Mestizos move in, blacks run for the hills.
U.S. Representative Danny Davis sitsin his west side congressional office, long ago the headquartersof Sears Roebuck & Co., and watches black Chicago slip away.
The third-largest U.S. city lost 17 percent of its blackpopulation — 181,000 people — in the past decade, according tothe Census Bureau. In their place, Hispanics gained 25,000, or3.3 percent. To explain the seismic shift those numbersrepresent in economic and political power, Davis drew on thewords of Chicago blues legend Buddy Guy.
“While you’re steppin’ out, somebody else is steppin’in,” said Davis, 69, an eight-term congressman and pillar ofChicago’s black political establishment.(Emphasis ours. — Ed.)
In the city that drew waves of blacks during the GreatMigration of the early 20th century, their descendants barelyremain the largest racial or ethnic group, at 32.4 percent.Blacks earn less and are more likely to live in poverty thanHispanics, who make up almost 30 percent of Chicago, a city of2.7 million that lost 6.9 percent of its population since 2000.