socio

American Apartheid

Segregation and the

Making of the Underclass

DOUGLAS s . MASSEY

NANCY A. DENTON

Harvard University Press

Cambridge, Massachusetts

London, England

Copyright CJ 1993 by the President aml Fellows of Hal1lard College All rlghts reserved

Printed In the UnJted States of America Ninth printing, 2001

LJbrary of COngress CIIllIlDging-in-P",blicllIion DQ/Q MasKy. Douglas S.

American apartheid: segregal!on and the making of the underclass I Douglas S. Massey. Nanty A. Denton.

p. em. Includes Index.

ISBN 0-674-01820-6 (al;id·frcel (clolh) ISBN 0-674-01821-4 (pbk.1

1. Race dlscrlmlnatlon-Unlted States-Hisrory-20Ih century. 2. SegregaJlon-UnJted Slates-History-2Oth century. 3. Afro­ Americans-Social conditions. 4. hUler cities-United Slates­

Hlslory-20th century. 5. United States-Rate relations. 6. UnlJed Slates-Social polity. I. Denton. Nanty A. D. Title.

E185.6I.M373 1993 )05.8'00973-dc20 92-13889

elP

Contents

Preface viii

1 The Missing Link. 1

2 The Construction of the Ghetto 17

3 The Persistence of the Ghetto 60

4 The Continuing Causes of Segregation 83

5 The Creation of Underclass Communities 115

6 The Perpetuation of the Underclass 148

7 The Failure of Public Policy 186

8 The Future of the Ghetto 217

Notes 239

Index 285

2

The Construction

of the Ghetto

The problem of the 20th Century Is the problem of the color line.

W. E. B. Du Bois

Surveying the harsh black-and -white landscape of contemporary urban America, it is hard to imagine a time when people of European and African origin were not highly segregated from one another. I In an era when Watts, Harlem, and Roxbury are synonymous with black geo­ graphic and social isolation, it is easy to assume that U . S . cities have always been organized to achieve a physical separation of the races. The residential segregation of blacks and whites has been with us so long that it seems a natural part of the social order, a normal and umemarkable feature of America's urban landscape.

Yet it wasn't always so. There was a time, before 1 900, when blacks and whites lived side by side in American cities. In the north, a small native black population was scattered widely throughout white neigh" borhoods. Even Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and Philadelphia-cities now well known for their large black ghettos-were not segregated then. In southern cities such as Charleston, New Orleans, and S avannah, black servants and laborers lived on alleys and side streets near the mansions of their white employers. In this lost urban world, blacks were more likely to share a neighborhood with whites than with other blacks.

In most cities, to be sure, certain neighborhoods could be identified as places where blacks lived; but before 1 900 these areas were not predomi­ nant�y black, and most blacks didn't live in them. No matter what other disadvantages urban blacks suffered in the aftermath of the Civil War, they were not residentially segregated from whites. The two racial groups

1 8 AMERICAN APART H EID

moved in a common social world, spoke a common language, shared a common culture, and interacted personally on a regular basis. In the north, especially, leading African American citizens often enj oyed rela­ tions of considerable trust, respect, and friendship with whites of similar social standing.

Of course, most blacks did not Jive in northern cities, and didn't experi­ ence these benign conditions. In 1 8 70, 80% of black Americans still lived in the rural south, where they were exploited by a sharecropping system that was created by white landowners to replace slavery; they were ter­ rorized by physical violence and mired in an institutionalized cycle of ignorance and poverty. Over the next century, however, blacks in the rural south increasingly sought refuge and betterment in burgeoning cities of the south and north. By 1 9 70, 80% of black Americans lived in urban areas, and nearly half were located outside the south.

This shift of blacks from south to north and from farm to city radically transformed the form, nature, and substance of African American life in the United States. As we shall see, the way i n which blacks from the rural south were incorporated into the geographic structure of American cities in the years after 1 900 proved to be decisive in determining the path of black social and economic development later in the twentieth century.

Southern blacks were not the only rural people migrating to American cities at the tum of the century. Between 1 880 and 1 92 0 miJJions of eastern and southern Europeans arrived as well, and after 1 92 0 their place was taken by a growing number of Mexicans. For these groups, however, U . S . cities served as vehicles for integration, economic advance­ ment, and, ultimately, assimilation into American life. For rural blacks, in contrast, cities became a trap-yet another mechanism of oppression and alienation. The urban ghetto, constructed during the first half of the twentieth century and successively reinforced thereafter, represents the key institutional arrangement ensuring the continued subordination of blacks in the United States.

The term "ghetto" means different things to different people. To some observers it simply means a black residential area; to others it connotes an area that is not only black but very poor and plagued by a host of social and economic problems. In order to distinguish clearly between race and class i n discussing black residential patterns, our use of the term "ghetto" refers only to the racial make-up of a neighborhood; it is not intended to describe anything about a black neighborhood's class compo­ sition. For our purposes, a ghetto is a set of neighborhoods that are

The Construction of the Ghetto 1 9

exclusively inhabited by members of one group, within which virtually

all members of that group live. By this definition, no ethnic or racial

group in the history of the United States, except one, has ever experi ­

enced ghettoization, even briefly. For urban blacks, the ghetto has been the paradigmatic residential configuration for at least eighty years.

