Debate rages in Northwest Indiana on cause of segregation

Gary's Glen Park section provided racially diverse solace for many of the city's upwardly mobile blacks about the time disco was burning up the music charts.

But years of crack houses, failing students and deteriorating neighborhoods spurred white flight immediately south into the apparent refuge of the town of Merrillville.

Richard Hardaway, who hung on in Glen Park until 1983, eventually was driven by the same forces to follow suit. He said the real estate agents and neighbors who tried to deflect or obstruct his goal of moving into Merrillville's Meadowland Estates made for a bumpy ride, but he rode it out to eventually become Merrillville's first black Town Council president.

Fewer than one in 10 blacks and one in three Hispanics have moved outside Northwest Indiana's urban core of Gary, Hammond and East Chicago into virtually white suburbia.

Observers continue debate about why so few.

Will Smith Jr., a black representing Glen Park and much of Gary's eastern half on the Lake County Council, prefers the city life, but says many of his constituents don't have a choice.

"In Gary we have over 8,000 people who are making $10,000 or less a year and homes (outside Gary) are over $150,000. For the most part it is sheer economics," he said.

Chuck Hughes, a black Gary city councilman for 15 years and a candidate for mayor, said the city has a powerful hold on blacks like himself.

"I could have afforded to leave Gary at any opportunity prior to my taking office. But this city (better) prepared me for any challenge for life than any city in America could. I hear (former black residents) wish they were still living in Gary.

"They got sick of the crime and problems with our schools. I encourage them to keep the door open. Their families and lifelong friends are still here. They watch intently the events taking place in Gary.

"Whatever they are doing in these other places they would much rather do in their own hometown," Hughes said.

Hardaway said of black city residents, "Gary is their comfort level and a lot of them don't want to step outside that. Moving to a diverse community is an unknown and they choose not to confront that."

Connie Mack-Ward doesn't buy either the economic or sweet home Gary argument entirely. "There is an element of truth there," said the executive director of the Northwest Indiana Open Housing Center, a nonprofit fair housing agency serving Lake and Porter counties.

"But at the level (segregation) exists here, this is unlikely. You cannot account for it economically.

"The idea all blacks with the income to move where housing is more desirable, that all of them ... enjoy living only among their own or that Hispanics don't mind being crowded together with every relative they have ever had is ludicrous," Mack-Ward said.

Mack-Ward said she has dealt with complaints from black house buyers confronted with developers lying about announced house price increases or rejecting their credit application.

However, she said she was happy with violent public reaction in October that shut down a real estate agent's effort to panic white homeowners by claiming a portion of Merrillville may soon become part of Gary. "That is proof of change, isn't it?"