The Color of Law Book Reactions
Chapter 12: "Considering Fixes"
“This chapter concludes with an interesting reference to a writing by Chief Justice John Roberts regarding residential segregation. Justice Roberts is referenced as writing about residential segregation in that it ‘is a product not of state (government) action but of private (individual) choices, it does not have constitutional implications,’ in principle as he set forth. Therefore implying that government remedies for that segregation were impermissible.
This premise is based upon an assumption that residential segregation was totally or mostly an act of individuals.
We can look at projects in cities such as St. Louis, Ferguson, Detroit, Levittown and others, where it is clear that redlining, relocation and forced segregation to accommodate large projects in which local governments were in fact directly involved or sponsored.
Did the government not intervene in the 19760s and 70s with projects and funding for HUD and local initiatives? The New Deal sprung forth many initiatives to address or correct and provide opportunities for marginalized neighborhoods and groups. Did he forget? Section 8 was only a small step.
Since forced-residential segregation’s foundation is set deep and throughout our country, it’s not likely that any one solution, no matter how noble, will be an easy cause to advance. Any initiative would likely be fought at local, state and national levels. The author explains that remedies must involve changes in governmental policies, economic infrastructure and societal norms. This could potentially include promoting the fair housing act, providing children a full and equal education, incentives for housing integration, removing exclusionary zoning ordinances from all jurisdictions, and reconfiguring the section 8 housing system requirements.
However, we have programs today to help bolster real estate and homeownership accessibility via first-time buyer grants and subsidies. We can start with what works and expand from there. A small step perhaps, but better than none at all."
Commentary and reactions provided by Annie Zambito and Bob Haglund of the WRA cultural diversity in housing committee.
Chapter 11: "Looking Forward, Looking Back"
"Like much of the book that brings to light many years of discriminatory acts across many sectors of enterprise throughout the United States, such as housing, public transportation and labor inequality, chapter 11 highlights how federal laws passed in the late 1880s through the early- to mid-1960s failed to bring the equality that was intended when they passed.
In chapter 11, the author discusses how the civil rights movement and the Fair Housing Act were only partially effective because, while they mandated behavior changes going forward, they did not fix what damage had been done in the past. He breaks down the processes of desegregation that our nation has gone through the last half century; while equal voting rights and transportation desegregation were relatively simple changes to make, he says other aspects like school and housing desegregation have been much more complex wrongs to right. Entrenched housing segregation and pervasive segregated neighborhoods made busing necessary to try to achieve school desegregation after 1954 when Brown v. Board of Education struck down the separate but equal concept.
The author admits he believes the window of opportunity for an actual integrated nation had mostly closed by the time there was equal access to housing and employment opportunities. Generational wealth has created an increasingly unequal playing field between the children of white families and those of Black families. The white families’ suburban homes have appreciated with larger and larger amounts of equity, which is then passed on via inheritance; leaving the Black families renting in the urban areas without any built-up wealth to pass on, much less use for things like medical emergencies, leaving Black families that much further behind with every passing generation. Even with the awareness and enforcement of laws pertaining to housing, affordable housing today remains a challenge for many Black families. Issues and challenges due to limitations on lending, lack of generational wealth and transportation still exist. To complicate further, many large investors and REITS acquire large blocks of properties and limit access to withdraws, which would allow smaller investors to “compete” for these properties. Meanwhile, prices continue to rise often faster than incomes, especially among minorities.
Neighborhood poverty created by de jure segregation has resulted in less upward mobility in Black families as well. Neighborhoods with residents living under the poverty line suffer from lack of adult role models, job opportunities and proper nutrition, and they’re exposed to more violence, sub-par education and have fewer health care resources available. Rothstein concludes that only aggressive policies can undo the cycle of poverty in this country created by de jure segregation.
Commentary and reactions provided by Annie Zambito and Bob Haglund of the WRA cultural diversity in housing committee.
Chapter 10: "Suppressed Incomes"
"A common explanation for de facto segregation is that Black families simply could not afford to live in white neighborhoods because of their low incomes. They need to get better educations so they can earn enough to move out of high-poverty neighborhoods. But instead, it was federal and state labor markets that depressed Black wages. Many local governments taxed Blacks more heavily than whites.
Chapter 10 of The Color of Law shows us that not only were Black families physically segregated by way of real estate-related barriers, but also because government policy that has supported the income gap that has continued to grow wider, stifling growth and preventing Black Americans from building generational wealth like white Americans.
