Chicago's migrant crisis stirs racial tensions with black community amid frustrations over unmet needs
Chicago's black residents feel sidelined as city marshals resources for newly arrived migrants, reigniting long-standing grievances.
The reopening of Chicago's Wadsworth Elementary School last year as a shelter for hundreds of migrants, without seeking community input, has reignited long-standing frustrations among black residents in the city. They feel their voices are not valued or heard, while the city's newly arrived migrants are cared for with a sense of urgency, using the residents' tax dollars.
Chicago is grappling with a surge of migrants, many of whom have been sent by the Republican governor of Texas to highlight his grievances with the Biden administration's immigration policy. To manage the influx, the city has already spent over $300 million of city, state, and federal funds to provide housing, healthcare, education, and more to over 38,000 mostly South American migrants desperate for help. The speed with which these funds were marshaled has stirred widespread resentment among black Chicagoans, who feel that their long-standing needs, such as high rates of crime, unemployment, and homelessness, are not being met with the same urgency, AP News reports.
"I definitely don't want to seem insensitive to them and them wanting a better life. However, if you can all of a sudden come up with all these millions of dollars to address their housing, why didn't you address the homeless issue here," said Charlotte Jackson, a business owner in the South Loop neighborhood.
While some black Chicagoans are protesting the placement of migrant shelters in their neighborhoods, others aim to turn the adversity into an opportunity. Community leaders are trying to ease racial tensions and channel the public's frustrations into agitating for the greater good, acknowledging the moral imperative to care for all underserved communities.
The attention the migrants are receiving, though deserved, is also a chance for cities to reflect on their responsibility to all underserved communities, according to the Rev. Janette C. Wilson, national executive director of the civil rights group PUSH for Excellence.
As the potential for racial strife rises, some activists are pointing to history as a cautionary tale, drawing parallels to the racist attacks during the "Red Summer" of 1919, when white Chicagoans attacked black neighborhoods and resisted the influx of black southerners seeking greater freedoms and economic opportunities.
Labor and immigrant rights organizers have worked for years to tamp down divisions between working-class communities, but the migrant crisis has created tensions between the city's large Mexican American community and recently arrived migrants, many of whom hail from Venezuela.
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