u/BlackHistorySnippets

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In America, I am overdetermined by my race. I know this because I’ve been living in Tanzania for the past four years and not once have I been followed by salespeople, suspected by security, or harassed by police. No one locks their car doors when they stop for me at a crosswalk. No one sees me in an elevator and says, “I’ll wait for the next one.” In the US, I’m seen as Black. Outside the US, people see me as an American.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr said, “White America must recognize that justice for Black people cannot be achieved without radical changes in the structure of our society.” Over the 58 years since he wrote this, White Americans have repeatedly demonstrated they are not interested in radical structural changes that would result in giving up their privileged position in society. As a result, African Americans are measurably worse off today than they were 58 years ago. A change is not gonna come, so White Americans are now concluding it’s better to just not know. There’s no use in knowing history and bringing up uncomfortable things from the past. What’s the point?

Here’s the point. If you don’t teach children the truth about how US history has produced and perpetuated racial inequality, eventually those kids will grow up and take a look at the world around them and notice that Black people have a lot less wealth, and are more likely to live in areas of concentrated poverty, and are more likely to have violence in their communities. And without the knowledge of how these inequalities were created and perpetuated through social practices and laws throughout America’s history, these kids will be left with no other explanation for the racial inequality they see around them other than to conclude that there must be something deficient within the population of Black people themselves. Maybe it’s their culture. Maybe it’s their genetics. But there must be something wrong with them, because we’ve been taught that all you have to do is work hard by your bootstraps and you will be just fine.

Recommended reading: Why Does Everything Have to Be About Race? by Keith Boykin

Why Does Everything Have to Be About Race?

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In the early twentieth century, millions of African Americans fled persecution in the South to find better lives in the North. Some cities responded to this influx of migrants with racial zoning laws that confined Black people to specific neighborhoods. In 1917, the Supreme Court ruled in Buchanan v. Warley that these laws violated the 14th Amendment, thus ending government-imposed housing segregation. This led to an increasing use of racial covenants to prevent sales to Black buyers. These covenants were commonly used in new housing developments to create exclusionary social norms where none had existed before. Even though they weren’t enforced by the government, racial covenants institutionalized the preferences of White buyers who wanted their neighborhoods to remain free of Black residents after homes were resold.

In Philadelphia, Whites began baking segregation into property deeds in new neighborhoods like Tacony as the area transformed from farmland to city. In developed areas, courts could evict Black families once a neighborhood was designated a “restricted section,” enhancing its appeal to White buyers. The 1948 US Supreme Court decision in Shelley v. Kraemer invalidated the judicial enforcement of racial covenants, which ended court-ordered evictions, but allowed the covenants themselves to continue. This enabled White homeowners in Philadelphia and throughout the US to refuse to sell to Black buyers, perpetuating segregated neighborhoods that remain today. It wasn’t until 1968 that the Fair Housing Act finally prohibited racial covenants and all discriminatory housing practices.

A study found that Minneapolis homes with racist language in their title deeds are currently valued 20% higher than comparable properties located in neighborhoods without racially restrictive covenants. Additionally, areas with just 1% more racial covenants compared to similar locations now have 19% fewer Black homeowners. Across the US, millions of homes still contain racial covenants in their title deeds, and thirty states lack a legal process for removing these restrictions. Today, neighborhoods with properties that have racial covenants also have better than average schools, parks, and roads as well as higher property values.

Recommended reading: The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein

Racial Covenants Made Racially Segregated Neighborhoods

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On the first day of Black History Month in 2022, more than a dozen historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) were forced into lockdowns after receiving bomb threats. This wasn’t the first event of its kind as anti-Black groups have long used domestic terrorist attacks to intimidate Blacks and prevent them from receiving education and opportunities for equality.

