LANDMARK LEGISLATION

HOMESTEAD ACT (1862):
Gave citizens or future citizens up to 160 acres of public land provided they live on it, improve it and pay a small registration fee. The Homestead Act of 1862, opened up millions of acres. Any adult who had never taken up arms against the Federal government of the US could apply. Women and immigrants who had applied for citizenship were eligible.

The 1866 Act explicitly included black Americans and encouraged them to participate, but rampant discrimination, systemic barriers and bureaucratic inertia slowed black gains. Historian Michael Lanza argues that while the 1866 law was not as beneficial as it might have been, it was part of the reason that by 1900 one quarter of all Southern black farmers owned their own farms. Several additional laws were enacted in the latter half of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, including The Southern Homestead Act of 1866, which sought to address land ownership inequalities in the south during Reconstruction.

Wikepedia. 

Enacted in 1866 shortly after the end of the Civil War,the Southern Homestead Act (SHA), was supposed to function much like the original act. During the first year of the SHA, unoccupied southern land was offered exclusively to African Americans and loyal whites. Although the SHA ostensibly offered a solution to several pressing Reconstruction era issues, in reality a large part of the land was un-farmable, being either heavily wooded, or covered with swamps. The lack of agricultural resources – seeds, tools, farm animals – was a factor as well. Furthermore, it was hard to administratively arrange homesteading, as many southern states had only one land office. Depending upon where the office was located, it could take several weeks to simply make the trip, meaning that the bureaucratic duties cost far more than the filing fees for the actual land. Furthermore, the recently emancipated owned no cash and had no experience in dealing with the government, rendering the process even more difficult. But perhaps the biggest hurdle for freed people involved the year-long labour contracts they had been cajoled or forced into signing shortly after slavery was outlawed. Leaving a job before the contract date frequently resulted in virtual re-enslavement on a chain gang. Blacks had been locked into these contracts until the very date (January 1, 1867) that they stopped receiving homesteading benefits.

By the end of the SHA 10 years later, nearly 28,000 individuals had been awarded land. Combined with the claimants of the original Homestead Act, then more than 1.6 million white families – both native born and immigrant – succeeded in becoming landowners during the next several decades. Conversely, only 4000 to 5500 African-American claimants ever received final land patents from the SHA.

The Homestead Acts were unquestionably the most extensive, radical, redistributive, governmental policy in US history. The number of adult descendants of the original Homestead Act recipients living in the year 2000 was estimated to be around 46 million people, about a quarter of the US adult population. In that many white Americans can trace their legacy of wealth and property ownership to a single entitlement program, then the perpetuation of black poverty must also be linked to national policy. Indeed, the Homestead

Acts excluded African Americans not in letter, but in practice – a template that the government would propagate for the next century and a half.

With the advent of emancipation, therefore, blacks became the only race in the US ever to start out, as an entire people, with close to zero capital. Having nothing else upon which to build or generate wealth, the majority of freed men had little real chance of breaking the cycle of poverty created by slavery, and perpetuated by federal policy. The stain of slavery, it seems, is much more widespread and lasting than many Americans have admitted. Yet it is the legacy of the Reconstruction – particularly the failure of land redistribution – that so closely coupled poverty and race in the US.

Land and the roots of African-American poverty. Keri Leigh Merritt. Historian & independent scholar. Her research focuses on race and class in US history.

 

 

FEDERAL HOUSING ADMINISTRATION (1934):
The FHA insures mortgages made by private lenders for single-family properties, multifamily rental properties, hospitals, and residential care facilities. FHA mortgage insurance protects lenders against losses. The goal of the organization was to facilitate access to affordable mortgage credit rates for low and moderate income and first-time homebuyers, for the construction of affordable and market rate rental properties, and for hospitals and residential care facilities in communities across the US & its territories.

Wikipedia

THE COLOR OF LAW: A FORGOTTEN HISTORY OF HOW OUR GOVERNMENT SEGREGATED AMERICA: BY RICHARD ROTHSTEIN: Richard Rothstein, a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, has spent years studying the history of residential segregation in America. He is the author of The Color of Law, a book that examines the local, state and federal housing policies that mandated segregation. He states that the government’s efforts were “primarily designed to provide housing to white, middle-class and lower-middle class families.” African Americans and other people of color were left out of the new suburban communities – and pushed instead into urban housing projects. The FHA furthered the segregation efforts by refusing to insure mortgages in and near African American neighborhoods.  At the same time, the FHA was subsidizing builders who were mass-producing entire subdivisions for whites – with the requirement that none of the homes be sold to African Americans.

