Outline

Thesis: As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. opened up doors for minorities to settle in the Gage and Marquette Park neighborhoods, the population drastically changed as African Americans, and Hispanic immigrants moved in to the neighborhood.

I. Irish and Polish immigrants began to settle in Gage Park in the mid 1950s.

• Irish and Polish immigrants
• Businesses and Churches were built
• CTA

II. Real estate agencies had restrictive covenants, and regulated laws that discouraged minorities to move into Gage Park.

• Real estate agencies
• Open housing
• quotas
• restrictive covenants

III. Civil Rights Movement in Chicago

• Public Open Housing marches
• MLK rally in Gage and Marquette Parks
• Restrictive Covenants decline

IV.  Demographic Change

• Roman Catholics remain
• neighborhood remained middle/working class
• Minorities, specifically Hispanics begin moving into the neighborhood.

Introduction

Everyone wants to live the "American dream." For this same reason, Polish and Bohemian immigrants migrated to the United States in search of wealth and happiness. Once settlers in neighborhoods such as Gage Park began to build businesses in the community, more people started to flow into the neighborhood. Churches were built, and public transportation was incorporated as well. By the late 1800s, the neighborhood had been well set up, and had a primarily white, Roman Catholic population. As the years progressed, the demographics of the neighborhood switched to mainly Hispanic inhabitants by the late 1900s. Since Gage Park economically strived in the mid 1900s, more diverse groups of immigrants settled in the neighborhood.