The emergence ofthe black ghetto did not happen as a chance by-prod­

uct of other socioeconomic processes. Rather, white Americans made a series of deliberate decisions to deny blacks access to urban housing markets and to reinforce their spatial segregation. Through its actions and inactions, white America built and maintained the residential struc­

ture of the ghetto. Sometimes the decisions were individual, at other times they were collective, and at still other times the powers and prerog­ atives of government were harnessed to maintain the residential color line; but at critical points between the end of the C ivil War in 1 865 and the passage of the Fair Housing Act in 1 9 68, white America chose to strengthen the walls of the ghetto .

Before the Ghetto

At the close of the Civil War, American cities were just b eginning to throw off the trappings of their pre-industrial past. Patterns of urban social and spatial organization still reflected the needs of commerce, trade, and small-scale manufacturing. Public transportation systems were crude or nonexistent. and production was largely organized and carried out by extended households or in small shops. People got around by walking, so there was little geographic differentiation between places of work and residence. Land u s e was not highly specialized, real estate prices were low, and socially distinctive residential areas had not yet emerged. In the absence of structural steel, ,electricity, and efficient me­ chanical systems, building densities were low and urban populations were distributed uniformly.2

Such an urban spatial structure is not conducive to high levels of segre­ gation by class, race, or ethnicity, and the small African American popu­ lation that inhabited northern cities before 1 90 0 occupied a niche in the urban geography little different from that of other groups. B efore 1 90 0 , blacks were n o t particularly segregated fro m whites, and although they were overrepresented in the poorest housing and the meanest streets, their residential status did not differ markedly from that of others in the same economic circumstance s . 3

If the disadvantaged residential condition of blacks in t h e nineteenth

2 0 A M E R I C A N A P A R T H E I D

century can be attributed to raci al preju d ice and discrimination, i t i s to prej udice and di scrimination i n employment rather than in housing. Because blacks were sys tematically excluded fro m most skilled trades and nonmanual employment they were consigned [Q a low eco nomic status that translated directly into poor housing. Those few blacks who were able [Q overcome these obstacles and achieve success in some pro­ fession or trade were generally able to improve their housing condHions and acquire a residence b efitting their status. Studies of black residential l i fe in northern cities around the time of the Civil War reveal little system­ atic exclusion from white neighborhoods on the basis of skin color.4

Indeed, before 1 9 00 African Americans could be fo und i n most neigh­ borhoods of northern cities. Although blacks at rimes clustered on certain S l reets or bl ocks, they rarely comprised more rhan 3 0 % of the re sidents of th e immediate area; and these clusters typically were not spatially contigu o u s . Maps from the period reveal a widely dispersed spatia,l pat­ lern, w i th black households being u n evenly but widely scatterefl 'around the urban landscap e. 5 I n no city of the ni neteenth century i s th ere any­ thing resembling a black ghetto .

This view is verified by hi storical studies that report quantitative indices of racial segregation. The standard measure of segregation is the index of dissimilarity, which captures the degree to which blacks and whites are evenly spread among neighborhoods in a city.6 Evenness is defined with respect to the racial composition o f the city as a whole . If a city is 10% black, then an even residential pattern requires that every neighbor­ hood be 1 0 % b lack and 9 0 % white. Thus, if a neighborhood is 2 0 % black, the excess 1 0 % o f blacks must move t o a neighb orhoo d where the black percentage is under 1 0 % to shift the residential configu ration to­ ward evenness. The index of dissimi larity gives the percentage of blacks who would have to move to achieve an "even" residential pattern-one where every neighborh o o d replicates the racial composition of the city.

Several studies have computed dissimilarity indices for American cities circa 1 860, and their findings are s ummarized hi. the first column of Table 2 . 1 . These numbers measure the extent of b lack - white segregation across city "ward s , " which are large spatial units of 6,000 to 1 2,000 people tha t are frequently used to approximate neighborhoods in historical data. A simple rule of thumb in interpreting these indices is that values under 3 0 are low, those between 30 and 60 are moderate, and anything above 60 is high.

According to these criteria, black-white segregation in northern cilies

Table 2 . 1 Indices of black- white segregation (dissimilari ty) in selected northern and southern cities : circa 1 8 6 0- 1 870, 1 9 1 0 . and 1 940

N(}rthern cities Boston

Chicago

Cincinnati Cleveland

Indianapolis

Milwaukee

New York

Philadelphia

51. Louis San Francisco wilmington

Average

southern cities Augusta

Baltimore

Charleston

Jacksonville

Louisville Mobile

Nashville

New Orleans

Avcr.lge

Free blacks

vs. whites,

circa 1 8 60

6 1 . 3

50.0

47.9

49.0

5 7 . 2

5 9 . 6

4 0 . 6

47 . 1

3 9 . 1

3 4 . 6

2 6 . 1

4 5 . 7

22. 1

2 3 .2

20.2

29.8

43 . 1

3 5 . 7

29.0

Blacks vs.

native whites.

