Week 4 Post 1

 Week 4 Post one- notes

Chapter- 'own your own home'



  • Baltimore racial zoning began because an upper middle class black lawyer moved onto a predominantly white block
  • The 1917 Russian revolution scared American government into believing that the only way to prevent communism was to get as many Americans to become homeowners as possible, handing out 'We own our own home' pamphlets and discouraging renting
  • All of these promotions showed pictures of only white families
  • The better homes org, led by Herbert Hoover, encouraged racial homogeniety in buying single family homes
  • 'every thrifty family has an inherent right to own a home'
  • Hoover also said that it was in the nature of 'our race' to own homes
  • Manuals the Better homes in America published said apartments were the worst kind of houses to get because of African Americans and European immigrants
  • The largest planned community in the nation at the time, Parkchester inf NYC, barred AA families
  • one committee out of 31 was devoted to AA housing, and the leaders claimed the urban areas black people lived in should be cleaned up, or black families should be encouraged to move out to subdivisions in the suburbs. The conference mostly ignored this and continued to push segregation in the New Deal
  • The housing crisis existed prior to the depression and only became considerably worse with it, with majority of middle and working class urban families not able to buying homes.
  • The HOLC colored coded neighborhoods to decide where to give out housing loans, and neighborhoods with AAs were automatically colored red no matter the neighborhood condition
  • African Americans were 'poor risks', and areas were colored green if there were no black people or immigrants (redlining)
  • the FHA insured bank mortgages for 20 years for homebuyers, and had a whites only policy
  • the FHA stated that mixed race neighborhoods would lead to 'instability and a reduction in values'
  • the FHA gave much higher ratings to any neighborhood that had no racial mixing or risk thereof
  • the words 'inharmonious racial groups' were changed to 'compatibility among the neighborhood occupants' but the FHA did the same thing
  • In 1958 Gerald Cohn bought a house with an FHA mortgage but then leased it to a black friend till he was ready to move in. He was then blacklisted by the FHA for allowing a black man to live in the all white neighborhood
  • Even if subdivision developers wanted to integrate, the FHA would not subsidize mixed race development
  • The VA operated with the same policies as the FHA
  • Majority of nationwide housing was being constructed on gov loans by 1948
  • even if a neighborhood was near a majority black neighborhood, the FHA would not finance it out of fear of integration
    • In 1960 a new jersey court concluded the development was so dependent on the FHA that it was considered public housing therefore could not discriminate against african americans
    • A St.Louis suburb developer developed St.Ann for white catholic veterans, and developed a seperate suburb for black buyers. But because that black suburb could not get FHA or VA support, construction was much worse and buyers couldn't get gov loans, causing most of them to rent in worse conditions
    • A Detroit developer was denied loans for a neighborhood near a black neighborhood, and then built a six foot tall concrete wall seperating them and was approved
    • The FHA built AA only projects on rare occasions to respond to civil rights protests and housing shortages
    • "government and industry came together to make a system of residential segregation"

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