Bernard Sheil, World War II, and Restrictive Covenants

By Raaj Aggarwal

Black Chicagoans battling against housing segregation found an ally in the interracial fight against covenants. Bernard Sheil, a white Catholic bishop, would play an influential role in ending restrictive covenants and other forms racial segregation. Historian Timothy Neary in Crossing Parish Boundaries: Race, Sports, and Catholic Youth in Chicago, 1914-1954 writes that Sheil lived a life that, “Developed a Catholic [vision] of American pluralism that included African Americans.” As such, Sheil would help combat racial injustice during the 1930s, World War II, and the postwar period. This would include joining African Americans in helping to end restrictive covenants.

Over one million African Americans fought in a segregated military during World War II to fight fascism abroad, only to return to racial oppression at home. In observance with this reality, Bernard Sheil, a bishop of Chicago, firmly declared that as African Americans, “Ceased to die in the muddy fields of Germany and on the coral beaches of the South Pacific… the anti-poll tax bill was allowed to languish and die in the Congressional hopper.” He’d further lament that, “Young colored Americans no longer had the opportunity to prove their love for their country by winning decorations for gallantry and bravery. [Yet those] who continued to plead for the establishment of a fair employment practices act [and] begged that colored Americans be given an opportunity to cast their ballot found themselves stigmatized as 'crack-pots'... This was the shocking answer of white America to the plea for racial justice.” This decry was part of an address titled "Restrictive Covenants vs. Brotherhood" given in 1946 to the Chicago Council Against Racial Discrimination less than a year after the end of World War II, with the goal of condemning the residential segregation caused by restrictive covenants.

Lt. Gen. Joseph T. McNarney, Deputy Supreme Allied Commander, Mediterranean Theater, inspects Honor Guard of MPs during his tour of the Fifth Army front at the 92nd Division Sector. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/531415

Up to this point, Sheil was known to be a champion for racial justice, especially as a man of Catholic faith. Born in Chicago as a second-generation Irish American in 1886, Sheil would assume the prominent position of auxiliary bishop in 1928. Thanks to his charismatic leadership, Sheil would go on to found the Catholic Youth Organization in 1930 during the calamity of the Great Depression, which leveraged Chicago’s local community assets to provide sports activities to Chicago's youth for boys and girls, regardless of race. Notably, Sheil’s organization differed from the YMCA and other organizations due to there being no racial segregation within the CYO during this time. Sheil would also support the African American community within Chicago in many other ways, such as opening a community center in the heart of Chicago's Black Belt. Before and during this time, Sheil would be a national champion not just for racial equality, but would also speak across the country on causes ranging from supporting Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal programs to denouncing anti-semitism during the lead up to World War II.

Bishop Bernard Sheil and boxers in a 1950 promotional shot for Catholic Youth Organization boxing championships (Archdiocese of Chicago’s Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Archives and Records Center)

Sheil felt the need to attack residential segregation after World War II due to the immense challenges in housing that African Americans faced across the country. Housing construction and repairs slowed down during the Great Depression. This would continue to further stall during World War II as the nation concentrated its labor and industry towards the war effort. As such, the country was engulfed in an immense housing shortage during the immediate postwar years. This issue was further compounded for African Americans, who faced this general shortage in addition to the myriad instruments of residential segregation that would cause further obstacles to housing, with racially restrictive covenants being one key factor.

Sheil vilified racial covenants in his address. They forced African Americans into overcrowded homes in disrepair, further enabling communicable diseases to spread within overcrowded residential complexes and communities. Restrictive covenants furthermore helped to cement widespread beliefs that African Americans could not live harmoniously with white America. Dominant in the first half of the 20th century, Chicago would see a surge in covenant creation in the 1940s following the start of the Second Great Migration. As such, African American veterans returned from their courageous fight against fascism only to be welcomed by a reinvigorated, oppressive campaign of residential segregation in an already constrained housing market.

An African American boy living in a deteriorated home with impoverished coverings and boarded up doors. https://photoarchive.lib.uchicago.edu/db.xqy?one=apf2-09370.xml

It was this hypocrisy that Sheil sought to attack, viewing that restrictive covenants had deleterious impacts that both involved and transcended the material conditions of African American livelihood. Sheil announced that some of the consequences of restrictive covenants included, “Poor health, improper housing, disease, and crime.” Yet he also viewed restrictive covenants as an issue that involved much more than physical standards of living. Instead, he saw the predicament of restrictive covenants as, "A problem that far transcends the question of democratic rights. It is one of the most basic factors mitigating against interracial harmony."

In addition to racial harmony, Sheil also viewed restrictive covenants as being contradictory to the Christine doctrine, stating that, "It is sickening to realize that… restrictive covenants and all of the other inhuman racial practices to which we have become inured are diametrically and blatantly opposed to every concept of Christian ethics." Sheil continued to discuss the hypocrisy he saw in Christians, declaring that those who silently accepted African Americans being forced into "legalistic concentration camps of America... drifted from the original command, 'Love One Another.'" As such, Sheil called on Christians to live with greater integrity in accordance with their own ethics, and to reevaluate who is to be included in the brotherhood of man.

Along these lines, Sheil denounced both the hypocrisy of Christians and the American public turning a blind eye to the oppression of African Americans, stating that the US was committing, "The very crimes of which we accused Nazi Germany." He proudly announced the valiant effort that African Americans had in the fight against the Axis powers and the strong hopes that champions of racial justice had for recognizing the humanity of African Americans. Yet Sheil also lamented that despite these aspirations, the hopes that “America would move confidently forward to the fulfillment of the age-old dream… boldly enunciated in the 'Land of the Free and Home of the Brave,'” would not be actualized. Instead, Sheil observed that America would continue to live within an outrageous double standard through allowing tyrannical oppression to thrive within its own borders. In his reaction to this intolerable hypocrisy, Sheil concluded his speech by stating that there, “Is never a time for compromising with fundamental moral principles. Either we believed and meant what we announced to the world concerning the dignity of man and the essential community of his nature, or it is a lie. If we meant it then let us, for the love of God, begin to practice it, honestly and objectively.”

Bishop Sheil poses with children and a large cake celebrating the 21st anniversary of CYO's founding on May 25, 1951. (Archdiocese of Chicago’s Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Archives and Records Center)

Sheil would go on to live his life in accordance with this integrity of Christian ethics, continuing to champion racial justice. After this address, Sheil worked with the Chicago mayor and labor leaders to improve race relations when postwar public housing for African Americans and racial integration began, among other actions. Following the Supreme Court’s 1948 Shelley v. Kraemer ruling that made the enforcement of restrictive covenants illegal, Sheil’s fervent passion for racial justice persevered as he would later lament that “The Negro has not received a square deal, an honest deal, or a new deal from white America.”  As such, Sheil would continue to serve as the director of the Chicago Youth Organization until he stepped down in 1954. While Sheil passed away in 1969, his legacy is still remembered and studied by modern scholars, as his powerful story and genuine integrity can inform those seeking to more earnestly live in accordance with their values.

Further reading: Crossing Parish Boundaries: Race, Sports, and Catholic Youth in Chicago, 1914-1954 by Timothy Neary