CPR NEWS: May 3, 2017, Heard on Fresh Air, Terry Gross
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS:

• ON HOW THE FHA JUSTIFIED DISCRIMINATION:

 

 The FHA’s justification was that if African Americans bought homes in these suburbs, or even if they bought homes near these suburbs, the property values of the white homes that they were insuring, would decline. And therefore, their loans would be at risk. There was no basis for this claim on the part of the FHA. In fact, when African Americans tried to buy homes in all white neighborhoods or in mostly white neighborhoods, property values rose because African Americans were more willing to pay more for properties than whites were, simply because their housing supply was so restricted and they had so many fewer choices. The rationale that the FHA used was never based on any kind of study.

 

• ON HOW FEDERAL AGENGIES USED REDLINING TO SEGREGATE AFRICAN AMERICANS:

 

 The term “redlining” comes from the development of the New Deal, by the federal government of maps of metropolitan areas in the country. Those maps were color-coded first by the Home Owners Loan Corp., then the FHA, and then adopted by the VA, and these color codes were designed to indicate where it was safe to insure mortgages. And anywhere where African Americans lived, anywhere where African Americans lived nearby were colored red to indicate to appraisers that these neighborhoods were too risky to insure mortgages. The FHA manual explicitly laid out segregationist policies in the Underwriting Manual section. It stated that “incompatible racial groups should not be permitted to live in the same communities.” Meaning that loans to African Americans would not be insured. In one development…in Detroit, during WWII, the FHA would not go ahead with this development unless the developer built a six- foot high cement wall separating his development from a nearby African American neighborhood. This was to make sure that no African Americans could even walk into that neighborhood.

The Underwriting Manual of the FHA recommended that highways would be a good way to separate African American from white neighborhoods. This was not a matter of “law” per se, but it was a matter of government regulation, and it wasn’t hidden. Regulations that are written and published, as in the Underwriting Manual, are as much a de jure unconstitutional expression of government policy as something written in law.

 

• ON THE LONG-TERM EFFECTS OF AFRICAN AMERICANS BEING PROHIBITED FROM BUYING HOMES IN SUBURBS AND BUILDING EQUITY:

 

Today African American incomes on average are about 60% of average white incomes. But African American wealth is about 5% of white wealth. Most middle-class families in this country gain their wealth from the equity they have in their homes. So, this enormous difference between a 60% income ratio and a 5% wealth ratio is almost entirely attributable to federal housing policy implemented through the 20^th century. African American families that were prohibited from buying homes in the suburbs in the 1940’s and 50’s and even into the 60’s, by the FHA, gained none of the equity appreciation that whites gained. So, the Daly City development homes south of San Francisco, or Levittown,  or any of the other homes, in between & across the country, in the late 1940’s and 1950’s, sold for about twice the national median income. They were affordable to working class families with an FHA or VA mortgage. African Americans were equally able to afford those homes as whites, but were prohibited from buying them. So in 1968 the Fair Housing Act was passed that said “OK African Americans, you are now free to buy homes in Daly City or Levittown” – but it is an empty promise because those homes are no longer affordable to the families that could have afforded them when whites were buying into those suburbs and gaining the equity and wealth that followed from that. The white families sent their children to college with their home equities; they were able to take care of their parents in old age and not be dependent upon their children. They’re able to bequeath wealth to their children. None of those advantages accrued to African Americans, who for the most part were prohibited from buying homes in those suburbs.

 

• ON HOW HOUSING PROJECTS WENT FROM BEING FOR WHITE MIDDLE AND LOWER MIDDLE CLASS FAMILIES TO BEING PREDOMINANTLY BLACK AND POOR:

 

Public housing began in this country for civilians during the New Deal and it was an attempt to address a housing shortage; it was not a “welfare program” for poor people. During the depression, no housing construction was going on. Middle class families, working class families were losing their homes during the depression when they became unemployed and so there were many unemployed middle-class & working-class white families and this was the group in which the government had the most interest. The federal government began a program of building public housing for whites-only in cities across the country. The Roosevelt administration officials build some projects for African Americans as well, but they were always separate projects; they were not integrated. The white projects had large numbers of vacancies; the black projects had long waiting lists. At the same time, industry was leaving the cities, whites were moving to subdivisions that were ‘white only’, into the ‘white only’ suburbs. The “projects” became projects for poor people, not for working class people. They became subsidized, and so they became vertical slums that we came to associate with “public housing.” So, it was the FHA that depopulated public housing of white families, while the public housing authorities were charged with the responsibility of housing African Americans who were increasingly too poor to pay the full cost of their rent.

