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boston bean

(36,186 posts)
Sun May 7, 2017, 08:56 AM May 2017

A 'Forgotten History' Of How The U.S. Government Segregated America

In 1933, faced with a housing shortage, the federal government began a program explicitly designed to increase — and segregate — America's housing stock. Author Richard Rothstein says the housing programs begun under the New Deal were tantamount to a "state-sponsored system of segregation."

The government's efforts were "primarily designed to provide housing to white, middle-class, lower-middle-class families," he says. African-Americans and other people of color were left out of the new suburban communities — and pushed instead into urban housing projects.

Rothstein's new book, The Color of Law, examines the local, state and federal housing policies that mandated segregation. He notes that the Federal Housing Administration, which was established in 1934, furthered the segregation efforts by refusing to insure mortgages in and near African-American neighborhoods — a policy known as "redlining." At the same time, the FHA was subsidizing builders who were mass-producing entire subdivisions for whites — with the requirement that none of the homes be sold to African-Americans.


Learn more:

http://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history-of-how-the-u-s-government-segregated-america
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A 'Forgotten History' Of How The U.S. Government Segregated America (Original Post) boston bean May 2017 OP
Home ownership is how most families build wealth. No wonder there is such a large disparity... brush May 2017 #1

brush

(53,469 posts)
1. Home ownership is how most families build wealth. No wonder there is such a large disparity...
Sun May 7, 2017, 10:17 AM
May 2017

between the wealth of white families v black families.

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