Housing Discrimination in Chicago's Northern Suburbs, 1853-1966

FAIN: HB-267551-20

Mary Barr
Kentucky State University (Frankfort, KY 40601-2334)

Research and writing a book on the history of the North Shore Summer Project, a 1965 collaboration between civil rights groups and women’s organizations in Chicago’s northern suburbs working to address housing discrimination in those communities.

In this book project, I recount the little-known but significant story of the 1965 North Shore Summer Project (NSSP). Through the joint efforts of suburban housewives and established civil rights organizations, the summer project sought to expose and defy housing discrimination in eight suburbs collectively referred to as Chicago’s North Shore. NSSP was modeled after the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project, a voting rights campaign, and is possibly the only white protest consciously patterned after southern black models. It was the first direct action civil rights movement in a suburban area. Even though the campaign fell short of its hoped-for impact, it paved the way for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1966 Chicago Freedom Movement.