The Roots of Housing Discrimination
Racial discrimination was not isolated to the South. As many African Americans looked to escape the repressive discrimination of the South they migrated north and westward. This period in our history has been dubbed “The Great Migration”. This change in demographics was one of the greatest large movements of people in our country’s history that came in two waves, from 1910-1940, and then from 1945-1970. As our nation engaged in two world wars the industrialized North became a hub for jobs and opportunity. The map below visualizes this mass exodus.
African Americans who came up in the Great Migration arrived to face an environment ripe with racial housing discrimination such as restrictive covenants, reduced access to lending, and redlining, which set in motion the wealth disparity we see today.