The Morrill Act of 1862 provided funding for the creation of land-grant colleges throughout the US (e.g., UC Berkeley, Texas A&M, University of Minnesota). However, many of these schools denied admission to Black students, so a second Morrill Act was passed in 1890 that required segregated states to provide land grants for Black colleges along with operational funding equal to the White schools. Over the next 70 years, these state colleges for Blacks were intentionally underfunded, controlled by White trustees, and some were deliberately located in remote parts of their states. White elected officials never intended for these schools to be successful, wanting them instead to train Blacks to work in a segregated and hierarchical society.

From 1987-2020, state governments underfunded eighteen Black land-grant colleges by a total of $12.8 billion. Yet HBCUs have persisted in equipping Blacks to hold important roles and make substantive contributions to American society for over a century, with the majority of Black judges, doctors, lawyers, and teachers having received their education at HBCUs. In 2021, Kamala Harris became the first graduate from an HBCU to become US Vice President.

Recommended reading: The Power of Black Excellence: HBCUs and the Fight for American Democracy by Deondra Rose

HBCUs Succeed Despite Rabid Opposition

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On the first day of Black History Month in 2022, more than a dozen historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) were forced into lockdowns after receiving bomb threats. This wasn’t the first event of its kind as anti-Black groups have long used domestic terrorist attacks to intimidate Blacks and prevent them from receiving education and opportunities for equality.

The Morrill Act of 1862 provided funding for the creation of land-grant colleges throughout the US (e.g., UC Berkeley, Texas A&M, University of Minnesota). However, many of these schools denied admission to Black students, so a second Morrill Act was passed in 1890 that required segregated states to provide land grants for Black colleges along with operational funding equal to the White schools. Over the next 70 years, these state colleges for Blacks were intentionally underfunded, controlled by White trustees, and some were deliberately located in remote parts of their states. White elected officials never intended for these schools to be successful, wanting them instead to train Blacks to work in a segregated and hierarchical society.

From 1987-2020, state governments underfunded eighteen Black land-grant colleges by a total of $12.8 billion. Yet HBCUs have persisted in equipping Blacks to hold important roles and make substantive contributions to American society for over a century, with the majority of Black judges, doctors, lawyers, and teachers having received their education at HBCUs. In 2021, Kamala Harris became the first graduate from an HBCU to become US Vice President.

Recommended reading: The Power of Black Excellence: HBCUs and the Fight for American Democracy by Deondra Rose

HBCUs Succeed Despite Rabid Opposition

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Mobility is foundational to freedom, and the importance of cars and highways to exercising that freedom in America cannot be overstated. No road embodies the American Dream quite like Route 66. From its original designation in 1926 to becoming the first completely paved US highway in 1938, and through subsequent decades of improvements, Route 66 represented America’s greatness by easily connecting urban Chicago to rural Middle America and the idyllic beaches of Santa Monica. However, Route 66’s promise was only for White Americans. Six of the eight states it traversed were segregated, and over its 2,448 miles (3,940 km), businesses like the Kozy Kottage Kamp and Fantastic Caverns only served Whites.

Many cities along Route 66, such as Springfield, Missouri, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, were notorious for lynchings of Black people. These violent acts were carried out in public to instill fear and discourage Black people from traveling. The freedom to move was precisely that—freedom. But freedom wasn’t for Black people. Road trips in the sparsely populated American west posed an increased risk of unsolved disappearances for Black people. Finding a safe place to get help when needed was immensely difficult and potentially life-threatening. The effectiveness of racial terrorism on America’s highways significantly impacted how African Americans viewed traveling the open road. My cousin, Theresa, recalls that over several summers in the 1950s, my father drove her and her parents from St. Paul to Los Angeles and back without stopping except to get gas.

The National Park Service Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program is dedicated to preserving the history of businesses that served Black travelers along the highway. In 1995, the NPS added the Threatt Filling Station to its National Register of Historic Places. This single-story sandstone bungalow, constructed by Alan Threatt Sr. using stone from his own land, operated as a gas station for Black motorists in Luther, Oklahoma, from 1915 through the 1950s. As part of the Route 66 Centennial Monument Project, new artistic signage and an interpretive center will present the station’s history to the public in 2026.

