News of threatened bombings in many cases was circulated well in advance of the actual occurrence. Negroes were warned of the exact date on which explosions would occur. They asked for police protection, and, in some instances where police were sent beforehand, their homes were bombed, and no arrests were made.
The persons directing these bombings did not limit their intimidations to Negro residents in white neighborhoods; residences of Negroes and white real estate men were bombed because they had sold or rented property in these exclusive areas to Negroes, and Negro bankers' houses were bombed because they made loans on Negro property and supported their mortgages.
These bombings increased rapidly in frequency and damaging effect. The six months' period ended October 1, 1920, witnessed as many bombings as the entire thirty-five months preceding. Prior to 1919 there were twelve bombings. Four of these were directed at properties merely held by Negro real estate men as agents, two of them in Berkeley Avenue just north of Forty-third Street, and near the lake. Five were in the 4500 block on Vincennes Avenue, two at 4200 Wabash Avenue, and one at 4732 Indiana Avenue.
Bombing of real estate men's properties appears to have been part of a general scheme to close the channels through which the invasion proceeded rather than a protest of neighbors. The four explosions in the 4500 block on Vincennes Avenue appear to have been deliberately aimed at the tenants. This block is at the center of the neighborhood most actively opposed to the coming in of Negroes. In January, 1919, a white and a Negro real estate agent were bombed; in March, Jesse Binga's real estate office at 4724 State Street and an apartment at 4041 Calumet Avenue were bombed. In April there were two more bombings, one of a realty office. Following a public meeting on May 5 to arouse white property owners of the Hyde Park district against Negro invasion, there were four bombings. Between January 1, 1920, and March 1, 1920, there were eight bombings in eight weeks. Responsibility for the creation of the sentiment thus expressed was in some instances assumed by organizations. For example the _Property Owners' Journal_, in its issue for February 1, 1920, said: