Conditions among Negroes. The work which the league did for the
migrants as set forth in the report of 1917 was of three kinds:
employment, housing and adjustment or assimilation. The policy of
the Urban League with regard to employment was to find and, where
possible, to open new occupations hitherto denied negroes. The housing
problem was urgent. The most that the league was able to do thus
far was to find lodging, to assist in finding houses. Lodging
accommodations for more than 400 individuals were personally inspected
by several women volunteers. It is impossible to do much else short of
the construction of apartments for families and for single men.

The league's first efforts to assimilate the new people started
with their entrance to the city. To see that they received proper
directions upon reaching the railroad station was an important task.
It was able to secure the services of a volunteer travelers' aid
society. This agent met trains and directed migrants to destinations
when they had addresses of relatives and friends. In the absence of
such they were sent to proper homes for lodging, and to the league
office for employment.

The great majority of negroes in Chicago live in a limited area known
as the South Side. State Street is the thoroughfare. It is the
black belt of the city. This segregation is aided on one hand by the
difficulty of securing houses in other sections of the city, and on
the other, by the desire of negroes to live where they have greatest
political strength. Previous to the migration, hundreds of houses
stood vacant in the sections of the district west of State Street from
which they had moved only a few years before, when it was found that
better homes were available. The presence of negroes in an exclusively
white locality usually brought forth loud protests and frequently
ended in the abandonment of the block by whites. The old district
lying west of State Street held the worst type of houses. It was also
in disrepute because of its proximity to the old segregated vice area.
The newcomers, unacquainted with its reputation, found no hesitancy in
moving in until better homes could be secured.

Congestion has been a serious problem only during short periods
when the influx was greater than the city's immediate capacity for
distributing them. During the summer of 1917 this was the situation. A
canvass of real estate dealers supplying houses for negroes conducted

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