1 9 1 0

64. 1

66.8

47.3

69.0

66.7

46.0

54. 3

5 9 . 2

5 8 . 8

1 6 . 8 3 9 . 4

3 8 . 3

Nonwhites

vs. whites. 1 940

86.3

9 5. 0

9 0 . 6

92.0

90.4

92.9

8 6 . 8

88.8

92 . 6

82.9

8 3 . 0

89.2

86.9

90. 1

60. 1

94.3

8 1 .7

86.6

8 6 . 5

8 1 .0

8 L O

Sources: For first column: Ira Berlin. Slaves withoul Masters: The Free Negro in the Antebellum South (New York: Pantheon, 1 9 74), pp. 25.0- 65; except Cleveland, which Is Kenneth 1. Kusmer, A Ghello Tak15 Shape: Black Cleveland, 1870- 1930 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 1 976). p. 43; and Milwaukee. which is Joe William Trotter. Jr . • Black Milwaukee: The Making of an Industrial Proletariat, 1915-45 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 1 98 5 ) . p. 2 3 . Segregation 15 by wards and indices for Cleveland and Milwaukee are for 1870.

For second column: Stanley Lieberson. Ethn.ic Patterns in American Cities ( N e w York: Free Press, 1 963), p. 1 2 2 ; except Milwaukee. which is Trotter. Black Milwaukee. p. 2 3 ; and Augusta. Charleston. and Jacksonville. which a re Karl Taeuber and Alma iaeuber, Negroes in Cities: Residential Segregation and Neighborhood Change (Chicago: Aldine Publishing, 1 9 6 5 ) , pp. 49-5 3 . Segregation is by ward s and index for Augusta is for 1909.

For third column: Taeuber and Taeuber. NegToes in Cilies. pp. 39-4 1 . Segregation is by blocks.

2 2 A M E R I C A N A P A R TH E I D

was quite moderate around 1 8 60. The average index was 46, meaning that, on average, just under half of urban blacks would have to move to achieve an even, or "integrated, " city. Wilmington, San Francisco, a nd St. Louis had especially modest indices of 2 6 . L 34.6, and 3 9 . 1 , respec­ tively. The only city that displayed a segregalio n index in the high range (barely) was B oston, with a value of 6 1 . 3 . Boston's segregation, however, was much lower earlier in the century, with an index of only 44.4 in 1 8 30. Moreover, even though segregation was relatively high in 1 8 60, by 1 8 9 0 it had gone back to a moderate level of 5 1 , and racial segregation d i d not reach 60 again until 1 9 1 0 . 7

Black-white segregation scores i n the 3 0 t o 6 0 range are not terribly different from those observed for European immigrant groups in the same period. Before 1 88 0 , immigrants to the United S tates came principally from Ireland and Germany. According to a variety of studies, the level of segregation between these two European groups and native whites ranged from 2 0 to 45 in northern cities in 1 8 5 0 and 1 8 6 0 . 8 Thus black segregation scores were only slightly greater than those typical of Euro­ pean immigrant groups i n the same era.

S uch modest levels of segregation, combined with small black popula­ tions, led to substantial contact between blacks and whites in northern cities. This conclusion accords with historical studies of black communi­ ties in nineteenth -century northern cities. In places such as Cleveland, Chicago, D etroit, and Milwaukee, the small black communities were dominated by an elite of educated professionals, business owners, and successful tradespeople, most of whom were northern-born or migrants from border states.'} Within the upper stratum, interracial contacts were frequent, cordiaL and often intimate. Members of this elite were fre­ quently of mixed radal origin and tended to be light -skinned. Although the black lower classes usually did not maintain such amicable interracial ties, they too interacted frequently with whites in their places of work and on the streets.

Typical of the northern black elite of the nineteenth century was John Jones , a mulatto who was the "u ndisputed leader of C hicago ' s Negro community until his death in 1 8 7 9 . , , 1 0 After his arrival in the city in 1 8 4 5 , he e stablished a tailoring shop and built a successful business mak­ ing clothes for wealthy whites. Before the Civil War, he was prominent in the abolitionist movement, where he had extensive contact with liberal whites, and after the war he ran for the Cook County Board of Commis­ sioners and was elected with widespread white support.

The Construction of the Ghetto 2 3

Other members of Chicago's nineteenth-century African American

elite included physicians, dentists, j ournalists, attorneys, and clergymen, all of whom relied substantially on the white community for economic and political support; and all maintained close social and professional relatiOnships with individual whites. Like Jones, they supported the ideal of integration and opposed the formation of separate black community

institutio n s . Above all they stressed the importance of economic self­

improvement for radal progress . l l

A similar picture of African American life emerges from other studies of nineteen th- century northern cit ies. In Cleveland, a light-skinned African American, Charles W. Chestnut, pursued a highly visible career as a court stenographer, lawyer, and writer, sending his children to integrated schools and maintaining a close circle of white associates. He argued that blacks could best overcome their disabilities by adopting the culture and values of the white middle class. 12 In Detroit, members of the black elite lived a similarly integrated existence and displayed their commitment to integration by attending predominantly white churches . 1 3 In Milwaukee, the nineteenth-century black elite included a number of successful pro­ fessionals who catered to white clients, including a lawyer, William T. Green; a dentist, Clifton A . Johnson; and a physician, Allen L . Herron. J 4

A high degree o f interracial contact i n northern cities i s confirmed b y a n analysis o f the racial composition o f t h e neighborhoods inhabited b y nineteenth century blacks. Given racial breakdowns for w ar d popula­ tions, the percentage of blacks in the ward of the average black citizen can be computed. This average, known as the isolation index, measures the extent to which blacks live within neighborhoods that are predomi­ nantly black. I' A value of 1 0 0 % indicates complete ghettoization and means (hat all black people live in totally black areas; a value under 5 0% means that blacks are more likely t o ;have whites than blacks as neighbors.

Stanley Lieberson made this calculation for black Americans in seven­ teen nonhern cities between 1 8 90 and 1 9 3 0, 1 6 an d his results are repro­ duced in Table 2 . 2 . We see from the first column that blacks in the north tended to live in predominantly white neighborhoods during the nineteenth century. rhe most "ghettoized" city in 1 8 9 0 was Indianapolis, where the average black person lived i n a neighborhood that was 1 3 % black; in three- quarters o f the cities, the percentage was under 1 0 % . In other words, the typical black resident of a nineteenth - c entury northern city lived in a neighborhood that was close to 9 0 % white. Even in cities

24 A M E R I C A N A PA R T HE I D

Table 1.1 Indices of black isolation within wards of selected northern cities, 1 890- 1 9 30

Isolation indices by year

1890 t 900 t 9 t O t 920 1 9 30

Boston 8.5 6.4 t t . 3 t 5.2 19.2 Buffalo 1 .0 4. 4 5 . 7 1 0 . 2 24.2 Chicago 8 . t 1 0. 4 1 5. 1 38. 1 70.4 Cincinnati 9.4 1 0. 1 1 3. 2 26.9 44.6 Cleveland 4.7 7 . 5 7.9 2 3 .9 5 1 .0 Detroit 5 . 6 6 . 4 6.8 1 4 . 7 3 1 .2

Indianapolis 1 2 . 9 t 5 . 1 1 8 . 5 2 3 .4 2 6 . t Kansas City 1 2 . 7 1 3 . 2 2 1 .7 2 3.7 3 1 .6 Los Angeles 3 . 3 3 . 2 3 . 8 7 . 8 2 5 .6 Milwaukee 1 .4 2 . 4 1 . 9 4. 1 1 6 . 4 Minneapolis 1 . 6 t . 6 t .7 2 . 1 1 .7 Newark 4. t 5 . 5 5.4 7.0 22.8 .

New York 3 . 6 5 . 0 6.7 20.5 4 1 .8 Philadelphia 1 1 .7 t 6.4 1 5. 7 20.8 27.3 Pittsburgh 8. 1 1 2.0 1 2.0 t 6 . 5 26.8 St. louis 1 0. 9 1 2 . 6 1 7.2 29. 5 46.6 San Francisco 1 .4 1 . 1 0.7 1 .0 1 .7

Average 6.7 7.8 9.7 1 6.8 29.9

SOurce: Stanley Lieberson, A Piece of the Pie: Blacks and White Immigrants since 1880 ( Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), pp. 266, 288. Isolation is measured by ward.

that later developed l arge black ghettos, such as Chicago , Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles, Newark, and New York, blacks were more likely to come into contact with whites than with other blacks.

There is also little evidence of ghettoization, among southern blacks prior to 1 9 0 0 . Indeed, segregation levels i n the south tend to be lower than those in the north. Prior to the Emancipation Proclamation, urban slaves were intentionally dispersed by whites in order to prevent the fannation of a cohesive African American society. l 7 AJthough this policy broke down in the years l ead ing u p to the Civil War-when free blacks and slaves who were "living out" gravitated toward black settlements on the urban periphery to escape white supervision l3-historical studies

