Newspapers / Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.) / Jan. 4, 2001, edition 1 / Page 42
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I ^B B PjU ? H^fl Housing is very important in the lives of families. Where you live often determines where children go to school. It also can affect the quality of the house or apartment you live in. And it can affect what kinds of city services you receive and how frequently you receive them. Throughout the history of the United States, city and town neighborhoods have often been segregated? divided into areas by ethnicity, race and culture. Over the years, one of the greatest challenges to the civil rights movement has been to integrate neighbor hoods and win rights for minorities to buy homes or rent apartments wherever they choose. It is a battle that continues today, despite victories in cities like Washington, D C., that have given middle class or wealthy minorities more choice in housing. In poorer areas, espe cially In many cities, neigh borhoods remain divided up by race or ethnic back ground, block by block, or even street by street. <? Who Lives Where? Segregated housing sometimes came about because new immigrants would settle in a certain area and would encourage other immigrants from their native land to live nearby Sometimes it came about because people living in a neighbor hood would limit who could live near them? either by law or by private agreement. In 1917, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that cities and states could not force peo ple by local laws to sell or rent to minori ties seeking to move into an area. After that ruling, some communities began creating restrictive private agreements, or covenants (COV-e-nants), to prevent some minorities from buying real estate in certain neighborhoods. Such covenants were most often drawn up to block home-buying by African-Americans and Jews. In 1948, the Supreme Court, faced with arguments by future justice Thurgood Marshall and others, said restrictive covenants were illegal. But many covenants continued to exist. Another obstacle to black home ownership was red-lining: a banking approach that made it difficult for minorities to borrow money to buy homes in certain areas. It was called red-lining because it was as if some one drew a red line around the minority neighborhoods a ' I where a bank would j not loan money. On top of that, real estate agents in the 1960s some times practiced block busting. That means they would go into a white neighborhood, tell residents that blacks were moving |i in, buy the houses cheaply and then turn around and sell the houses to African-Amencans at much higher prices. In some areas, residents fought this effort. In Washinston, D.C., for example, residents formed a group called Neighbors ln?., that successfully discouraged real estate agents from busting blocks and encouraged the friendly integration of their neighbor hoods Martin Luther King Jr. tried but failed to integrate housing in Chicago in the 1960s. 5pme consider his housing efforts to be his largest failure as a civil rights leader Today, even in areas where wide freedom of housing exists, neighborhoods are not always integrated. Many people choose to live with others who have similar ' backgrounds. Civil Rights Timeline usoo - 1849) 1800 U S" Con3r?ss rejects, 85 to 1, an antislavery petition offered by free Philadelphia blacks. 1800- Ohio constitution 4 one abolishes,slavery, TMMffi ? 1805 then prohibits free ^irrfaj blacks from voting UUUII'j and passes the first Black Laws, restricting k v, rights of blacks in North. 1807 U S. Congress prohibits importation of new slaves into U.S., effective Jan. 1,1808.' Between 1808 and 1860, approximately 250,000 slaves are illegally Imported 4f QOO New York legally recognizes | 1OUY marriage within black community. LIBFPIA^H 1810 U,S" Con3rcss prohibits blacks from carrying mall for postal service. 1814 Two black regiments formed in New York to fight in War of 1812, the African Free School In New York City is burned. A 1815 Levi Coffin establishes Underground Railroad. 1820 Missotjri Compromise enacted?Maine enters union as a free state; Missouri as a slave state. Slavery banned In Louisiana Purchase territory 4 004 Missouri law disenfranchises blacks? takes away voting rights, New York restricts black male voting. W 1 fill Denmari( Vesty, free black carpenter, organizes plot to seize Charleston, SC. M Land now known as Liberia colonized by black ^ American settlers from American Colonization Society. H g07 Slavery officially abolished In New York; 10,000 blaclcs freed 1828 Wl"'am Garrison, abolitionist writer, attacks I slavery in Bennington, VT, periodical
Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.)
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Jan. 4, 2001, edition 1
42
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