Examples include charging Black tenants higher rent and assigning higher property taxes for homes in Black neighborhoods, requiring them to pay a higher percentage of their income for housing and reducing their ability to save; additionally, within the workforce, Blacks were excluded from unions, had to work in segregated work quarters, and had no consideration for job advancement. Throughout the 20th century, the government’s policies continue to perpetuate inequality and, by extension, segregation.
Blacks were denied access to free labor markets and were unable to save wages. Following the Civil War, there was a sharecropping system of indentured servitude similar to slavery where all earnings went to food and living expenses, and the sharecroppers ended up owing the plantation owners. Those who tried to leave were met with violence often perpetrated by local sheriffs. If they couldn’t pay the fines, the prisoners were sold to plantations, mines and factories. An estimated 100,000 met this fate until it was outlawed in 1951; 600,000 left the South and went north during the first great migration during World War 1; 4 million went north during World War II — the second great migration. They had to start from ground zero to earn and save money, but they were paid less and treated worse than whites by the northern labor market; federal, state and local governments; and private employers.
The Civilian Conservation Camps (CCC) had segregated residential camps and denied Blacks the chance to upgrade to the better-paying jobs and develop the skills offered to the whites. Labor unions that unconstitutionally refused to allow Blacks received legal power from the federal government. During WWII, there was a huge shortage of workers, but the unions still refused Black men the opportunity to work, and the unions instead employed white women and then Black women before any opportunities were available to Black men, and then those were for the most menial of jobs."
Commentary and reactions provided by Annie Zambito of the WRA cultural diversity in housing committee.
Chapter 9: "State-sanctioned Violence"
"Chapter 9 of The Color of Law is an exposé of the violence experienced by Black Americans who attempted to integrate into white neighborhoods. I find it really hard to talk about this; I feel both angry and scared. That being said, speaking up about the unfairness of this country's recent history, also makes me more hopeful about making change. While this is a historical book, these are ongoing problems. Challenging the mentality and the mindset of the past is the only way to fix them and work toward a better future.
This chapter shares two stories:
- For Wilbur Gray in 1952, even though the Supreme Court had ruled that restrictive covenants were not enforceable, his local homeowners association in Richmond, California believed it had the right to evict his family. It organized a mob of 300 white people to riot outside their home — shouting curses, hurling bricks and burning a cross on the front lawn, which went on for days without police action. The NAACP and a Communist Party-affiliated civil rights group stood guard until the police were basically forced to provide protection for the family as the violence endured; no arrests were made. The sheriff claimed he did not have enough manpower.
- For Bill Myers in 1957, a middle-class Black veteran who purchased a home in Levittown, New Jersey, via private loan, which was pretty much the only way he could purchase a home, a racist mailman screamed, “n------ have moved into Levittown” and obscenities on his route, inciting an angry mob to form outside his house, throwing rocks, and even renting a “clubhouse” flying the Confederate flag next door. Crosses were burned, and the Ku Klux Klan symbol was painted on the clubhouse. Again, the police made zero arrests.
The experiences of Gray and Myers were common; this profoundly influenced how Black Americans understood the limitations of their housing options and continue to play a role today in how police and authorities are viewed by the Black community. Racial violence was used as a means to maintain segregation. In this chapter, the author demonstrates how inaction can be considered collusion; the U.S. government must be held accountable for police actions that violate the 14th Amendment and the civil rights allowed to all Americans.
These harassment practices began in the Jim Crow era and continued to the 1980s with the violence escalating to include police-tolerated cross burnings, vandalism, arson, firebombing, dynamite bombing and resulting deaths, with few prosecutions. The law enforcement failure to protect integrating families or to regularly enforce the law adds to the dismal picture of government-sponsored de jure segregation in this country."
Commentary and reactions provided by Annie Zambito of the WRA cultural diversity in housing committee.
Chapter 8: "Local Tactics"
"The following tactics were implemented by local officials in their pursuit of racial segregation in housing: rezoning property when it was discovered that Black homebuyers were the target buying pool of a proposed development; converting residential lots to parks to prevent Black ownership; denial of access to public utilities/services (streets, water, sewer); falsely claiming no legal access to future Black developments; discriminatory input in the design of the federal interstate system so that Black neighborhoods would be obliterated; strategic building of schools to force families to move to segregated neighborhoods if they wanted education for their children; and requiring previously unneeded expensive due diligence for developers of Black and integrated neighborhoods.
