Integration in Chicago

Chicago's 1,000-member First Presbyterian Church, oldest Protestant church (founded 1833) in a restless city, stands in what used to be an all-white neighborhood. In the last decade, notably since the 1948 Supreme Court decision against Jim Crow real-estate restrictions, more and more Negroes have settled there. Under Pastor Harold L. Bowman, who had preached hard against the anti-Negro measures, Negro children began coming to First Presbyterian Sunday school, and soon adults followed. Last week, when Pastor Bowman, 67, announced his resignation after 24 years, he announced also that next month integration at his church (by now 10% Negro) will be complete: it will be the first Presbyterian church in the U.S. to be served jointly by one white pastor, the Rev. Charles T. Leber Jr., and one Negro, the Rev. Ulysses B. Blakely.

In heavily Negro southwest Chicago, a similar milestone was passed last week when Normal Park Baptist Church installed the Rev. Merrel D. Booker, a Negro, and the Rev. Fred R. Tiffany, white.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.