The Struggle for a Latino Place in Chicago
Like Their Black Neighbors, Mexican Americans Fought for Decades to Access Restricted Housing and Urban Space
In June of 1966, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference headed north to Chicago to lead the Chicago Freedom Movement in a series of marches through all-white neighborhoods intended to take aim at the city’s deeply-entrenched residential segregation.
They marched through Gage Park and the surrounding neighborhoods of Chicago’s Southwest Side, where rows of bungalow homes provided a perfect visual. The modest houses were within buying reach for many Black families, but decades-old restrictions and discriminatory practices by real estate agents barred African Americans from purchasing …