One example occurred in Milpitas, California: In 1955, the FHA and VA insured subdivisions that began to grow in Milpitas. The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker group committed to racial integration, went to great lengths to find a developer who would agree to build an interracial subdivision. Its efforts were thwarted at every turn by local tactics. One such tactic was to switch zoning from residential to commercial when it became known that the builder’s intent was to sell to both Blacks and whites. For the second site, the AFSC was told it would never receive the necessary approvals. For the third site, the land was rezoned to require an 8,000-square-foot minimum lot size, making it impossible to build houses that working class buyers could afford. Numerous other aggressions reared their ugly heads, like financial institutions unwilling to fund these racially integrated proposed developments. This is an example of the creative liberties local government took to prevent African Americans from integrating into communities to gain wealth and homeownership.
Not only were new construction projects for integrated communities not funded or insured by federal loans — and were forced to use individual, uninsured loans with exorbitant interest rates, but they also faced municipal delays and legal fees that often halted or hampered their progress.
Even if a developer was lucky enough to get their plans approved by a local government, if the intention was to create an integrated neighborhood, citizens often revolted; they held public meetings spewing racial rhetoric, circulated print petitions and took ‘democratic’ votes that: a) required the local government to act on the majority opinion, and b) removed individuals from legal repercussions for their racial motivations. This resulted in actions like model homes being vandalized, site rezoning to industrial or recreational use, requiring certified engineering plans and expensive new sewer systems, denial of sewer line access, or retrospectively deeming the roads leading to these projects as ‘private’ roads despite being serviced and maintained by municipal funds, or the local ordinances were changed in ways that made it unattainable for intended lower to middle class Black buyers from being able to afford the homes being built; for example, increasing the minimum square foot of new construction homes. The hostility was clearly racial.
Additionally, overt prejudice was prevalent in urban renewal projects, whereby Black neighborhoods were demolished to make interstate highways, without compensating those who’d lost their homes. Unironically, these neighborhoods were deemed as unsightly and unsanitary districts, without explanation. These communities suffered without the maintenance and support from their local government; they had unpaved or poorly maintained roads, unattended clogged sewers and little public transportation. Ignorance, permissiveness and impunity were driving local government to re-route interstate highways through African American neighborhoods. These infrastructure projects didn’t just cause the displacement of many families; they created physical boundaries between segregated neighborhoods. They obstructed accessibility to social services, healthcare and other government entities, and led to an inevitable social collapse of these neighborhoods.
Also, school placement decisions were made to restrict Black families to the segregated Black neighborhoods of a city, which was always the less desirable area. Schools for Black students were placed next to glue factories, quarries with stagnant water, and even garbage dumps. Transportation to and from these schools was only available to students who lived within the segregated area as well.
Deliberate discrimination on the local level exacerbated the racial segregation created and supported by the federal government, condemning Black citizens to a lower socioeconomic status with poor housing conditions and little opportunity to change or grow, thereby preserving aspects of slavery for generations to come."
Commentary and reactions provided by Tim Klingman, Sara Jo Dederich, Tatyana Bratishko and Annie Zambito of the WRA cultural diversity in housing committee.
Chapter 7: "IRS Support and Compliant Regulators"
"Blacks were packed into urban housing projects while white families enjoyed federally insured mortgages as they purchased single-family homes in the suburbs. This segregation was reinforced if not bolstered by the actions and policies of other federal government regulatory agencies responsible for upholding the law, including the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution enacted to protect Blacks and ensure they had equal status.
While not surprising, the cast of institutions and governmental regulators involved in the sanctioning of racial discrimination in housing is stunning, nonetheless. From churches to universities to hospitals to neighborhood associations — all of which enjoyed tax-exempt status from the IRS — at a bare minimum there was tacit support by an arm of the government for the unconscionable actions of private groups. Seemingly not to be outdone, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, the Federal Housing Authority (FHA), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Federal Reserve Board condoned discrimination in housing, usually under the auspices of protecting property values.
The IRS, for example, had the obligation to withhold charitable status and tax exemptions from organizations that discriminated, but it failed to enforce the law and granted tax exemptions to private, whites-only schools. The inconsistency if not illegality of the practice of granting tax exemptions to racially discriminatory schools largely continued until a 1983 Supreme Court decision acknowledging that the practice was unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment.