Recommended reading: Why Black Americans Are Not Nostalgic for Route 66 - The Atlantic

Why Black Americans Aren’t Nostalgic for Route 66

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Mobility is foundational to freedom, and the importance of cars and highways to exercising that freedom in America cannot be overstated. No road embodies the American Dream quite like Route 66. From its original designation in 1926 to becoming the first completely paved US highway in 1938, and through subsequent decades of improvements, Route 66 represented America’s greatness by easily connecting urban Chicago to rural Middle America and the idyllic beaches of Santa Monica. However, Route 66’s promise was only for White Americans. Six of the eight states it traversed were segregated, and over its 2,448 miles (3,940 km), businesses like the Kozy Kottage Kamp and Fantastic Caverns only served Whites.

Many cities along Route 66, such as Springfield, Missouri, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, were notorious for lynchings of Black people. These violent acts were carried out in public to instill fear and discourage Black people from traveling. The freedom to move was precisely that—freedom. But freedom wasn’t for Black people. Road trips in the sparsely populated American west posed an increased risk of unsolved disappearances for Black people. Finding a safe place to get help when needed was immensely difficult and potentially life-threatening. The effectiveness of racial terrorism on America’s highways significantly impacted how African Americans viewed traveling the open road. My cousin, Theresa, recalls that over several summers in the 1950s, my father drove her and her parents from St. Paul to Los Angeles and back without stopping except to get gas.

The National Park Service Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program is dedicated to preserving the history of businesses that served Black travelers along the highway. In 1995, the NPS added the Threatt Filling Station to its National Register of Historic Places. This single-story sandstone bungalow, constructed by Alan Threatt Sr. using stone from his own land, operated as a gas station for Black motorists in Luther, Oklahoma, from 1915 through the 1950s. As part of the Route 66 Centennial Monument Project, new artistic signage and an interpretive center will present the station’s history to the public in 2026.

Recommended reading: Why Black Americans Are Not Nostalgic for Route 66 - The Atlantic

Why Black Americans Aren’t Nostalgic for Route 66

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The National Housing Act of 1934 created the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which made it possible for middle-class families to purchase homes by reducing average down payments and extending mortgage terms from five to 30 years. The act reversed decades of declining homeownership, substantially raising the percentage of American households that owned their own home from 43.6% in 1930 to 56.4% in 1950.

Before the creation of the FHA, home appraisals were neither common nor systematic components of the housing market. The FHA established guidelines for appraisers and required them to use the Home Owners Loan Corporation’s (HOLC) maps. These maps were based on the racial composition of neighborhoods and served as the foundation for redlining, a discriminatory practice that was made illegal by the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Appraisers continued to use the HOLC’s race-based maps until the Community Reinvestment Act made that practice illegal in 1977.

A study of appraisals conducted between 1980 and 2015 revealed that the racial composition of neighborhoods grew to be an even stronger determinant of appraised home values in 2015 than it had been in 1980 despite having made the consideration of race in appraisals illegal in 1977. In 2017, homes in predominantly Black neighborhoods were appraised 23% lower than comparable homes in majority White neighborhoods. An analysis of appraisals conducted between 2013 and 2021, shows that homes with White occupants have appraisal values that increase at twice the rate of homes occupied by non-White people. Home appraisers, who work under codes of ethics but with little regulation and oversight, stand between the accumulation of home equity and the destruction of it for African Americans. In 2021, more than 97% of home appraisers were White.

Recommended reading: Junia Howell, Elizabeth Korver-Glenn, The Increasing Effect of Neighborhood Racial Composition on Housing Values, 1980–2015, Social Problems, Volume 68, Issue 4, November 2021, Pages 1051–1071, https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spaa033

Home Appraisals Perpetuate the Effects of Redlining