The documentary 13th spanned the US history from the institution of slavery to our current carceral state. It highlighted the mutually reinforcing discriminatory dynamics that continue to adversely impact African Americans today all across the country.
For our second zoom discussion I propose we delve into a particular case study where one critical form of institutionalized racism persists, one that reinforces racism across the board and inhibits vital development of black opportunities for employment, education, wealth, health and wellness, not to mention undercutting the emergence of any genuine trust in the ruling elite of the this country.
The location is the city of George Floyd, Minneapolis, sometimes referred to as a city that is as prejudiced as it is progressive.” One could say that this zoom will be about how a white knee has been on the neck of African Americans in Minneapolis for a good century. This round is for you, George!
The form of systemic racism we will be examining in Minneapolis is “residential segregation.” As you will recognize from watching these films while having lived elsewhere, the racist designs, dynamics, patterns and pathologies evident in Minneapolis are still being widely experienced across the entire US – in spite of passage of the Fair Housing Act in 1968. (Some background on that below.) Okay, on to the stuff to see.
Below are the urls for three videos everyone can access through youtube – total time 2 hours 15min. The focal study is #2 The Jim Crow of the North (60m). You will see how, effectively, “Jim Crow” migrated north in the early 20th century following the Great Migration of African Americans from the South in search of freedom. (On this Migration, see Isabel Wilkerson’s outstanding, The Warmth of Other Suns, that someone mentioned last Zoom.)
Two other videos support #2. The first, #1, Minnesota’s Black Pioneers (60m), tells of the arrival of the first African-Americans to Minnesota: in their words what it was like, how they were received, and what they accomplished, including their struggles for equal housing. It gives us both historical and personal connection to the amazing lives of black Minnesotans and shows the contrary reactions of white residents and officials at that time. It nicely sets the stage for video #2. So it is suggested to watch #1 first, although you could do it the other way, if you’d rather!
The third video is a penetrating 15m doc that goes deep into Redlining, one of the primary instruments employed along with racial covenants, to keep Blacks out of “well to do” white neighborhoods – “to keep them in their place” as some like to say. The principle speaker in this film is Richard Rothstein. His path-breaking book on residential segregation and racial covenants was published in 2017. It is mentioned in video #2.
The book is filled with evidence, analysis and arguments that reveal exactly how racism has persisted in America on the ground from Jim Crow to the present day in spite of many wonderful promises, cosmetic alterations and courageous exceptions that have occurred.
After these films and zoom, some of you will want to get a copy of Rothstein’s The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, and even read it. I did and am, my jaw dropping time and again.
Comment: Baha’is aim to help achieve “race unity” as a step toward the unity of the human race. But due to the systematic ways in which housing segregation in the US remains largely locked in and reinforced by a number of questionable tactics, legal and otherwise, the aim of race unity gets subverted from the ground up at near every turn. As the films will show and explain.
We need to understand how this system of segregation and suppression came to be “institutionalized” if we ever hope to disable it…This is the assumption behind the present Zoom prep. Review the evidence and draw your own conclusions.
Below is the list of films plus some general background having to do with The Fair Housing Act . It is referred to in the films.
1. North Star: Making Home: Minnesota’s Black Pioneers (2004), 60 m
https://www.tpt.org/minnesota-experience/video/north-star-making-home-zhzmeh/
2. Jim Crow of the North (2019), 60 m
https://www.tpt.org/minnesota-experience/video/jim-crow-of-the-north-stijws/
3. Redlined: Legacy of Housing Discrimination(2019) 15m
Historical background
The Fair Housing Act of 1968 prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin or sex. Intended as a follow- up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the bill was the subject of a contentious debate in the Senate, but was passed quickly by the House of Representatives in the days after the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. The Fair Housing Act stands as the final great legislative achievement of the civil rights era.
Struggle for Fair Housing
Despite Supreme Court decisions such as Shelley v. Kraemer (1948) and Jones v. Mayer Co. (1968), which outlawed the exclusion of African Americans or other minorities from certain sections of cities, race-based housing patterns were still in force by the late 1960s. Those who challenged them often met with resistance, hostility and even violence.
In early April 1968, the bill passed the Senate, albeit by an exceedingly slim margin, thanks to the support of the Senate Republican leader, Everett Dirksen, which defeated a southern filibuster. It then went to the House of Representatives, from which it was expected to emerge significantly weakened; the House had grown increasingly conservative as a result of urban unrest and the increasing strength and militancy of the Black Power movement.
On April 4—the day of the Senate vote—the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had gone to aid striking sanitation workers. Amid a wave of emotion—including riots, burning and looting in more than 100 cities around the country—President Lyndon B. Johnson increased pressure on Congress to pass the new civil rights legislation.
Since the summer of 1966, when King had participated in marches in Chicago calling for open housing in that city, he had been associated with the fight for fair housing. Johnson argued that the bill would be a fitting testament to the man and his legacy, and he wanted it passed prior to King’s funeral in Atlanta.
After a strictly limited debate, the House passed the Fair Housing Act on April 10, and President Johnson signed it into law the following day.
Impact of the Fair Housing Act
Despite the historic nature of the Fair Housing Act…in practice housing remained segregated in many areas of the United States in the years that followed.
From 1950 to 1980, the total black population in America’s urban centers increased from 6.1 million to 15.3 million. During this same time period, white Americans steadily moved out of the cities into the suburbs, taking many of the employment opportunities blacks needed into communities where they were not welcome to live.
This trend led to the growth in urban America of ghettoes, or inner city communities with high minority populations that were plagued by unemployment, crime and other social ills.
Jim Malarkey 937-903-8908