Throughout the years when racial restrictive covenants were recorded and enforced, churches and religious leaders across a wide range of faiths promoted and even funded the covenants and their enforcement. Tax-exempt religious institutions along with the tax-exempt colleges and universities, hospitals and HOAs actively promoted segregation and were not penalized by the IRS; the IRS became a compliant contributor to de jure segregation.
Unfortunately, these behaviors continued through the 21st century; reverse redlining was a major contributing factor to the 2008 housing crash, whereby banks promoted exploitative subprime loans (with negative amortization and low initial teaser interest rates) in Black communities. This was tolerated by the bank regulators until 2010 when the Justice Department sued several large lenders including Countrywide and Wells Fargo to bring a stop to the devastating practice."
Commentary by Tim Klingman and Annie Zambito of the WRA cultural diversity in housing committee.
Chapter 6: “White Flight”
"For at least three decades leading into the 1960s, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) ignored evidence showing that allowing qualified Black families into white neighborhoods would not negatively impact property values. Statistical evidence proved that racial integration actually caused increased home values in subdivisions and neighborhoods. Nonetheless, the FHA would not insure mortgages to finance the purchase of homes by Black Americans because it falsely maintained that racially integrating neighborhoods would result in depreciating home values. The FHA's alleged concern about property values was the pretext under which it justified discriminatory lending practices (redlining).
Blockbusting tactics were used to scare the white population out of cities. Blockbusting occurred when Black families moved into white neighborhoods. Predatory white investors then scared remaining white homeowners into selling their homes before they lost significant values due to the presence of Black families.
The blockbusters stooped low with their tactics to scare the white owners to sell. They paid Black women to stroll through a white neighborhood with baby carriages, paid Black men to drive through white neighborhoods with windows down and music blasting, and staged burglaries that were blamed on Black men. White fear inspired white flight. The blockbusters then purchased properties well below market value.
Blockbusting investors then sold homes to Black buyers. Since the FHA wouldn’t insure loans for the purchase of homes by Black families, blockbusters sold to Black buyers on contract at prices above market values with excessive contract payments and terms allowing the blockbusters to foreclose after just one missed payment and keep the Black buyer’s down payment and any accumulated equity. As a result, husbands and wives both worked double shifts, leaving children unattended. These idle children sometimes drifted into gang and criminal activity. All money went to the contract payments; the owners took on tenants, home maintenance was neglected and homes deteriorated."
Commentary by Tim Klingman, Annie Zambito and Sara Jo Dederich of the WRA cultural diversity in housing committee.
"Restrictive covenants started as a way to find something other than racial zoning to impose racial requirements and restrictions on properties. These covenants typically allowed Black servants to live in homes, but no Blacks — or other minorities — could otherwise occupy the property. Deed restrictions were difficult to enforce because they needed the original owner to sue. So restrictive covenants were placed on subdivisions by developers who created mandatory community associations for all lot owners that had ‘whites-only clauses’ in their bylaws. The ‘no sales or rentals to blacks’ prohibition was enforced by the associations. Blacks could be ordered to move out of homes they had purchased, including in Wisconsin. For example, J.C. Nichols constructed the Country Club Plaza District in Kansas City that had a racial exclusion policy prohibiting sales or rentals to Blacks, which couldn’t be changed without a majority of the 35,000 residents’ agreements. The majority of new developments build around New York, Chicago and Detroit, had racially restrictive covenants as well.
In 1926, restrictive covenants were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Corrigan v. Buckley because they were considered private, voluntary contracts and not state action. Restrictive covenants became the new way to segregate the nation.
Eventually, in 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court in Shelley v. Kraemer held that while private individuals might choose to discriminate, the racially restrictive deeds were effective only if the state courts enforced them by ordering the eviction of Black home buyers from the homes they purchased in white neighborhoods. This was found to violate the 14th Amendment, which prohibits state government participation in segregation. The FHA commissioner was outspoken in his disapproval of the Supreme Court discussion, and racially restrictive covenants in homeowners associations remained legal for decades until the 1962 executive order by President John F. Kennedy prohibiting the use of federal funds to support racial discrimination in housing.
The attempt was also made to enforce the restrictive covenants with exorbitant monetary penalties, distinguished from orders to cancel sales and force Black purchasers or renters out of the property. In 1953, in Barrows v. Jackson, the U.S. Supreme Court ended the circumvention of Shelley v. Kraemer by holding the 14th Amendment prevented the state courts from not only evicting Black purchasers who bought homes in violation of a restrictive covenant but also from awarding monetary damages against those who violated the restrictive covenants.