The C onstruction of the Ghetto 2 5

are consistent i n reponing a great deal o f racial integration i n housing

prior to 1 9 00. 1 9

The bottom half o f Table 2 . 1 presents black-white dissimil arity indices

computed by several i nvestigators to measure the extent of segregation between whites and fre e blacks in six southern cities circa 1 8 6 0 . Levels of racial segregation are considerably lower than those observed in the north. The average segregation score of 29 is some 1 7 points below the average for northern cities and, by the criteria set forth earlier. four of the six cities display indices in the low range (below 3 0 ) . The most segregated so uthern city is Nashville, where 43% of free blacks would

have had to leave their ward to achieve an even residential configuration. No study has systematically examined the degree of black isolation

within neighborhoods of southern cities in the nineteenth century, but published data on ward populations in Louisville in 1 8 45 and Charleston in 1 86 1 permit u s to carry out this calculation ourselves.2o I n Louisville, the average free black lived in a neighborhood that was only 1 4% black, whereas in Charleston the figure was 4 5 % . The higher figure i n the latter city is attributable to the fact that blacks comprised 44% of Charleston's 1 8 6 1 population, not t o higher segregation per se; with an even distribu­ tion of blacks and whites i n Charleston, every neighborhood would still be 44% black owing to the number of blacks alone. In any event, free blacks in both cities were more likely to share a ward with whites than with other blacks.

Free blacks, of course, were a minority o f all African Americans in the antebellum south; most were slaves. The data from Louisville and Charleston reveal, however, that slaves were even less segregated from whites than were free blacks: the slave- white dissimilarity index was 1 4 . 2 in Louisville in 1 84 5 and 1 1 . 4 in Charleston in 1 8 6 1"": Thus whether one considers slaves or free blacks, there is little evidence of a distinctive black ghetto in southern cities in the nineteenth century. Throughout the south, African Americans were scattered widely among urba n neighbor­ hoods and were marc likely to share neighborhoods with whites than with members of Iheir own group.

In contrast to the situation i n the nonh, however, residential integra­ tion in the postbe]]um south was not accompanied by a relatively open set of race relations among elites. As the Reconstruction Era drew to a close, black-white relations came to be governed by the increasingly harsh realities of the Jim Crow system, a set of laws and informal expec-

26 AME R I C A N APARTHEID

rations that subordinated blacks to whites i n all areas of social and eco­ nomic life Y The implementation of Jim C row did not increase segrega­ tion, however, or reduce the frequency of black- white contact; it governed the terms under which integra tion occurred and strictly regu­ lated the nature of interracial social contacts.

Neighborhoods in many southern cities evolved a residential structute characterized by broad avenues interspersed with small streets and alIeysY Large homes on the avenues contained white families, who em� ployed black servants and laborers who lived on the smaller streets. The relationship of master and slave was supplanted by one of master and servant, or a paternalistic relationship between boss and worker. Despite their economic and social SUbjugation, however, blacks in southern cities continued to have direct p e rsonal contacts with whites, albeit on very unequal terms. As in the north, the social worlds of the races overlapped.

Creating the Ghetto, 1 900- 1 940

The era of integrated living and widespread interracial contact was rap­ idly effaced in American cities after 1 9 00 because of two developments : the industrialization of America and the concomitant movement of blacks from farms to cities. The pace of change was most rapid in the north, not only because industrialization was quicker and more complete there, but also because the south's Jim Crow system provided an effective alterna­ tive to the ghetto in bringing about the subjugation of blacks. Moreover, the interspersed pattern of black and white settlement in southern cities carried with it a physical inertia that retarded the construction of the ghetto.23

Industrialization in the north unleashed a set of social, economic, and technological changes that dramatically altered the urban environment in ways that promoted segregation between social groups. Before indus­ trialization, production occurred primarily in the home or small shop, but by the tum of the century manufacturing had shifted decisively to large factories that employed hundreds of laborers. Individual plants clus­ tered in extensive manufacturing districts together demanded thousands of workers. Dense clusters of tenements and row houses were con­ structed near these districts to house the burgeoning work force.24

The new demand for labor could not b e met by native white urbanites alone, so employers turned to migrants of diverse origins. Before World War I, the demand for unskilled labor was met primarily by rural immi-

The Construction of the Ghetto 2 7

grants from southern a n d eastern Europe.25 Their migration was guided and structured by social networks that connected them to relatives and friends who had arrived earlier. Drawing upon the ties of kinship and cornmon community origin, the new migrants obtained jobs and housing

in U . S . cities, and in this way members of specific ethnic groups were

channeled to particular neighborhoods and factories.26

At the same time, the need to oversee industrial production---':and to

administer the wealth it created-brought about a new managerial class composed primarily of native white Americans. As their affluence in­ creased, the retail sector also expanded dramatically. Both administration and retail sales depended on face-to -face interaction, which put a pre­ mium on spatial proximity and high p opUlation densities. The invention of structural steel and mechanical elevators allowed cities to expand up­ ward in skyscrapers, which were grouped into central business districts that brought thousands of people into regular daily contact. The develop­ ment of efficient urban rail systems permitted the city to expand outward, creating new residential districts in suburban areas to house the newly

affluent class of middl e - class managers and service workers.27 These developments brought about a n unprecedented increase in ur­

ban social segregation. Not only was class segregation heightened, but the "new" immigrant groups-Jews, Poles, Italians, Czechs-expe ­ rienced far more segregation from native whites than did the "old" im­ migrant groups of Irish and Germans. Whereas European irrirnigrant seg­ regation, as measured by the index of dissimilarity, rarely exceeded 5 0 before 1 8 70, after the turn o f the century values i n the range o f 5 0 to 6 5 were common.28

