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Skokie (; formerly Niles Center) is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States, neighboring the City of Chicago's northern border. Its population, according to the 2020 census, was 67,824. Skokie lies approximately north of Chicago's downtown Loop. Its name 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, 58% of the population was Jewish, the largest percentage of any Chicago suburb. At nearly 30%, Skokie still has a large Jewish population 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. In 2001, although Skokie was not a direct party to the case, a decision by the village and 22 other area communities regarding land use led the court to reduce the power of the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
[edit] History
[edit] BeginningsIn 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 (Lester Gillis) 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. [edit] NameThe name of the town was changed from "Niles Center" to "Skokie" by referendum in 1940. "Skokie" had previously been used as the name for the marshland on which much of the town was built; the term "Skokie marsh" was being used by local botanists, notably Henry Chandler Cowles, as early as 1901. Maps long named the Skokie marsh as Chewab Skokie, a probable derivation from Kitchi-wap choku, a Potawatomi term meaning "great marsh". Virgil Vogel's Indian Place Names in Illinois (Illinois State Historical Society, 1963) records the name Skokie as:
The 1940 change of name may also have been influenced by James Foster Porter, a Chicago native, who had explored the "Skoki Valley" in Banff National Park in Canada in 1911 and became captivated by the name. Porter supported the name "Skokie" in the referendum when he returned to America. [edit] Supreme Court rulingsTwice 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 (1977), involved a First Amendment issue. Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County (SWANCC) v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 531 U.S. 159 (2001) touched upon the Commerce Clause. [edit] National Socialist Party of America v. Village of SkokieIn 1977 and 1978, Illinois neo-Nazis of the National Socialist Party of America (NSPA) 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.[1] 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 movie, Skokie, in 1981. It was satirized in The Blues Brothers movie in 1980. [edit] Migratory bird ruleIn 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. [edit] Research Tips[edit] Resources
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