Skokie, Illinois
Skokie is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. According to the 2020 census, its population was 67,824. Skokie lies approximately north of Chicago's downtown Loop. The name Skokie comes from a Potawatomi word for 'marsh'. For many years, Skokie promoted itself as "The World's Largest Village". Skokie's streets, like that of many suburbs, are largely a continuation of the Chicago street grid, and the village is served by the Chicago Transit Authority, further cementing its connection to the city.
Skokie was originally a German-Luxembourger farming community, but was later settled by a sizeable Jewish population, especially after World War II. At its peak in the mid-1960s, nearly 60% of the population was Jewish, the largest proportion of any Chicago suburb. Skokie still has many Jewish residents and over a dozen synagogues. It is home to the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, which opened in northwest Skokie in 2009.
Skokie has twice received national attention for court cases decided by the United States Supreme Court. In the mid-1970s, it was at the center of National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie, in which a Nazi group, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, invoked the First Amendment in an attempt to schedule a Nazi rally in Skokie. At the time, Skokie had a significant population of Holocaust survivors. Skokie ultimately lost that case, though the rally was never held.
History
Beginnings
In 1888, the community was incorporated as Niles Centre. About 1910, the spelling was Americanized to "Niles Center". However, the name caused postal confusion with the neighboring village of Niles. A village-renaming campaign began in the 1930s. In a referendum on November 15, 1940, residents chose the Native American name "Skokie" over the name "Devonshire".During the real estate boom of the 1920s, large parcels were subdivided; many two- and three-flat apartment buildings were built, with the "Chicago"-style bungalow a dominant architectural specimen. Large-scale development ended as a result of the Great Crash of 1929 and consequent Great Depression. It was not until the 1940s and the 1950s, when parents of the baby boom generation moved their families out of Chicago, that Skokie's housing development began again. Consequently, the village developed commercially, an example being the Old Orchard Shopping Center, currently named Westfield Old Orchard.
During the night of November 27–28, 1934, after a gunfight in nearby Barrington that left two FBI agents dead, two accomplices of notorious 25-year-old bank-robber Baby Face Nelson dumped his bullet-riddled body in a ditch along Niles Center Road adjoining the St. Peter Catholic Cemetery, a block north of Oakton Street in the town.
The first African-American family to move to Skokie arrived in 1961, and open-housing activists helped to integrate the suburb subsequently.
Name
Historic maps named the Skokie marsh as Chewab Skokie, a probable derivation from Kitchi-wap choku, a Potawatomi term meaning 'great marsh'. Other Indigenous names include skoutay or scoti, an Algonquian words for 'fire'. "Skokie Marsh" was used by local botanists, notably Henry Chandler Cowles, as early as 1901. The village name was changed from "Niles Center" to "Skokie" by referendum in 1940. The name change may also have been influenced by James Foster Porter, a Chicago resident, who had explored the "Skoki Valley" in Banff National Park in Canada in 1911 and admired the name; Porter supported the name "Skokie" in the referendum.Jewish community
Skokie attracted Jewish residents as newcomers did not face the same level of hostility as they did in some other Chicago suburbs, where it wasn't supported to sell property to Jewish institutions. In the post-World War II real-estate developers and builders that were often Jewish themselves, advertised Skokie in the older, urban Jewish neighborhoods in the South, West and North Sides of Chicago. New arrivals were also drawn to the urban planning vision of the Skokie Villager Master Plan of 1946, with its focus on fostering single-family homes rather than apartment living. By 1975, Jewish residents made up 57% of the suburb's population.An estimated 8,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors settled in Skokie in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, making up 10% of the Jewish community in 1978. Yiddish was widely spoken and the area developed a Jewish character with synagogues, Hebrew Schools, Jewish delis, kosher butchers, Israeli bakeries and Judaica stores. Survivors mostly socialized among each other.
In 1964, Joseph Neumann, a Skokie resident and survivor of Auschwitz, provided testimony at the trial of one of the concentration camp's guards.
In early 1960's, Skokie Valley Traditional synagogue was one of four synagogues in the Chicago area that was attacked. The synagogue, now known as Skokie Valley Agudath Jacob Synagogue, has become the largest Orthodox Jewish congregation in Chicago.
In 1962, the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation held its annual conference in the suburb.
In 1970, Dr. Korczak Terrace was dedicated in Skokie, honoring a Polish Jewish martyr, Janusz Korczak.
In 1987, Skokie unveiled a bronze Holocaust memorial statute.
Supreme Court rulings
Twice in its history, Skokie has been the focal point of cases before the United States Supreme Court. National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie, 432 U.S. 43, involved a First Amendment issue. Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 531 U.S. 159 touched upon the Commerce Clause.''National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie''
In 1977 and 1978, Illinois neo-Nazis of the National Socialist Party of America attempted to hold a march in Skokie, far from their headquarters on Chicago's south side. Originally, the neo-Nazis had planned a political rally in Marquette Park in Chicago. The park is located in what was then a predominantly all-white neighborhood, similar to the situation in 1966, when a crowd of 4,000 Marquette Park residents gathered to watch Martin Luther King Jr. lead a march, some waving Confederate flags or throwing bottles, bricks and rocks at the protesters; King was knocked to his knees when struck by a rock. However, the Chicago authorities thwarted the NSPA's plans.Seeking another free-speech political venue, the NSPA group chose to march on Skokie. Given the many Holocaust survivors living in Skokie, the village's government thought the Nazi march would be disruptive, and refused the NSPA permission to hold the event. The NSPA appealed that decision, and the American Civil Liberties Union interceded on their behalf, in National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie. An Illinois appeals court raised the injunction issued by a Cook County Circuit Court judge, ruling that the presence of the swastika, the Nazi emblem, would constitute deliberate provocation of the people of Skokie. However, the Court also ruled that Skokie's attorneys had failed to prove that either the Nazi uniform or their printed materials, which it was alleged that the Nazis intended to distribute, would incite violence.
Moreover, because Chicago subsequently lifted its Marquette Park political demonstration ban, the NSPA ultimately held its rally in Chicago. The attempted Illinois Nazi march on Skokie was dramatized in the television film Skokie in 1981. It was satirized in the film The Blues Brothers in 1980.
Migratory bird rule
In 2001, the decision by Skokie and 22 other communities belonging to the Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County to use an isolated wetland as a solid waste disposal site resulted in a lawsuit. Ultimately, the case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, and resulted in an overturn of the federal migratory bird rule.Geography
According to the 2010 census, Skokie has a total area of, all land. The village is bordered by Evanston to the east, Chicago to the southeast and southwest, Lincolnwood to the south, Niles to the southwest, Morton Grove to the west, Glenview to the northwest, and Wilmette to the north.The village's street circulation is a street-grid pattern, with a major east–west thoroughfare every half mile: Old Orchard Road, Golf Road, Church Street, Dempster Street, Main Street, Oakton Street, Howard Street, and Touhy Avenue. The major north–south thoroughfares are Skokie Boulevard, Crawford Avenue, and McCormick Boulevard; the major diagonal streets are Lincoln Avenue, Niles Center Road, East Prairie Road and Gross Point Road.
Skokie's north–south streets continue the street names and grid values of Chicago's north–south streets – with the notable exceptions of Cicero Avenue, which is renamed Skokie Boulevard within Skokie, and Chicago's Pulaski Road retains its original Chicago City name, Crawford Avenue. The east–west streets continue Evanston's street names, but with Chicago grid values, such that Evanston's Dempster Street is 8800 north in Skokie addresses.
Climate
Skokie is in the Hot-summer humid continental climate, or Köppen Dfa zone. The zone includes four distinct seasons. Winter is cold with snow. Spring warms up with precipitation and storms, some of which can be severe and include tornadoes. Summer has high precipitation and storms. Fall cools down.Demographics
As of the 2020 census, there were 67,824 people, 22,503 households, and 16,206 families residing in the village. The population density was. There were 25,256 housing units at an average density of. The racial makeup of the village was 51.36% White, 7.94% African American, 0.48% Native American, 27.78% Asian, 0.05% Pacific Islander, 4.61% from other races, and 7.78% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 10.59% of the population.There were 22,503 households, out of which 32.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 55.68% were married couples living together, 11.23% had a female householder with no husband present, and 27.98% were non-families. 25.48% of all households were made up of individuals, and 16.28% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.37 and the average family size was 2.78.
The village's age distribution consisted of 23.3% under the age of 18, 6.7% from 18 to 24, 22.2% from 25 to 44, 27.6% from 45 to 64, and 20.0% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 42.9 years. For every 100 females, there were 89.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 85.5 males.
The median income for a household in the village was $74,725, and the median income for a family was $93,491. Males had a median income of $46,915 versus $37,025 for females. The per capita income for the village was $37,827. About 7.5% of families and 9.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 12.9% of those under age 18 and 8.8% of those age 65 or over.
| Race / Ethnicity | Pop 2000 | Pop 2010 | % 2000 | % 2010 | ||
| White alone | 41,549 | 35,955 | 33,697 | 65.59% | 55.50% | 49.68% |
| Black or African American alone | 2,798 | 4,566 | 5,256 | 4.42% | 7.05% | 7.75% |
| Native American or Alaska Native alone | 65 | 70 | 56 | 0.10% | 0.11% | 0.08% |
| Asian alone | 13,425 | 16,437 | 18,726 | 21.19% | 25.37% | 27.61% |
| Pacific Islander alone | 15 | 13 | 23 | 0.02% | 0.02% | 0.03% |
| Other race alone | 119 | 185 | 424 | 0.19% | 0.29% | 0.63% |
| Mixed race or Multiracial | 1,757 | 1,830 | 2,457 | 2.77% | 2.82% | 3.62% |
| Hispanic or Latino | 3,620 | 5,728 | 7,185 | 5.71% | 8.84% | 10.59% |
| Total | 63,348 | 64,784 | 67,824 | 100.00% | 100.00% | 100.00% |
Skokie is approximately 28% Jewish and has over a dozen synagogues.
Skokie also contains a sizeable Assyrian population. Some Assyrian American organizations, such as the Assyrian Universal Alliance Foundation, report that Assyrians make up the largest ethnic group in Skokie, with the population estimate being upwards of 20,000. The population of the local high school district, Niles Township High School District 219, is reported to be about 30% Assyrian, making them the largest ethnic group in the school district as well.