8
Executive Summary
1944
AN ILLUSTRATIVE TIMELINE OF DISCRIMINATION AND MISSED OPPORTUNITIES As the U.S. ramped up the Arsenal of Democracy in World War II, an estimated 200,000 migrants came to Detroit exacerbating housing shortages and racial tensions. As America built the 20th century middle class and shook off the economic pain of the Great Depression, prosperity and wealth accumulation unfolded on a supremely unlevel playing field. Discrimination, often government sanctioned, prevented Blacks for pursuing homeownership, education, loans and good-paying jobs, much of which persisted legally well into the 1960s. As whites accumulated generational wealth and left the cities to the government-funded suburbs, Blacks were trapped in overpopulated poorly funded urban neighborhoods constrained by discriminatory policy and societal framework that prevented their social mobility and entrenched many in generational poverty.
G.I. Bill passes providing benefits such as low-interest mortgages and tuition stipends. While it extended benefits regardless of gender or race, Blacks and women struggled to receive higher education or loans like their white counterparts.5
1934 Federal Housing Administration created to boost economy and number of homeowners. FHA guidelines create redlining zones of Black and minority communities where the federal government will not guarantee loans.3 From 1934 to 1962, 98% of FHA-backed loans went to white homeowners. In total, of the $120 billion of new housing subsidized, less than 2% went to nonwhites.5
These inequities perpetuated the economic inequalities at the heart of today’s social justice movement and the racism it seeks to end.
1933 Half of the mortgages in the U.S. in foreclosure due to Great Depression. This spurred government action intended to increase homeownership. These efforts favored whites over Blacks continuing the racist policies of the real estate industry and leading to decades of disinvestment and underdevelopment in cities where Blacks lived.2
1925 Prominent African American physician and Detroiter Ossian Sweet tried and acquitted for murder after shooting into a crowd of several hundred angry white people surrounding his newly purchased home in a white neighborhood.5
1920s The Black population in Detroit swelled from 41,000 to 120,000 as new migrants from the South arrived daily to seek employment in the auto industry. The cramped near east side neighborhood of Black Bottom was one of the very few areas blacks were allowed to reside.1
1924 National Association of Real Estate Boards created a rule to revoke the license of any broker who introduced someone of “the opposite” race into a racially homogenous neighborhood.2