In Mayers v. Ridley in 1972, a federal appeals court ruled the restrictive covenants themselves violated the federal Fair Housing Act and that recording a deed with the restrictive covenants violated the 14th Amendment. The recorded racial covenants may still discourage Black purchasers even though they are not enforceable."
Commentary by Annie Zambito of the WRA cultural diversity in housing committee.
Chapter 4: "Own Your Own Home"
"Chapter 4 discussed how the federal government proliferated segregation, adding to the racial zoning injustices at the state and local level. The Wilson administration distributed marketing to encourage white families to move out to the suburbs; with the help of the Federal Department of Labor, they promoted the 'Own Your Own Home' campaign, gifting schoolchildren 'we own our own home' pins and handing out pamphlets that said homeownership was a 'patriotic duty,' despite insurmountable hurdles for the minority population of America to follow suit. The then Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover, was a strong proponent of exclusionary zoning when he created the 'Better Homes in America' organization and published 'How to Own Your Own Home,' a brochure that included directives to white families to buy homes in 'racially homogenous' neighborhoods."
Most Americans in the 1930s couldn't afford to purchase a home, and the situation got worse during the Depression. In 1933, when FDR took office, little had been accomplished as far as the campaign to promote white single-family homeownership because working- and middle-class families just could not afford the mortgages that required 50% down with interest-only payments and the balance due in 5-7 years.
As a result, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) was formed to purchase existing mortgages and issue new mortgages with 15+ year amortized repayment schedules so the borrower would own the home and earn equity when the mortgage was paid off. To assess risk, the HOLC hired real estate agents to appraise the properties, and they considered the racial composition of the neighborhood among other factors. The HOLC created color-coded maps with green areas being the safest (no Blacks or other foreigners) and red areas considered the riskiest (neighborhood with any Blacks living there).
Congress and President Roosevelt formed the Federal Housing Association in 1934, with whites-only requirements included in the appraisal standards, rendering Blacks and all minorities unable to achieve the American dream. The FHA insured 80%, 20-year term, fully amortized mortgages. Properties were too risky for FHA insurance if the homes were in racially mixed neighborhoods or even in white neighborhoods near Black ones that might integrate in the future. The Veterans Administration (VA) adopted the same standards when it offered no-down payment, low-interest VA loans to veterans returning from World War II.
As a REALTOR® with a Military Relocation Professional designation, I was touched by the story in the book of Robert Mereday, a Black veteran who had a small business and good job after WWII just like his white counterparts, but he could not get a no-down payment, low-interest VA loan. This is especially disturbing because my dad, uncles, husband and I were all military. It troubles me to no end that Black men and women service personnel were not treated the same and were not able to use the VA benefits available to white service personnel to purchase homes for themselves and their families. Just as it boosted white homeownership, it would have done the same for Blacks, and I can only imagine the difference it would have made in our lives. Is an apology owed to our armed service veterans who were victims of housing discrimination through the VA? And my answer is absolutely yes!
Unfortunately, every real estate-related business played a part in enforcing racial segregation carried down from the federal level. Whole new construction subdivisions were financed by the FHA; this led to entire suburbs that were exclusively white, like Levittown, New Jersey. In Detroit, a half-mile long, six-foot-high concrete wall was built to physically separate an existing Black neighborhood from a whites-only new construction project to appease the FHA and attain financing. Residential segregation is the fault of both the housing industry and the government, and therefore it is still partially our responsibility as REALTORS® to ensure those wrongs of our industry’s past do not repeat themselves.
This book is a hard read but a necessary read as well as a hard truth about a forgotten history of how our government segregated America."
Commentary and reactions provided by Rae McWhorter and Annie Zambito of the WRA cultural diversity in housing committee.
Read “How Redlining Continues to Shape Racial Segregation in Milwaukee: 1930s Lending Map Reveals the Policy Roots of Housing Discrimination,” at www.wiscontext.org/how-redlining-continues-shape-racial-segregation-milwaukee.
