people of their own community/language for reasons not associated with racism at all.

[@After4th]

Kept from white flight and decay along with Mount Greenwood when many of its residents are police officers and firefighters who must live in the city, but want to have a suburban life.

[@drzlecuti]

This is a nice piece. We moved to Beverly from Jeffery Manor in 1964; my parents had grown up in South Shore. They were determined to not be scared into moving. I was only 15 in 1970 but remember Pat Stanton and BAPA, and the neighborhood ladies (including my mother and aunts) working phone banks to jam the business lines of certain real estate offices that they felt were block busting and using scare tactics. One footnote: the parade scenes shown starting at about 1:20 are not from Beverly, but Auburn-Gresham--they depict the old Southtown St. Patrick's Day parade on 79th Street from Ashland to Halsted (in St. Sabina parish). The current South Side Irish Parade goes down Western Avenue--I have a lot of pictures I could have shared!

[@Szcza04]

Lol you drive to the neighborhood right over and it’s not integrated. Still very separated. The whole south side is completely separated by ethnicity and race. I kind of don’t understand why we let some communities become ghost towns and urban decay.

[@martyhuntington5278]

Was the house 11235 S Artesian Ave. Chicago, IL, United States?

[@marlandgraham3266]

I remember as a kid, riding my bike threw Beverly in the late 70's, being chased out of the neighborhood.

[@GODDESSHUNIMUSIC]

I wonder what the statistics are now

[@C_71]

I grew up around there starting in 1979, they did not take well to black people moving in! In the 70s it was 99% white!

[@jmdinlove5454]

I just want to vomit

[@FactStorm]

Why?

[@NIAanime103]

Update plz

[@bugsbunny7235]

I give respect to you for put up with the haters!!

[@greensombrero3641]

I have lived in that area for most of my life and during the time you investigate. This is an excellent work. Can you guess my race?

[@tonygabashvili8357]

Well your name does have sombrero in it, so you must be Chinese

[@FactStorm]

Your race doesn't matter, you're a human and resident. That's all that matters..

[@greensombrero3641]

@@tonygabashvili8357 haha. no I am green! southside irish.

[@greensombrero3641]

@@FactStorm yes! we are all brothers and sisters traveling through space and time together