History of discriminatory housing practices explored in February film study
Second session features author of ‘The Color of Law’
LOUISVILLE — The latest segment of the “Evicting the American Dream” churchwide film study brought home a stark reminder that the U.S. government was actively involved in the segregation of housing in the mid-20th century and the limiting of opportunities for people of color who are still experiencing repercussions today.
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) segment featured a pre-recorded presentation by Richard Rothstein, the author of “The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America.” He provided historical information on detrimental housing policies and practices in the United States that shaped the development of America’s suburbs, and he urged listeners to organize to fight discrimination that remains today.
“It’s one thing to learn about these crises, both their history and their current implications; it's quite another thing to do something about it,” Rothstein said. “And you, Presbyterian church members, activists in your churches, around the country, are in a very, very good position to do something about it.”
Spurring discussion and action are among the aims of the film study inspired by “Evicting the American Dream,” a documentary by PC(USA)’s Counter Stories Productions. The film was released last year as a resource for communities and faith-based groups that want to create positive change to help people who are falling into homelessness or other problematic living situations because of evictions and unjust policies.
The study, continuing each Monday in February, consists of watching an excerpt from the film prior to each session, then hearing from experts during the study’s evening sessions and engaging in small-group discussions.
This film study is offered by collaborative ministries within the Unified Agency including Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, the Presbyterian Committee on the Self-Development of People, the Presbyterian Hunger Program, Global Ecumenical Partnerships; the Presbyterian Investment and Loan Program; and PC(USA) mid council and congregational leaders on systemic poverty.
During introductory remarks to participants, Grace Marable, a deacon with Bethel Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, said, “If you think you know something about homelessness, trust me: when you finish this series, you will learn a lot more. … We need to be more informed and be ready to help with this issue, this injustice that's affecting people all around the country, and now we get to see the background of what's really causing it.”
Rothstein opened by discussing the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) and the practice of “redlining,” which was a policy followed by the federal government to deny mortgages to African Americans in particular, as well as other low-income families who lived in areas where poverty was high, he said.
“The HOLC created color-coded maps of every metropolitan area in the nation, with the safest neighborhoods colored green and the riskiest colored red,” Rothstein’s book notes. “A neighborhood earned a red color if African Americans lived in it, even if it was a solid middle-class neighborhood of single-family homes … the maps had a huge impact and put the federal government on record as judging that African Americans, simply because of their race, were poor risks.”
That was part of a broader, systematic effort to keep African Americans from leaving their neighborhoods and building wealth for their families.
During his presentation, Rothstein provided multiple examples of specific sites where discriminatory housing practices were the norm. For example, he discussed Levittown, a subdivision east of New York City, in which African Americans could help to build homes but could not purchase them in the late 1940s.
The developer, William Levitt, was able to get the subdivision of 17,000 single-family homes for returning war veterans and other working-class families off the ground because of the backing of the federal government.
“The Federal Housing Administration and then the Veterans Administration agreed to guarantee his bank loans on condition that he never sell a home to a Black family,” Rothstein said during this week’s presentation. “This was explicit. It wasn't the action of rogue bureaucrats working for the Federal Housing Administration, the Veterans Administration. It was written out in a federal policy manual. It was called the underwriting manual. It was guidance for appraisers who were assigned the job of evaluating the application of builders like Levitt.”
Even building near where African Americans lived was discouraged because it was thought that it could lead to developments being infiltrated by “inharmonious racial groups,” Rothstein said. In the book, “I have a photograph of a 6 ft. high, half mile long, concrete wall that the developer of an all-white project in the Detroit area was required to construct to separate his project from a nearby African American neighborhood as a condition of getting a federal bank guarantee.”
White residents moved into these neighborhoods in the 1940s and ‘50s and saw their homes appreciate in value over the years. “The wealth they gained enabled them to send their children to college. It enabled them to perhaps take care of temporary emergencies, temporary unemployment, short-term unemployment, maybe a medical emergency. It enabled them to subsidize their own retirements, and it enabled them to bequeath wealth to their children and grandchildren, who then had down payments for their own homes. African Americans were prohibited from doing this. The result is that today, although African American household incomes are about 60% of white incomes, African American wealth is only about 10-12% of white wealth,” which is “entirely attributable to unconstitutional federal housing policies.”
The effects have been devastating for many Blacks. “The lack of wealth constricts African Americans to low-income neighborhoods that are more polluted, where there are a few markets selling fresh and healthy food, where the schools are more poorly funded and where they're overwhelmed with low-income children who need more support than middle-class children, who get most of their educations at home from highly educated parents.”
Further, “it underlies the mass incarceration of African Americans, as well as the evictions that you've been talking about. The mass incarceration exists because you have concentrations of young men without opportunity to get the jobs that they need, to get the training for those jobs that they need, and they engage, and the police engage in confrontations with them that would not exist if they were dispersed throughout the broader community, as they were prohibited from doing,” he said.
He also noted that unfair housing practices continue today with real estate agents turning away qualified Black clients.
In a Long Island, New York paired testing exercise, “A Black tester would be told that there were no houses available in her or his price range in a particular neighborhood,” he said. “The white tester would be given a list of homes to look at in that same neighborhood, in the same price range. The Black client, potential client, would be told that, ‘Oh, this is not a good neighborhood to live in.’ The white potential buyer would be told it was a very good neighborhood. … These are all violations of the law.”
He encouraged study participants to volunteer to take part in such tests, which are often done through fair housing centers.
The second session of the film study was led by the Rev. Cheryl Barnes, manager of the PC(USA)'s U.S.-based Global Ecumenical Liaisons, and Marable. They left ample time after Rothstein’s presentation for study participants to break into regional, synod-based break-out groups to discuss questions about redlining and racial discrimination related to housing in their own areas. Small group participants were enthusiastic about the opportunity to share regional resources and advocacy opportunities with one another and to consider ongoing connections within their Synods.
For more information about the series or to register, go here. Participants will receive session recordings and compiled resource notes after the sessions.
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