(Image Credit: Eric Alterman)
“Housing policies...prevented blacks from acquiring land, created redlining and restrictive covenants, and encouraged lending discrimination [that] reinforced the racial wealth gap.”
-Janelle Jones, an economic analyst for EPI
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Although redlining and covenants were created in the mid-1900s, the impacts of these discriminatory practices are still in large effect today. Many Americans do not realize how the FHA’s discriminatory practices have created conflict for many living in 2018.
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(Image Credit: Jesse Lenz)
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“Some recent cases...show that not only is redlining alive today, but that it’s also evolved in many cases into racist practices that aren’t as detectable as they were during Jim Crow.”
-Brentin Mock, a writer for CityLab
“Many of the areas which were marked with C and D grades still face severe poverty to this day. Sadly, the despair is only being highlighted...For many black...residents of [C and D] neighborhoods, predatory lending sent them into financial spirals.” 
A map that shows statistics on modern-day redlining.
(Image Credit: Allison McCartney and Michael Corey)
“[United States Department of Housing and Urban Development]...concluded that [Associated Bank] disproportionately denied qualified loan applicants in predominantly minority neighborhoods in Chicago, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis, compared to other lenders operating in these same communities.” |
(Audio Credit: Richard Rothstein, "Historian Says Don't 'Sanitize' How Our Government Created Ghettos")
“The roots [of today's housing inequalities] stem at least as far back as the 1934 National Housing Act...Though redlining was outlawed in the ’60s, the effect persists today in the form of neighborhoods consisting mostly of people of color that have high poverty rates [and] low home values...Even as recently as 2012, Wells Fargo admitted it had steered black...households into subprime mortgages but had offered white borrowers with similar credit profiles prime mortgages.” 
(Image Credit: Laura Bliss)
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The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against covenants in 1948, and they were outlawed by the Fair Housing Act of 1968. However, racially restrictive covenants are still prevalent today, even though they aren’t legal, which creates conflict for black home buyers.
“Historians...say that thousands of racist deed restrictions, as well as restrictive covenants governing homeowner associations, survive in communities across the country.” 
(Image Credit: Oakridge West Homeowners Association)
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“While the covenants are there, there is still room for people to think that although it cannot be legally enforced it is nonetheless a promise that they are morally obligated to keep.” "Advocates for [the removal of covenants] reason that the restrictions, even if illegal, provide justification for subtle racism -- or... outright discrimination." |
The racial wealth gap is more extensive than many people realize. Most people in the 21st century believe that there is no racial inequality when it comes to wealth, but this is untrue. In fact, the wealth gap is growing larger, and so is the discontent of black Americans.
“Blacks live in the wealthiest country the world has ever known. But most African Americans have little if any personal wealth to show for it.” “Black families in America earn just $57.30 for every $100 in income earned by white families, according to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey. For every $100 in white family wealth, black families hold just $5.04.” 
(Image Credit: Khalil Bendib)
“It seems that we’ve convinced ourselves – and by ‘we’ I mean Americans writ large – that racial discrimination is a thing of the past. We’ve literally overcome it, so to speak, despite blatant evidence to the contrary.” "Gaps [persist] even when black and white boys [grow] up in families with the same income, similar family structures, similar education levels and even similar levels of accumulated wealth." |
The similarities between Levittown in the 1960s, and Levittown today.
(Image Credit: Elliott Erwitt, left) (Image Credit: Encyclopaedia Britannica, right)
“There is a tendency to think that people who have lower wealth can be cured by individual behavioral changes such as spending more wisely, but that’s not what is driving this wealth gap. It really requires getting at the underlying problems that contributed to the huge gap in the first place. And that’s about structural barriers, policies, institutional practices and programs that created this huge divide.” 
(Image Credit: Adam Peirce and Kevin Quealy)
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The poor compromise that was the FHA, which was hastily put together by FDR to resolve the Great Depression, caused more conflict for future generations of black Americans. It created a racial wealth gap, as well as racially restrictive covenants and redlining policies that still exist today.