 Radio producers Sam Briger and Thea Chaloner and Web producers Bridget Bentz and Molly-Seavy-Nesper contributed to this story. May 2017

 

TITLE VIII OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1968 (FAIR HOUSING ACT)

 

The Fair Housing Act of 1968 prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of dwellings based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. The Title VIII Act was amended in 1988 (effective March 12, 1989) by the Fair Housing Amendments Act, which:

• Expanded the coverage of the Fair Housing Act to prohibit discrimination based on disability or on familial status (presence of a child under the age of 18, and pregnant women); and
• Established new administrative enforcement mechanisms with HUD attorneys bringing actions before administrative law judges on behalf of victims of housing discrimination.

HUD website

 

SUPREME COURT CASE: TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND COMMUNITY AFFAIRS (TDHCA) V. INCLUSIVE COMMUNITIES PROJECT (JUNE 25, 2015)

 

The RPA’s (Regional Plan Association) report explains that this case “upheld the government’s obligation to affirmatively further fair housing when policies result in disparate impacts.”  The case was essentially about segregation. The TDHCA had been supporting the creation of affordable housing via the popular Low- Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program, which gave developers a tax break if they rented a certain percentage of their units at “affordable” rates. The problem the Inclusive Communities Project argued, was that the affordable housing funded through LIHTC was only being built in poor minority neighborhoods. This meant that poor minorities only had access to housing in their existing, segregated neighborhoods. The case highlighted the need to expand the amount of affordable housing in areas with good schools, more accessible amenities, and safer streets.

 February 23, 2016 Rachel Quednau, Program Director, StrongTowns.

 

THE SERVICEMEN’S READJUSTMENT ACT OF 1944, commonly known as the G.I. BILL:

 

A law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World World II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.’s). The original G.I. Bill expired in 1956, but the term “G.I. Bill” is still used to refer to programs created to assist some of the U.S. military veterans. The Bill was largely designed and passed through Congress in 1944 in a bipartisan effort led by the American Legion who wanted to reward wartime veterans. The final bill provided immediate financial rewards for WWII veterans, including low-cost mortgages, low-interest loans to start a business or farm, one year of unemployment insurance, and dedicated payments of tuition and living expenses to attend high school, college, or vocational school. These benefits were available to all veterans who had been on active duty during the war years for at least 90 days, and who had not been dishonorably discharged.

Wikepedia.

 

While the GI Bill’s language did not specifically exclude African American veterans from it benefits, it was structured in such a way that ultimately shut doors for the 1.2 million Black veterans who had served their country during WWII, in segregated ranks.  During the drafting of the law, the chair of the House Veterans Committee, Mississippi Congressman John Rankin, insisted that the program be administered by individual states instead of the federal government. Rankin defended segregation, opposed interracial marriage, and also proposed legislation to confine, then deport, every person with Japanese heritage during WWII. From the start, Black veterans had trouble securing the GI Bill’s benefits. Some could not access benefits because they had not been given an honorable discharge – and a much larger number of Black veterans were discharged dishonorably than their white counterparts. Veterans who did qualify could not find facilities that delivered on the bill’s promise. Black veterans in a vocational training program at a segregated high school in Indianapolis were unable to participate in activities related to plumbing, electricity and printing because adequate equipment was only available to white students. Simple intimidation kept others from enjoying GI Bill benefits. In 1947, for example, a crowd hurled rocks at Black veterans as they moved into a Chicago housing development. Thousands of Black veterans were attacked in the years following World War II and some were even singled out and lynched.

Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group/ Getty Images.

 

 Certainly, the GI Bill failed to benefit African Americans as it did white Americans. The GI Bill was racially discriminatory, as it was intended to accommodate Jim Crow laws. Due to the discrimination by local and state governments, as well as private actors in housing and education, the GI Bill failed to benefit African Americans as it did white Americans. Columbia University historian Ira Katznelson described the GI Bill as affirmative action for whites. The GI Bill has also been criticized for increasing racial wealth disparities.

The Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2008 further expanded benefits, providing veterans with funding for the full cost of any public college in their state. The GI Bill was also modified through the passage of the Forever GI Bill in 2017.

Wikepedia.

 

 

SOCIAL SECURITY ACT: 1944

 

The Social Security Act of 1935 is a law enacted by the 74^th United States Congress and signed into law by the US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The law created the Social Security program as well as insurance against unemployment. The program is funded by payroll taxes and over the ensuing decades, it contributed to a dramatic decline in poverty among the elderly, and spending on Social Security became a major part of the federal budget. The law was later amended by acts such as the Social Security Amendments of 1965, which established two major healthcare programs: Medicare and Medicaid.

Wikepedia

Unfortunately, the Act excluded 65% of African Americans, and 27% of white workers, since it omitted categories such as agrarian & domestic workers. zzxThe Act was  expanded in 1950 and 1954.

 

Two Views:

 

The Decision to Exclude Agricultural and Domestic Workers from the 1935 Social Security Act:

 

The Social Security Act of 1935 excluded from coverage about half the workers in the American economy. Among the excluded groups were agricultural and domestic workers – a large percentage of whom were African Americans. This has led some scholars to conclude that policymakers in 1935 deliberately excluded African Americans from the Social Security system because of the prevailing racial biases of the period. The author concludes that the racial-bias thesis is conceptually flawed, due to considerations of administrative feasibility involving tax-collection procedures. It was the surprise testimony of Henry Morgenthau, Jr.,  (Secretary of State), rather than any initiative by any member of Congress, that was the source of the decision to exclude farm & domestic workers from coverage. It was not presumptively racist Southern politicians who moved to delete coverage for these workers, but northeastern patrician Henry Morgenthau, Jr., who was trying to avoid an onerous task for the treasury. Congress obliged Secretary Morgenthau by excluding several million workers and their employers from the burden of paying those taxes. The Old-Age Security Staff, the Advisory Council on Social Security, Arthur AItmeyer (Commissioner for Social Security from 1946-1953 & Chairman of the Technical Board), and Edwin Witte (referred to as the “father” of the SS Act, and a member  Committee for Economic Security in 1934), all recommended excluding agricultural and/or domestic workers on the grounds of administrative simplicity. At no point did Southern Democrats create the exclusion or push it through Congress. It is more in keeping with the evidence of record to conclude that the members of Congress (of both parties & all regions) supported these exclusions because they saw an opportunity to lessen the political risks to themselves by not imposing new taxes on their constituents.

Larry DeWitt, Social Security Bulletin, Vol. 70. No. 4, 2010.

 

Viewing Social Security Through The Civil Rights Lens:

Today, our nation marks the 85^th anniversary of one of the most consequential social programs ever enacted – the Social Security Act of 1935. Considered a signature part of New Deal reform, Social Security sought to provide a measure of income security for older persons and some other vulnerable populations. It also paved the way for future federal protections such as Medicare and the Affordable Care Act. But unlike other components of the New Deal, the origins of the Social Security Act were rooted in racism. The Act initially omitted large categories of workers of color from retirement benefits and unemployment insurance. When Congress held hearings on the bill in 1935, the NAACP testified that a provision insisted upon by Southern politicians to exempt agricultural and domestic workers would disproportionally exclude Black workers. It was none other than Charles Hamilton Houston, architect of the legal challenge to the “separate but equal” doctrine resulting in Brown v. Board of Education, who objected on behalf of the NAACP and warned Congress that the bill would exclude “Negro sharecroppers and Negro cash tenants, who are just about at the bottom of the economic scale.” Despite the NAACP’s opposition, the Social Security Act passed with these exemptions intact. As a result, 65% of African Americans throughout the country were ineligible for benefits, with an even higher percentage of African Americans in the South excluded from the program. The NAACP’s Charles Hamilton Houston described the law as a “sieve with the holes just big enough for the majority of Negroes to fall through.” The exemptions were finally repealed in the 1950’s, but they had significantly worsened the economic gap between Blacks and Whites.

NAACP Empowerment programs. OP-ED August 14, 2020