Chapter 3: “Racial Zoning”
"After the Civil War and the abolition of slavery in 1865, liberated slaves lived peacefully for several decades in the West, Midwest and East. This Reconstruction period of Black liberation came to an end quickly in 1877 when federal troops protecting Blacks were withdrawn as part of a political compromise resolving controversy over the election of Rutherford B. Hayes. The Jim Crow laws were soon instituted, and plantation owners exploited former slaves who were now sharecroppers with violent measures. Fear and hatred of Blacks grew. Cities began enacting zoning ordinances creating separate living areas for whites and Blacks; for instance, Blacks could not buy homes on blocks where there was a white majority.
‘Is it any surprise that President Woodrow Wilson and future president Franklin Delano Roosevelt who approved racial segregation and discrimination in government offices, with a policy disallowing Black supervisors of White employees, curtains dividing workspaces, separate cafeterias, and basement bathrooms for Black workers, would also support segregated housing? Edicts from the top echelons of government gave license to localities to create deplorable environments for Black Americans through discriminatory zoning schemes.’
Segregation based on racial zoning ordinances raged rampant and uncontested until the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Louisville, Kentucky plan commission’s racial zoning ordinance. In 1917, in Buchanan v. Warley, a Black family attempted to buy a home on an integrated block where there were two Black and eight white households. The court looked to the 14th Amendment not as a measure to protect the rights of freed slaves, but rather as a business rule to protect the freedom to contract. The Louisville ordinance was invalidated because it interfered with the right of a property owner to sell to whomever they wished.
Cities then began to try to find ways around the prohibition against overtly racial zoning. They used ‘two-bit, cute, sneaky zoning pretexts under which racial segregation (and the ensuing inequities toward Black people) in housing was achieved in so many communities throughout the United States of America. The examples are insulting and enraging to those of us who care about The American Dream, fairness, the pursuit of happiness, equal rights and justice. One such example involved a Virginia state law banning interracial marriage and zoning ordinances to prohibit anyone from residing on a street where it was illegal to marry a member of the majority race on such a street. Municipal attorneys cynically argued all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court that its zoning law was simply intended to prevent mixed race marriages and that any effect on segregation in housing was unintended. The Court rejected this ordinance in 1930. It is maddening to envision the architects of such sinister ideas earning a living and going home to their families after working on and executing such evil plans.’
In the 1910s, exclusionary zoning ordinances began to be enacted that did not explicitly refer to race or racial composition of neighborhoods, but instead provided that only large single-family homes that only whites could afford to build were allowed in middle class neighborhoods. Apartment buildings were not permitted. These exclusionary zoning ordinances circumvented Buchanan v. Warley. Industrial development was allowed only in areas adjacent to Black neighborhoods, bringing pollution and harmful environmental conditions. Other zoning ordinances contributed to Black neighborhoods becoming slums by allowing taverns, liquor stores, nightclubs and prostitution in only Black neighborhoods. As the number of areas where Blacks could live began to shrink, rooming houses sprang up in Black neighborhoods where they were allowed, creating crowding, but not in white neighborhoods.
In 1921 under the Harding administration, a model zoning law manual was created by Herbert Hoover, fueled by racial motivation but overtly neutral, to promote zoning nationally. In 1924, the National Association of Real Estate Boards adopted a provision stating: ‘a realtor should never be instrumental in introducing into a neighborhood … members of any race or nationality … whose presence will clearly be detrimental to property values in that neighborhood.’
‘The use of zoning for purposes of racial segregation persisted well into the latter half of the 20th century.’ As secretary for the Village of Walworth Plan Commission, my stomach wretched thinking of the horrible things that must’ve been said but potentially not recorded verbatim in the notes of these meetings."
Commentary and reactions provided by Tim Klingman and Annie Zambito of the WRA cultural diversity in housing committee.
Chapter 2: “Public Housing, Black Ghettos”
"During World War I, the government built civilian housing on and near military bases. Eighty-three projects across 26 states housed 170,000 white workers and their families, while African Americans were left to find their own housing, often in overpopulated slums.
Federal policy sometimes imposed racial segregation where it hadn’t previously existed. Due to a shortage of housing from 1930-50, Franklin D. Roosevelt created the nation’s first public housing program. Public housing was mostly for working class and lower-middle class white families. Public housing’s original purpose was to give shelter — not to those too poor to afford it — but to those who could afford decent housing but couldn’t find it because none was available.
