HISTORY OF SEGREGATION
During the last century, the residential segregation and isolation of most African Americans has been an almost permanent feature of housing patterns in the United States. No other ethnic group in America’s history has been isolated to a similar extent. Our nation’s highly segregated housing patterns did not occur by accident; they are a product of a complex web of decisions made since the beginning of the 20th century. Prior to the New Deal, direct governmental support for segregation "consisted primarily of the judicial enforcement of privately drawn restrictive covenants." Frequently included in property deeds, racially restrictive covenants controlled how property could be developed or used, or who could live on the property. By the 1920s, deeds in nearly every new housing development in the North prevented the use or ownership of homes by anyone other than "the Caucasian race." As a result, people of color were excluded from many communities, limiting where they could settle, beginning the trend toward increased segregation. During the 1920s, property values became tied to race "as a means to legitimize racial exclusion and protect racial boundaries." Beginning in the 1930s, the New Deal was created along with a number of government agencies. These agencies affected housing patterns in the United States through discriminatory lending policies that resulted in the use of race to determine eligibility for housing credit. Consequently, whites received essentially all (98 percent) of the loans approved by the federal government between 1934 and 1968. By the 1960s, America segregation was prevalent and considered responsible for many of the obstacles faced by African Americans. In 1968, the Fair Housing Act was created to address this continued segregation and prohibit discrimination in housing based on race, color, religion, and national origin. The fight against housing segregation was deemed to be the first and most critical step towards creating a successful, racially diverse society. Forty years after the enactment of the Fair Housing Act, we still seek equality. While it is clear that the United States has made strides in its attempts to rid itself of discriminatory housing practices, there is still much to be done.
American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass Douglas S. Massey & Nancy A. Denton, American Apartheid, 32-33 (1993)
Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago 1940-1960 (Historical Studies of Urban America)
The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Princeton Classics)
How Racism Takes Place
The future of Fair Housing report (2008), civilrights.org