Southern blacks also formed p art of the stream of migrants to American cities, but until 1 890 the flow was relatively small; only 7 0 , 0 00 blacks left the south during the 1 87 0 s and 8 0 , 0 0 0 ueparted during the 1 880s.29 In contrast, the number of European immigrants ran into the millions in both decades. Immigration, however, was cyclical and strongly affected by economic conditions abroad. When the demand for labor in European cities was strong, migration to the United States fell, and when European demand flagged, immigration to the United States rose.30

This periodic ebb and flow of European immigration created seriou s structural problems for American employers, particularly when boom periods in Europe and America coincided. When this occurred, European migrants moved to their own industrial cities and U . S . factories had diffi­ culty attracting new workers . Periodic labor shortages caused northern

2 8 A M E R I C A N A P A R T H E I D

employers to turn t o domes tic sources o f labor, especially migrants from American rural areas and particularly those in the south. Thus black migration to northern cities oscillared inversely with the ebb and flow of European immigration. 3 1

B u t northern employers also found another reason t o employ southern

blacks, for by the turn of the century, they had discovered their utility

as strikebreakers. Blacks were repeatedly employed in this capacity in northern labor disputes between 1 89 0 and 1 9 3 0 : black strikebreakers were used seven times in New York between 1 89 5 and 1 9 1 6, and were employed in Cleveland in 1 8 96, in Detroit in 1 9 1 9 , in Milwaukee in 1 9 2 2 , and in Chicago in 1 904 and 1 90 5 . �2 Poor rural blacks with little understanding of industrial conditions and no experience with unions were recruited in the south and transported directly to northern factories, often on special trains arranged by factory owners .

The association of blacks with strikebreaking w a s bound t o earn them the erunity of white workers, but discrimination against blacks by labor unions cannot be attributed to this animosity alone. European groups had also been used as strikebreakers, but labor leaders overcame these attempts at u n i on -bu sting by incorporating each new wave of immigrants into the labor movemen t . U nions never employed this strategy with southern blacks, however. From the start, African Americans suffered unusually severe discrimination from white unions simply because they were black. 33

Most of the skilled crafts unions within the American Federation of Labor, for example, excluded blacks until the 1 9 3 0s; and the Congress of Industrial Organizations accepted blacks only grudgingly, typically within segregated Jim Crow l oca l s that received poorer contracts and lower priorities in j ob assignments. Being denied access to the benefits of white unions, blacks had little to lose from crossing picket l i nes, thereby set ting off a cycle of ongo ing mutual hostility and distrust be­ tween black and white workers . 34

Black out- migration from the south grew steadily from the end of the nineteenth century into the first decades of the new century . D uring the 1 8 90s, some 1 74,000 blacks left the south, and this number rose to 1 97,000 between }'900 and 1 9 1 0. } 5 The event that transformed the stream into a flood, however, was the outbreak of World War I in 1 9 1 4 . The war both increased the demand for U . S . industrial production and cut off the flow of European immigrants, northern factories ' traditiona l

The Construction of the Ghetto 2 9

SQu rce of labor. I n response, employers began a sp iri ted recruitment o f blacks from the rural south. 3 6

The arrival o f the recruiters in the south coincided with that of the

Mexican boll weevil. which had devastated Louisiana's cotton crops in

1 906 before moving on to M i ssissippi in 1 9 1 3 and Alabama in 1 9 1 6 . The collapse of southern agriculture was aggravated by a series of disastrous floods in 1 9 1 5 and 19 J 6 and low cotton prices up to 1 9 1 4. In response, southern planters shifted production from cotton to food crops and Iive­ slOck, both of which required fewer workers. Thus the demand for black

tenant farmers and day laborers fell just when the need fo r unskilled workers in northern cities skyrocketed. 37

This coincidence of push and pull factors increased the level of black out-migration to new heights and g reatly augmented the black popula­ tions of Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and New York. B e ­ tween 1 9 1 0 and 1 92 0 , some 5 2 5 , 000 African Americans left their tradi­ tional homes in the south and took up l ife in the north, and during the 1 9 2 0s the outflow reached 8 7 7 ,000. 38 This migration gradually acquired

a dynamic of its own, as established migrants found jobs and housing for their friends and relatives back home. At the same time, northern black newspapers such as the Chicago Defender, which were widely read in the south, exhorted southern blacks to escape their oppression and move northward. As a result of this dynamic, black out-migra tion from the south continu ed at a substantial rate even during the Great D e ­ preSSion. J 9

