Suburban Nation/Jim Crow Nation

Suburban Nation/Jim Crow Nation (pt.1)

Pamphlet Information:
- OWI-16549-C and VA Pamphlet 7-1.
- Replaces Instruction Sheet, FL 7-10, mentioned in Item 5, Section C, VA Form 7-1950.
- Published by the Veterans Administration in October 8, 1946.

Monthly checks for life starting at age 65.
Applications available at workplaces and post offices.
Eligibility includes almost everyone working for salary or wages, with exceptions like agriculture, domestic service, and government work.

Slogans and images promote home ownership ("Own a Modern Livable Home").
Federal Housing Administration (FHA) promotes building, buying, refinancing, and modernizing with government-insured loans.

Encouragement to join a union if working in a factory (as per Franklin D. Roosevelt).
CIO Research and Education Department involvement.

Work programs like WPA, FERA, and CCC, along with AAA, exhibited discrimination.
- This denied opportunities to racial minorities and white women.
- Displaced many from agricultural work.
Social Security Act:
- Excluded agricultural workers and domestics.
- This exclusion affected 65\% of the African American workforce and 27\% of the white workforce.
- Restrictions lasted until the 1950s.
Aid to Dependent Children (ADC, later AFDC; Title VI of SSA):
- Provided funds to state governments to support the impoverished, children, the elderly, and the disabled.
- It was "means tested" but didn't account for employment discrimination or off-the-books payments.
- States created restrictions like the "man in the house" rule to limit benefits.

Underwriting Manual sets appraisal standards nationwide.
Agencies prohibited insuring loans to minorities in white neighborhoods and to anyone in non-white neighborhoods.
Residential Security Maps (HOLC) and FHA maps graded neighborhoods by condition and racial/ethnic composition.
- Minority neighborhoods were rated "D" and colored red, making them uninsurable.
Agencies endorsed race-restrictive covenants.
- These covenants prohibited occupancy except by the intended race.
- The FHA formally dropped this endorsement two years after Shelley v. Kraemer, but racial restrictions continued until 1968.
FHA Underwriting Manual stated: "If a neighborhood is to retain stability, it is necessary that properties shall continue to be occupied by the same social and racial classes”.

FHA and VA insured up to 50\% of all home loans each year in the 1940s and 1950s (over 12 million by 1970).
FHLBB, FSLIC, FNMA, and related agencies insured, regulated, and subsidized the remaining market with similar eligibility rules.
Federal programs restricted access to mortgages:
- Primarily insured mortgages on single-family homes in suburban areas for white applicants.
- Non-white applicants and single white women were often denied loans.

Secured the "color line."
Realtors and neighborhood associations policed sales and rentals.
Attacks on homes sold or rented to African Americans, Asian Americans, and Hispanics occurred.

During the 1950s, the nation’s 14 largest cities lost population.
Between 1950 and 1970, 7 million whites moved from central cities to suburbs.
Migration of black Americans (approximately 3 million) to northern and western cities driven by agriculture consolidation, Jim Crow laws, and new northern opportunities.
Federal spending and legislation made the southwest attractive.
By 1962, far western states received about 50\% of the Department of Defense R&D dollars.
Rise of the "Sunbelt".

Housing Act of 1937 created provisions for federal-funded low-income housing construction.
Became the Public Housing Administration (PHA) in 1947.
1949: Taft-Ellender-Wagner Housing Act provided funds for slum clearance and public housing.
- Committed federal funds to slum clearance overseen by local agencies; must be "50\% residential" either before clearing or after redevelopment.
- Authorized construction of 810,000 public housing units over six years, but subsequent Congresses cut appropriations, and only 200,000 were built by 1955.
Local real estate lobbies campaigned for local referenda to block public housing construction.
Widespread abuse: For example, Robert Moses built a colosseum and luxury housing using federal funds by including destruction of tenements in the plan.

Redevelopment coalitions (local officials, business leaders, construction unions) used federal funds and local tax incentives to clear industrial space and older residential neighborhoods.
Built high-rises, new commercial and historical districts, and luxury housing.
"Slum clearance" was often "black and ethnic removal":
- Boston’s urban renewal focused on the West End, South End, and Lower Roxbury, displacing thousands of residents.

Protest against the use of federal tax dollars to support segregation and discrimination.
NAACP advocated for a sweeping Executive Order to stop grants, loans, subsidies, and supports to states using funds for segregated activities.
Encouraged taxpayers to include a statement with their tax returns objecting to the expenditure of their money on programs in states practicing racial discrimination.