Although public housing was a solution to the housing crisis, the administration allowed race to determine the program’s design with buildings segregated by race or an exclusion of African Americans completely. The Public Works Administration (PWA), which managed the housing project under Roosevelt, established the 'neighborhood composition rule.' This rule stated that federal housing projects should reflect the previous racial composition of their neighborhoods — projects in white areas could only house white tenants and so forth. At the time, many urban neighborhoods were integrated because workers of all races needed to live close to the downtown factory jobs to which they walked, but the PWA ignored the rule and created segregated housing projects where there was no previous segregation. Later, the PWA could not pass further housing legislation if segregation and racial discrimination were prohibited in the new housing projects.
In the 1940s, politicians mobilized white voters by stirring up fear of integration in public housing and calling out 'negro invasions.' By the end of the decade, white families increasingly found housing in the private market, while African Americans remained dependent on public housing. Ultimately, African American advocates were left fighting to keep segregated housing versus no housing at all. Local approvals for housing projects also were not forthcoming if the result was integration.
This chapter is absolutely mortifying. The idea that the government established segregation in areas that were integrated is the most damning. Milwaukee is one of the most segregated cities in the U.S., and I definitely feel it living on the north side and having grown up on the south side. The demographics of the suburbs compared to the city speak to this, and we still see it today — public housing projects proposed in the suburbs where there is land to develop on, are fought and voted against. The current perception of public housing helps maintain segregation. We seem to view public housing as a dead-end versus a helping hand, and it’s extremely disheartening.
'Public housing’s original purpose was ... to give shelter to those who could afford decent housing but couldn’t find it because none was available.' Is that not now?
Chapter 2 features the process and the history of the federal and local governments shaping segregation in inner cities. These areas became red zones due to the lack of assistance from the government, therefore leading segregated communities or so-called 'colored districts' to poverty. What if the federal and local governments could push 'in the opposite direction, using public housing as an example of how integrated living could be successful'?"
Commentary and reactions provided by Marie Janzen, Annie Zambito and Tatyana Bratishko of the WRA cultural diversity in housing committee.
Chapter 1: “If San Francisco, then Everywhere?”
"WWII war industries were forced to hire white women, then Black men and eventually Black women. Rapid population growth came to industrial prime shipping areas like San Francisco, but there was no housing to accommodate the flood of incoming workers. Public housing was officially and explicitly segregated. For Blacks, any available housing was of poor quality and in industrial areas, but for white defense workers, the government constructed and made available housing inland near white residential areas — sturdy and permanent — the foundation of segregation patterns there today.
Under the war guest program, white workers could be tenants in spare rooms. Seven hundred houses were constructed in Rollingwood, all with an extra bedroom and a separate entrance to accommodate white war workers and restricted sales to Blacks. War housing for Blacks became the Black ghetto.
In this book, Richard Rothstein explains the difference between de facto and de jure segregation that led me to draw a metaphor to the age-old debate in psychology: nature versus nurture. He feels racism in this country is more the result of de jure (law or government policy) segregation rather than de facto segregation (private actions). In my opinion, both de jure and de facto contribute to modern day racism, just like both our genes and our environment make up who we are.
It seems like ‘government’ from Washington (i.e., federally backed loans) was the biggest proponent and distributor of racism coast to coast, as illuminated by this book. Fair housing wasn’t the aim for the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Veterans Affairs (VA). ‘At the time, the Federal Housing Administration and Veterans Administration didn’t only refuse to insure mortgages for African Americans in designated white neighborhoods …; they also would not insure mortgages for whites in a neighborhood where African Americans were present.’
Is there evidence of racism being taught to real estate agents that led to de facto actions by REALTORS® like scaremongering, redlining and blockbusting? Why was this discrimination possible and allowed in real estate? In the first chapter, I learned that ‘Although the local real estate board would ordinarily ‘blackball’ any agent who sold to a nonwhite buyer in the city’s white neighborhoods (thereby denying the agent access to the multiple listing service upon which their business depended), once wholesale blockbusting began, the board was unconcerned, even supportive.’ ‘Many agents believed that their real estate board deemed selling to African Americans in white neighborhoods to be an ‘unethical’ practice, subjecting the violator to expulsion from the board.’
This is very disturbing. We have to admit that REALTORS® and their lenders followed segregation policies ‘in every metropolitan area of the nation ‘where government ‘purposely created segregation’ and allowed ‘segregation where it hadn’t previously taken root."
Commentary and reactions provided by Annie Zambito and Tatyana Bratishko of the WRA cultural diversity in housing committee.