Northern whites viewed this rising tide of black migration with increas ­ ing hostility and considerable alarm. Middle-class whites were repelled by what they saw as the uncouth manners, unclean habits, slothful ap­ pearance, and illicit behavior of poorly educated, poverty-stricken mi­ gra nts who had only recently been sharecroppers, and a resurgence of white racist ideology during the 1 9 2 0s provided a theoreticaL "scientific" justification for these feel ings. Working-class whites, for their part. feared. economic competition from the newcomers; and being first- or seco nd­ generation immigrants who were themselves scorned by native whites, they reaffirmed their own "whiteness" by oppressing a people that was even lower in the racial hierarchy. Blacks in the early twentieth century frequently said that the first English word an immigrant learned was "nigger. "

As the size of the urban black population rose steadily afler 1 90 0 ,

3 0 A M E R I C A N A P A R T H E I D

white racial views hardened and the relatively fluid and open period of

race relations in the north drew to a close. Northern newspapers increas­ ingly used terms such as "nigger" and " d arkey" in prim and carried unflattering stories about black crimes and vice.40 After decades of rela­ tively integrated education, white parents increasingly refused to enroll

their children in schools that included blacks.41 Doors that had permitted extensive interracial contact among the elite suddenly slammed shut as

black professionals lost white clients, associates, and friends.42

The most dramatic harbinger of the new regime in race relations was the upsurge in racial violence. In city after northern city, a series of communal riots broke out between 1 9 00 and 1 92 0 in the wake of mas­

sive black migration. Race riots struck New York C ity in 1 9 00; Evansville,

Indiana, in 1 90 3 ; Springfield, Illinois, in 1 90 8 ; East 5t. Louis, Illinois, in 1 9 1 7 ; and C h icago in 1 9 1 9.43 In each case, individual blacks were at­ tacked because of the color of their skin. Those living away from recog­ nized "black" neighborhoods had their houses ransacked or burned. Those unlucky or unwise enough to be caught trespassing in "white"

neighborhoods were beaten, shot, or lynched. B lacks on their way to work were pulled from trolleys and pummelled. Rampaging bands of

whites roamed the streets for days, attacking blacks at will. Although most of the rioters were white, most of the arrests, and nearly all of the

victims, were black. As the tide of violence rose in northern cities, blacks were increaSingly

divided from whites by a hardening color line in employment, education, and especially housing. Whites became increaSingly intolerant of black neighbors and fear of racial turnover and black "invasion" spread. Those

blacks living away from recognized Negro areas were forced to move into

expanding "black belts," "darkytowns," " B ronzevilles , " or "Nigger­

towns." Well- educated, middle-class blacks of the old elite found them­ selves increasingly lumped together with poorly educated, impoverished migrants fro m the rural south; and well-to - d o African Americans were progressively less able to find housing commensurate with their social status. In white eyes, black people belo nged in black neighborhoods no matter what their social or economic standing; the color line grew in­ creasingly impermeable.44

Thus levels of residential segregation between blacks and whites began a steady rise at the tum of the century that would last for sixty years.

The indices shown in the second column of Table 2 . 1 reveal the extent of this increase. By 1 9 1 0, the average level of racial segregation in seven

The Construction of the Ghetto 3 1

northern cities was 5 9 (compared with 46 in 1 86 0 ) and four cases fell clearly within the high range (with index scores above 60 ) . The initial stages of ghetto formation are most clearly revealed in Chicago ( where the index increased from 5 0 to 67 ) , Cleveland (an increase' fro m 49 to

69 ) , Milwaukee ( from 60 to 6 7 ) , and s t . Louis ( from 39 to 5 4 ) . The progressive segregation of blacks continued in subsequent decades,

and by World War II the foundations of the modern ghetto had been

laid in virtually every northern city. The last column of Table 2 . 1 presents dissimilarity indices computed by Karl and Alma Taeuber for 1 940.45

Some caution must b e exercised in interpreting these figures, because they are based on block statistics rather than on ward data. Blocks are sub stantially smaller than wards, and the degree of segregation that can be measured tends to increase as the geographic size of units fall s : what may appear to be an "integrated" ward actually may be quite segregated on a block-by-block basis.46

The shift from wards to blocks adds at least 1 0 points to the dissimilar­ ity indices (and probably more ) , but even making a liberal allowance for this artifact of the "neighborhood" unit used, it is clear that the level of black-white segregation rose substantially after 1 9 1 0 . At the block level, the degree of black- white segregation in northern cities reached an aver­ age value of 89 by 1 9 40, with indices varying na rrowly in the range from 80 t o 1 00 ; this implies a range of about 70 to 9 0 using ward data, with an average around 80. It is safe to surmise, therefore, that by 1 940 at least 70% of northern black city dwellers would have had to move to achieve an even residential configuration in no rthern cities (co mpared with a figure of only 46% in 1 8 60 ) .

