Anatomy of an Ordinance

Good morning. How do you do? Unhappy and unhealthy, I hope. Jammed six families in a run-down flat, dark stairways, roof coming down, streets dirty, rent sky high, sickness all around you. Segregated in my area, I hope.

Me? My name is Slums. You've seen me around. Slums are the cemeteries of the living, he says. Jim Crow is the undertaker, he says. He's the one I want to tell you about this. This AME Reverend, this windy city, he says I gotta go.

Let me give you the lowdown and the guy who's trying to run slums out of town. Destination Freedom. Destination Freedom. Dramatizations of the great democratic traditions of the Negro people is brought to you by Station WMAQ as a part of the pageant of history and of America's own destination, freedom.

MUSIC Among the outstanding oldermen of Chicago who have fought for democratic housing programs and for better race relations is the Minister of the Woodlawn African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Reverend Archibald Kerry, oldermen of the Third Ward.

In part by transcription, we bring you the Kerry story in a chapter entitled Anatomy of an Ordnance. Yeah, my name is slums. You know me. I've covered 26 square miles of Chicago. I got old shacks, tenements, hobbles, sheds, dark, dreary streets occupied by a good half million people.

I do all right and I'm growing. Well, part of me I'm bothered about right now is the south side part. As a part they called the black belt. Narrowed tongue of land about one and a half miles wide, seven miles long.

Got 400,000 people packed in its solid. High sickness and death rate them. Surrounded, nice and segregated. Easy to get in. Hard to get out. I was going about minding my own business like any slum should.