Lizzi’s Reviews > The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America > Status Update

Methods of segregation changed after the 1917 Buchanan decision: economic zoning, banning interracial marriage, arguing AA depreciate property value (cuz they’d rather die than live with black people), creating barriers between white and black neighborhoods through industrial zoning then reject mortgages to AA because “the industrial areas is a risk to the property value of nearby single family homes”…etc

-media attempted to argue for the ban of mixed race marriage despite the fact racial amalgamation was already considerably advanced resulting from frequent rapes of slaves by masters.

-city planner Robert Witten said regarding the Buchanan decision that race zoning is necessary in reducing racial conflicts, promoting public peace for both whites and colored races (🫩)

-1876 Red Shirts massacre’d AA and abolished civil rights of freed slaves. Fraudulent white ballots were cast so much it exceeded the entire voting age population.
-Benjamin Tillman bragged about “seizing the first opportunity to provoke a riot” (the rage baiting of white supremacists has never changed)
-Black towns thrived. Jim Crow laws demolished their success and drove out/killed the black populations.

-PWA put in much effort in reconstructing already integrated neighborhoods just so they can create segregation, despite violating the constitution.
-Many vacant white housing units struggled to find residents despite black workers’ long waiting lists.
-Authorities followed a principle that if a neighborhood had even a few AA residents, it should become AA neighborhood entirely. Some old school pure racism shit…

-Harold Ickles established “neighborhood composition rule” where federal housing projects should reflect previous racial composition of neighborhoods.
-but PWA segregated projects even where there was no previous pattern of segregation.
-When the gov’t created designations however they wanted, the result was AA crowding into neighborhoods where AA were already living, thus them turning into slums.

-Banks would not finance construction nor issue mortgages w/o government approval; FHA wouldn’t insure loans to a co-op that included AA members.
-FHA refused to insure mortgages for whites in a neighborhood where AA were present; white realtors selling to AA were ostracized by society and blacklisted by real estate boards. Even if you’re a non-racist white, the system forced you to participate in white flight.

-De facto vs. de jure
-In Richmond CA around WW2, federally financed housing for AA was poorly constructed and intended to be temporary; white workers housing was built farther inland closer to white neighborhoods. This established segregated living patterns til this day.
-“War guest” program leased rooms to white families only.