April 11th, 2022 marked the 54th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act of 1968. However, even after half of a century racial segregation, especially in urban America, remains a death sentence for minorities.
Long-term disinvestment of the black and brown communities as well as discriminatory practices by realtors, banks, and zoning boards, has left colored individuals on an uneven playing field.
“Finding a more racially just future implicates every single one of us”-Dr. Finn
Due to the highly segregated geography of Hampton Roads, it has become a critical and useful example of how social structures perpetuated by laws that mandate inequality, continue to create barriers and facilitate an unwillingness to see how racial inequality can be structurally produced.
It is significant to note that this is not an issue of the past. Today, neighborhoods that were redlined are much more likely to be food deserts, to be located near toxic release sites, and to have less tree cover.
While relevant to our everyday lives, redlining is still not a common term. Therefore, it is important to explain how these landscapes of segregation were produced. Beginning during the Great Depression and into the 1940s, the government refinanced mortgages through a series of “security maps” in order to prevent widespread foreclosures. These maps included a variety of factors to reach a conclusive neighborhood rating, including housing stock, sales, rental rates, physical attributes of the landscape, and lastly the “threat of infiltration of foreign-born, negro, or lower grade populations” (Mapping Inequality, Richmond).
The characteristic red-colored sections on these maps signaled danger when it came to mortgage risks. However, it was not only security maps but intentional policies such as disinvesting in black neighborhoods, a section of 15 years where the government didn’t build any new housing regardless of the boom in population, and Levittown’s which put in the deed of each house that it would never fall into the hands of anyone with African descent.
Soberingly, the information collected on neighborhoods across the country were not only quantitative but qualitative and allowed room for racial bias. Some examples of this are disturbing remarks on “low level of pride”, “no streetlights”, or that (rent) “collections are difficult”. By purposefully placing race at the center of this issue , the government contributed to the systemic impoverishment of minority families (as property ownership usually passed down generationally) that this country tends to see today.
Graphics from Living Together/Living Apart
Dr. Johnny Finn, associate Professor of Geography and chair for the Department of Sociology, Social Work, & Anthropology at Christopher Newport University, is currently researching and carrying out a project called Living Together / Living Apart. Dr. Finn and his assistants have been collecting stories, distributing disposable cameras, and creating a series of maps to explore, “the geography of segregation in the 21st century”. The end goal is to create a traveling multi-media exhibition to archive oral histories and broaden viewers' understanding of modern-day segregation from any internet-connected device.
Here are a few graphics with their context:
The lack of tree covering and more impervious surfaces, lead residents to suffer from higher summertime temperatures. In the case of Hampton Roads, VA, redlined neighborhoods and areas are majority black residents and almost always associated with hazardous materials and dangerous environmental factors. For example, red lined neighborhoods are 5 ½ degrees hotter on a summer afternoon than the neighborhoods which escaped being redlined.
Beyond temperature difference, by being relegated to areas within a mile of release sites, colored occupants are exposed to toxins (often cancer causing) at a larger rate than non-colored individuals. Shockingly, Hampton Roads doesn’t have just one, but 29 release sites in the area all within a mile of redlined residences. This is the same population with limited access to health care and reasonably priced foods.
An example for variation in life expectancy is St. Paul's quadrant in Norfolk, VA. Downtown Norfolk’s life expectancy is around 85 years, whereas the formerly redlined area’s life expectancy is 61.5 years. This almost 20 year life expectancy gap is not uncommon throughout the country. As for the Hampton Roads' African-American population, they are significantly overexposed to environmental harms and the associated risks to human health. Therefore, life expectancy is 7 years lower than those who have escaped red lining.
So What?
Dr. Finn at a CNU HonorsProgram Quest Lecture, said one of his main goals for the project is to engage,
“A broader public understanding of how policies of the past and the structures they set up continue to reverberate in the present and continue to produce/reproduce racial inequality”.
However, this is all easier said than done as there has been push-back to his claims despite the concrete nature of maps, historical evidence, and data. It is easy to assume a mindset of “That was then this is now”, where only back then we had segregationist housing policies, but now everyone is on an even playing field, right?
James Baldwin has the perfect response for this question: “History is not the past…It is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history”.
Therefore, in the context of urban America, the best we can do to end this portion of history from continuing is by centering race and enacting policies that repair and reform housing and zoning laws. It is redundant to take race out of this issue as we cannot say we are all equal and have all the same freedoms and opportunities to succeed because the very structures that put these inequalities into place still exist.
However, not all hope is lost as in April 2021, Virginia banned source-of-income discrimination when it comes to buying or renting housing.
This legislative growth leads us to the final section of this piece…
What Can I do?
While challenges remain such as discrimination and “Not in my backyard” ingrained thinking, as a society we can be involved and engaged (especially at the local level).
Check yourself: what racial narratives do you reproduce?
Common sayings in the Newport News area are: “Don’t go south of Mercury” or “Don’t go to the numbered streets” (majority African-American).
Don’t be a NIMBY (not in my backyard).
Support local anti-eviction funds.
Support credit unions that center racial justice / racial equity.
