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Racial Segregation and Concentrated Poverty: The History of Housing in Black America - YouTube
Channel: The Root
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♪ Tell the homies I'm in heaven
and they aint got hoods. ♪
[2]
- Like many songs will tell you,
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♪ Bullet holes left in my peepholes, ♪
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♪ Living in the hood, ♪
[7]
♪ New York projects, ♪
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♪ In the ghetto, ♪
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The story of what housing,
and other living conditions
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look like for many Black
Americans is pretty bleak.
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And that's by design.
[19]
In addition to artists cataloging
[20]
their very personal experiences,
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♪ Used to fuss when the
landlord dissed us, ♪
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♪ no heat, ♪
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♪ wonder why Christmas missed us. ♪
[26]
It's been proven that
the modern phenomenon
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of concentrated Black
poverty was an intentional
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government sponsored institution.
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This is in part why President Biden issued
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an executive order back in January,
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intended to right the historical wrongs
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Black folks have faced
when it comes to housing
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and home ownership in this country.
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But first, let's take it back.
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- The dawn of the 20th
century, African-Americans
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in major cities lived
scattered throughout the city.
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They weren't segregated
particularly, it's only
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with the Great Migration
of six to seven million
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African-Americans North and
West escaping the South.
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The predominant response
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of the United States government
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and state and local governments
to the Great Migration
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was to contain Black people
in their own neighborhoods.
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And HUD, the Department of
Housing and Urban Development,
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was particularly a part of this role
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when the precursors to HUD introduced
[87]
and encouraged racially
[89]
restrictive covenants, redlining
of every major city where
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African-Americans landed.
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The federal government was
a sponsor of urban renewal
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infamously called Negro removal
by the great James Baldwin.
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- Urban renewal, which
means moving the Negros out.
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Getting, it means Negro removal.
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That is what it means.
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And the federal government is a,
[115]
is an accomplice to this fact.
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- That so-called urban renewal
also included a federally
[121]
sponsored interstate highway system
[124]
which was intentionally designed
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to mow through vibrant
Black neighborhoods.
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Take Miami for example, two highways;
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I-95, and I-395,
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bulldoze right through
the predominantly Black
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and low income Overtown neighborhood.
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Previously called Colored
Town during segregation.
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- The Department of Housing
and Urban Development
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and the federal government
writ large in the first seven
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decades of the 20th century,
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invested billions of dollars
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in racial segregation
and concentrated poverty.
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Each time this country
created a peculiar institution
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that subordinated Black
people; slavery, Jim Crow.
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It created, and dismantled it.
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They replaced it with another one,
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and the iconic Black "ghetto",
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I don't use that as a purgative,
I use it as a descriptor,
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was a follow on institution
to slavery and Jim Crow.
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That's the legacy that every
new administration inherits
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and the Biden administration has, as well.
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- Today, I'm directing
the Department of Housing
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and Urban Affairs and Urban Development
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to redress historical racism
in federal housing policies.
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- This executive order is
just one of four signed
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by President Biden designed
to address racial equity
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in the United States.
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And while this progress is a
step in the right direction,
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there's still a lot of harm to undo.
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- Segregation started coming
down after the passage
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of the Fair Housing Act of 1968
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which actually only got
passed in the wake of
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Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination.
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In 1980, eight out of ten Black people
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would have had to move
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in order to be evenly integrated
within metropolitan areas.
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Half of Black people who live
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in metropolitan areas still live
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in neighborhoods of high segregation.
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So we've had modest improvement,
but segregation persists
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and economic segregation
has spiked since 1970.
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The so-called American
dream is only working
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for a relatively small slice
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of the population that can
afford to buy their way
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into what I call "gold
standard neighborhoods",
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that have the best of everything.
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And everybody else struggles
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and the Black poor struggle the most.
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- So what happens now?
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Well, some advocates are hopeful.
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- HOME applauds this executive order
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for really focusing on historical patterns
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of racial segregation and
discrimination in housing.
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- While others remain
cautiously optimistic.
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Here's Professor Cashin's suggestion.
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- I don't take credit for
this, but I applaud it.
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There should be an equity analysis.
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The federal government
spends so much money.
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It should track who's
getting it by neighborhood.
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And it should pursue racial equity
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in the distribution of resources.
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There's been a lot of movement
at the local level on this.
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I'll give an example of Baltimore.
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They did an equity analysis and found
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that they were spending
four times as much money
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in majority white neighborhoods,
as the majority Black ones.
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I think we're in this moment
where people are waking up,
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sad to say, because of the
slow execution of George Floyd,
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to the realities of systemic racism.
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And I believe there is
an ascending majority,
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multiracial coalition that
wants something better
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than a separate and unequal
nation that overinvests
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in some neighborhoods and disinvests
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and preys upon people
in other neighborhoods.
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I'm hopeful, but you can
never stop working for,
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and organizing for the country you want.
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♪ If we don't get no justice,
then you don't get no peace. ♪
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♪ If we don't get no justice, ♪
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New generations more radical
and less tired than me.
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There's always another generation coming.
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(Urban Jazz instrumental music)
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