Redlined, A Legacy of Housing Discrimination

Decades of housing discrimination have
helped create an enormous wealth gap

between white and black families.

- The enduring legacy of red-lining, the
legal government sponsored effort to

deny mortgages and home ownership
opportunities to African-Americans and

other minorities continues to undermine
their quality of life. This violation of

basic civil rights continues to negatively
impact education attainment, health

outcomes, wealth accumulation,
self-esteem, mortality rates, and

civic engagement.

- Home ownership has proved to both the
doorway and gatekeeper to success and

well-being in America. It is at the
core of todays racial wealth gap.

- There's a very powerful myth in this
country, and that is that residential

segregation in this country is something
we call de-facto segregation.

Something to happen by accident.

Every textbook that's used in American
high schools and middle schools today

lies about this history.
It talks about how

northern cities were de facto segregated,
without government involvement.

They talk about how the Federal Housing
Administration, did a wonderful job of

creating single family homes in the
suburbs for working class families

without mentioning that the working
class families they had created these

homes for, could only be white.

- This began a history of excluding people
of color from government housing programs.

Intended to lower the cost of mortgages
and increase home ownership.

Segregated neighborhoods
by race using a code system.

Outlined minority neighborhoods
using the color red.

Intended to expand the secondary
mortgage market by securitizing

mortgage loans.

Community boards often denied
minority veterans mortgages.

Many minority vets could not be
buried in the same cemetery as

whites.

It wasn't until 1970 that lending to
communities of color began to

increase.

- The way this manifested itself is
through the drawing of maps.

Different neighborhoods were underwritten
as being riskier or safer and the

principle component that determined
riskiness or safety from a lending

standpoint was ethnic
and racial composition.

It was at that point that the real estate
developers began to drop strings

around areas.

The local banker could choose
who would get mortgages, where.

So that we could not have gotten
a loan out in the suburbs because

those were whites only.

The concept of a middle class black
only exists in the mind of a middle

class black.

Everywhere else in the suburbs
you are that nigger family on the

corner of Warren road
and Boulevard Way.

Well the truth is that we've had in this
country generations of affirmative action

for whites.

And the sad truth of it is that
whites don't know that that's

happened or they refuse to
accept it or don't understand

the history.

And what that leads to is this false
kind-of narrative that "I did it myself".

You know this, racial (inaudible),
individual responsibility narrative.

- They were many federal, state,
and local policies explicitly racial

designed to create segregation in
every Metropolitan area in the

country. And policies that were so
powerful that they still determine

the racial boundaries of
Metropolitan areas today.

The Federal Housing Administration began
a program to suburbanize the entire white

working class population
into single family homes.

- This is Levittown, Pennsylvania.
A new suburban community of

sixty thousand people with its
giant shopping center, winding

lanes named for flowers and
trees. It is (inaudible) typical of

communities all over America.

Where families are pursuing the American
dream to give their children a better

chance in life.

Nearly all are young people.

A large proportion are veterans.
For many it is the first house of

their own and it represents a
major financial investment.