In 1966, a housing discrimination bill in favor of President Lyndon Johnson was relinquished by the United States Senate. Subsequently, after two years, civil rights advocates tried to pass the same discrimination bill. Following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, the U.S. Senate permitted a Fair Housing Act which prohibited private discrimination in housing sales and rentals. What stood out to me in this section of The Color of Law is how an assassination was needed to establish the ethical bill. It is almost like the U.S. Senate was waiting for a perfect time to pass it. In my opinion, Martin Luther King Jr should not have been the reason to pass this bill. This makes it seem like the bill was passed just to show sympathy. School …show more content…
While there were reductions of discriminatory barriers in the labor market, African-Americans were not affected by upwards mobility. Going from lower ranks to the middle class in the national income distribution is difficult for everyone to do, especially African-Americans. “For those born to parents in the bottom income quintile, over half remain there as adults, and only a quarter make it to the middle quintile or higher” (Rothstein, 2017, pg. 184). This meant the only access to jobs and schools were low due to the lack of mobility. Another point is how the Section 8 program segregates African-Americans and other minority groups to low-poverty neighborhoods. Due to the socioeconomic status of Section 8 housing applicants, vouchers are commonly needed. Since the vouchers are too small to rent in middle-class areas, the only way to take advantage of the voucher is to move to an even more segregated neighborhood than the one they were already living in. As a result, minorities are clustered once again, in neighborhoods with no diversity. The information given in this chapter correlates to the article Gentrification by Ajay Panicker. In both pieces, gentrification is seen as affecting African-American and other minority groups living situations. As viewed in The Color of Law, gentrification through private housing, redevelopment projects, and highway routing had forced low-income neighborhoods to leave and search in different locations. This negatively affects minorities and causes them to face difficult
After this act was passed, violence against blacks began to rise at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan or the KKK. They destroyed black buildings such as churches and school and attacked activists for African American rights. This made people fear for their lives. Whites were angry that blacks were equals. It is amazing that this was only 53
It was as for as if this law was defeating itself. The Radical Republicans put this law in place to help free black people but did not give them the proper tools to get some sense of
Correspondingly, the 1968 Fair Housing Act, made racially defined violence a federal crime. The goal of this act was to provide equal housing opportunities to African-Americans and
The Changes of Segregation “I have a dream” Martin Luther King Jr.. MLK jr. protested on how African Americans (blacks) were treated, for example they couldn’t go to certain place without getting arrested or beaten up. Without Martin, Kids wouldn’t be able to go to school, parents get jobs, or even go out in some public places without getting arrested! How would it feel if someone couldn’t go to school just because of what color skin he/she had?
Title VIII of the proposed Civil Rights Act was known as the Fair Housing Act, a term often used as a shorthand description for the entire bill. It prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, and sex. Congressional Debate In the U.S. Senate debate over the proposed legislation, Senator Edward Brooke of Massachusetts—the first African American ever to be elected to the Senate by popular vote—spoke personally of his return from World War II and his inability to provide a home of his choice for his new family because of his
Why did L.B.J. sign the Civil Rights Act Of 1964? I believe he did for politics; If political decisions are calculated and in one’s own self-interest, then the Public Opinion Polls, the Sincerity Question, and the 1957
As property values rise and rents soar, lower-income individuals and families, including marginalized communities, often face the risk of eviction and forced relocation. This displacement not only disrupts the lives of those directly affected but also fragments the social networks and community bonds that have been established over generations. The loss of these connections can have a profound impact on the well-being and sense of belonging of individuals and
African Americans have systematically been deprived of equal opportunities and fundamental rights in America since the establishment of slavery. Although the Civil Rights Act banned the implementation of segregation and racial inequality over 40 years ago, the overall concept of racial and cultural hierarchy still lingers at the forefront of today’s society. White America’s history of racially oppressing, isolating, and segregating African Americans have led to present-day issues surrounding the political and economic forces that intentionally limits Blacks access to and opportunity from social, economic, educational, and political advancement through the institution of structural racism. Structural racism within America’s governments and
Wealth is one of the factors why residential segregation is an increasing problem. Golash- Boza explains, “Residential segregation happened when different groups of people are sorted into discount neighborhoods” (271). It is because of housing segregation
On the whole, King demonstrates how a man-made law is unjust, a promise being broken because of color and also always being told to wait. The “wait” will never happen. How is something fair if it is a man-made law, how do we know if it is biased. Higher officials said it would happen but it didn’t go through so it wasn’t a held promise. Racism still is around but not as bad, without Martin Luther King Jr. we would have seen the difference between treating someone from color then by
Lance Freeman, an associate professor of urban planning in Columbia, wanted to investigate if there was any displacement going on in two predominantly black neighborhoods that was briskly gentrifying. Much to his dismay, he couldn’t find any correlation between gentrification and displacement. What was surprising to Freeman was his discovery, “poor residents and those without a college education were actually less likely to move if they resided in gentrifying neighborhoods”. (Sternbergh, 19) Freeman adds, “The discourse on gentrification, has tended to overlook the possibility that some of the neighborhood changes associated with gentrification might be appreciated by the prior residents.” (Sternbergh, 19)
On a normal scale, measuring the association between two subjects, one would assume gentrification and school segregation are not related in any sense. In fact, most would argue that school segregation ended in 1954 with the Brown v. Board of Education. This assumption would be incorrect. Deep within the American society lies a new kind of segregation that is neither talked about nor dealt with. Segregation is a result of gentrification—the buying and renovation of houses in deteriorated neighborhoods by upper-income families or individuals—thus, improving property values but often displacing low-income families.
Accordingly, it was more systematic to relate the viewpoints of gentrification to those displacing the natives of communities, those who are enduring the rapid change in the social activity of their locale, and to those who want improvement, but do not want to inflict hardships on the individuals currently living in the region. Additionally, with each of the stances to gentrification mentioned, it would be complementary to have the text throughout my photographic essay correlating with the photographs using a method that could allow the reader to dissect the controversy behind the topic of gentrification in communities over the
The relationship between society and the law is direct, and housing in America is a conclusive example of that. As argued by both authors, once society has made up its mind about a certain group of people or place such as the ghettos, even the law can’t change those facts. It often happens that people of color and minorities get overlooked and stereotyped into something that they are not due to the hierarchical and discriminatory principles of the law. It has been engrained into society to think that minorities are poor, lazy, and overall less productive in the public
Being that I am from Washington, D.C., a city that has had its fair share of gentrification, as well as always having an interest in cities and real estate, there would be a time where I would have to take a position on the topic. As a business finance major in college and coming from a family who has worked in the finance and real estate world, gentrification has been a recurring topic on my mind. While gentrification is a controversial and subjective topic with benefits and detriments, both of which I have listed above, I believe that gentrification does more bad than good. I am against gentrification for many reasons, one of which is the displacement of a whole community, the majority if which is people who look like me.