Creating Savage Inequalities: Separate and
Unequal in America’s Cities
Education, race & class
April 19, 2004
Race & Urban Expansion
 Industrial jobs created opportunities that drew Blacks and new
immigrants to cities during WW II.
 Blacks left the South in large numbers for northern cities (Boston,
Detroit, etc.) during and after the 1940s.
 Demographics were changing in Boston, with transfers of whites to
outlying communities, increasing segregation by income & race.
Racialized housing policies . . .
 The Boston Housing Authority built subsidized housing in the 1930s,
segregating black tenants in the South End – none were placed in all white
neighborhoods like South Boston & Charlestown.
 Federal policies increased growth of suburbs. FHA investment program
encouraged new construction rather than investment in cities.
 Since the 1930s, FHA policies explicitly supported racially restrictive language
in sales contracts – a practice ended in 1948 by the Supreme Court.
 FHA continued to “redline” or refuse mortgage insurance to minoritydominated inner city areas.
Urban Decline . . .
 City neighborhoods began losing jobs and population during the
1950s & 1960s
 Whites left the cities for the suburbs
 Investment in housing stock followed suburban expansion
Redlining & other Forms of Institutional Racism in
American Cities
 Housing markets biased against African Americans
 Banks, Insurance & mortgage companies discriminated
 GI Mortgage program restricted where African Americans could
buy homes
 Those African Americans who could, left the cities, leaving the
poorest behind
Housing
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Public housing projects concentrated poverty in the cities.
Investment left the cities for the suburbs; tax base collapses.
Slumlords rented sub-standard housing.
Property owners burned their properties, leaving vacant land.
Lots converted to dumps and hazardous waste sites.
Impact on the family
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Poverty encourages teen pregnancy
Few marriageable men with jobs
Welfare regulations undermine families
Child safety is always an issue (violence, drugs, crime)
Inner city schools are substandard & racially unbalanced (Savage
Inequalities)
 Substandard schools reproduce social environment
Savage Inequalities
 Brown vs. Board of Education, Topeka (May 1954) struck down segregated
schools.
 Left the question of de facto segregation undecided, the court outlawed de jure
segregation.
 De facto segregation emerged based on segregated housing patterns.
 In 1965, Massachusetts became the only state that attempted to outlaw de
facto segregation.
 A court case against the Boston School Committee argued that the BSC
engaged in de jure segregation as a result of intentional discrimination.
 In 1974, Federal Judge W. Arthur Garrity took control of the Boston school
system.