A reexamination of Federal Housing Administration (FHA) documents reveals that the agency played a more direct role in the ghettoization of African Americans than previous scholarship has established. The FHA went far beyond merely approving of racial discrimination, and exploring the extent to which it did so is crucial to understanding the origins of urban racial inequality in America. Agency publications, many of them largely passed over by historians, called unequivocally for the containment of African Americans in the older residential neighborhoods where they were most likely to settle after migrating to the city. The agency then disguised its leadership in advancing a national segregationist agenda by deflecting blame onto the private market for policies that it had standardized and mandated. For nearly a decade after the Supreme Court invalidated one of its core racial programs, the FHA resisted providing greater opportunities for African Americans in the housing market.
Type Articles Information Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , Spring 2007 , pp. 399 - 434 Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2007Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)
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