It's Bigger Than Hip Hop: The Rise of the Post-Hip-Hop Generation by M.K. Asante Jr Read Free Book Online Page B

million Blacks came North in hopes of a better life. You had a lot of Blacks looking for work in an already impossible job market, then the Depression hits.
    But that affected pretty much everybody, right?
    Yeah, everybody was affected. But while everybody was affected, you must remember: Blacks were the first to get fired when things got bad and the last ones to get hired once things finally picked up. But thatwasn’t the worst of it by any stretch of the imagination. What happened next was unconscionable:
    President Franklin D. Roosevelt cut Black people out of his plan to alleviate the poverty of the national Depression.
    How?
    It was clear that Social Security—which provided benefits to retirees and the unemployed, and a lump-sum benefit at death—and Mandatory Minimum Insurance were proven methods of reducing and alleviating poverty.
    Roosevelt drafted these programs under his Committee on Economic Security, and they were passed by Congress under his New Deal. One of the major problems was that both of these acts excluded domestics and agricultural workers, who made up more than two-thirds of the Black workforce. Then with all of—
    Can you—
    Can you let me finish?
    My bad.
    I haven’t even got to the worst part yet.
    All right, please continue.
    Where was I?
    FDR was cutting Black people out of all his programs.
    Right, right. The Federal Housing Administration was also developed under FDR. This organization guaranteed mortgages for up to 90 percent of the purchase price, which meant that people who wanted to buy a home only had to cough up 10 percent rather than the 25percent to 30 percent required before the FHA. The FHA made home ownership possible again—which was an important part of recovering from the Depression. In the thirty-five years after its creation, home ownership skyrocketed.
    What was the catch?
    The catch was that the FHA refused to guarantee mortgages in Black communities due to a process called redlining. In most of these places, Blacks couldn’t receive loans at all. Once the FHA refused to give loans to Blacks, private lenders replicated the government’s policy and position, which, really, was about denying Black humanity.
    Can you talk about what redlining is and how it affected you?
    The term “redlining” was coined in the 1960s by activists in Chicago. It refers to a process where affluent or white neighborhoods were outlined in blue and considered type “A;” working class neighborhoods were outlined in yellow and considered type “B;” and of course, Black neighborhoods were outlined in bloodred ink and considered type “D.” These maps were created for FHA manuals as well as private lenders. The FHA advised banks to stay away from areas with “inharmonious racial groups” and recommended that municipalities enact racially restrictive zoning ordinances and prevent Black home ownership.
    During the second great migration (1940–1970), when 4.5 million Blacks came North, industrial cities decided to segregate the industrial from the residential areas. Remember, during this time, Blacks had absolutely no political power and overt racism was at an all-time high. Therefore many Black areas were tagged as industrial neighborhoods.
    And what did that industrial tag mean?
    The industrial tag prevented these neighborhoods from undergoing any new construction and even limited the improvements that could be made.
    So, why didn’t Blacks just leave these redlined areas?
    Those redlined areas were me. I told you earlier that I’m a place where people are forced to live, because of discrimination via racism in the real estate market and segregation. Blacks could not, I repeat
could not
, live where they pleased, even if they had the money, and because of those things I just mentioned, they probably didn’t.
    So you’ve been around for a long time?
    Well yes, but I didn’t always look like I do now.
    See, during the sixties and before, Blacks, although segregated and isolated,