With a rapidly growing black population being accommodated by an ever-smaller number of neighborhoods and an increasingly uneven resi­ dential configuration, the only possible outcome was an increase in the spatial isolation of blacks. As can be seen in Table 2 . 2 , levels of racial isolation in northern cities began to move sharply upward after 1 9 00, and especially after 1 9 1 0 . By 1 9 3 0, African Americans were well on their way to experiencing a uniquely high degree of spatial isolation in American citie s . Chicago led the way: its isolation index increased from only 1 0 % in 1 9 00 t o 70% thirty years later. A s of 1 9 3 0 the typical black Chicagoan lived in a neighborhood that was over two-thirds black. That the level of black racial isolation also rose in other cities indicated the growth of more incipient ghetto s : from 8 % to 5 1 % in C leveland, from 5% to 42% in New York, and from 1 3 % to 47 % in St. Louis.

3 2 A M E R I C A N A P A R T H E I D

The increasing ghettoization of blacks was not simply a result of their growing numbers. Stanley Lieberson has clearly demonstrated that the segregation of blacks in the urban north increased after 1 900 not only because their share of the population grew but because the same racial composition led to more isolation than it had during earlier periods :H As the new century wore on, areas of acceptable black residence became more and more narrowly circumscribed : the era of the ghetto had begun.

Migration and industrial development also segregated the "new" Eu­ ropean immigrant groups, of course, but recent studies have made it clear that immigrant enclaves in the early twentieth century were in no way comparable to the black ghetto that formed in most northern cities by 1 9 40. 48 To be sure , certain neighborhoods could b e identified as "Ital­ ian," " Polish," or "Jewish"; but these ethnic enclaves differed from black ghettos in three fundamental ways .

First, unlike black ghettos, immigrant enclaves were never homoge­ neous and always contained a wide variety of nationalities, even if They were publ icl y associated with a particular national origin gro u p . In Chi­ cago's " Magyar district" of 1 90 1 , for example , twenty-two different eth­ nic groups were present and only 37% of all family heads were Magyar ( 2 6 % were Polish) .49 Simila rly, an 1 89 3 color-coded block map of Chi­ cago's West Side prepared by the U . S . Department of Labor showed the location of European ethnic groups using eighteen separate colors. The result was a huge ra i nbow in which no block contained a single color. The average number of colors per block was eight, and four out of five lots within blocks were mixed . In none of the "Little Italys" identi fi ed on the map was there a n al l - Italian block . 50

The myth of the immigrant ghetto was perpetuated by Ernest Burgess, a founder of the " C hicago School" of urban sociology. In 1 9 3 3 he pub­ lished a well -known map showing the spatial location Chicago 's va rious immigrant groups . On it, he identified specific German, Irish, ila l ian, RUSSian, Polish , Swedish, and Czech "ghettos

: " A closer exami nation of

these da ta by Thomas Philpo tt, however. revealed that Burges s ' s immi­ grant " ghettos " were more fictive than rea l . The average number of na­ tionalities p er ghetto was twenty-two, ranging from twenty in ostensi bly Italian and Czech neighborhoods to twenty- five in areas that were theo­ retically Irish, German, and Swedish . In none of these "ghettos " did the ghettoized group constitute even a bare majority of the population, with [he sale excep tio n of Poles, who comprised 5 4% of their enclave. In areas that B u rgess identified as being part of the black ghetto, however, blacks comprised 8 2 % of the population. 5 1

The Construction of the Ghetto 3 3

A second crucial distinction is th a t most European ethnics did nO[ live

in immigrant "ghenos," as ethnically diluted as they were. Burgess ' s Irish ghetto contained only 3% o f Chicago's Irish population, and only 50%

of the dty's Italian lived in the "Linle Italys" he identified. Only among poles did a majority, 6 1 % . live in neighbo rhoo d s that were ide ntified as being part of the Polish enclave. In contrast. 9 3 % of Chicago' s black

pop ulation lived within the black ghetto . 52

Thus e ven at the height of their segregation early i n this cenrury. Euro­ pean ethnic groups did not experience a particularly high degree of isola­ tion from American society. even i n 1 9 1 0 a t the end of the peak decade of E u ropean immigration. Among the 1 0 0 or so indices that S tanley Lieberson computed for seven E uropean ethnic groups in seventeen cities

in 1 9 1 0 . only seven cases had isolation indices above 2 5 % . and all but twO were under 40 % . The highest recorded levels of spatial isolation were for Italians in Boston (44% ) . Buffalo ( 38% ) . and Milwaukee ( 5 6% ) . and for Russians ( I . e . • Jews) in New York ( 3 4% ) .5 3 In contrast. black

isolation exceeded 2 5 % in eleven of the seventeen cities Lieberson exam­ ined in 1 9 3 0 (see Table 2 . 2 ) ; and what is startling abou t this fact is (hat black ghettos were still in their formative stages in 1 9 } 0 and had not yet

begun to approach their maximum isolation.

The last difference b etween immigrant enclaves and black ghettos is that whereas ghettos became a permanent feature of black residential

life. e thnic enclaves proved to b e a fleeting. transitory stage in the process

of immigrant assimilation. The degree of segregation and spatial isolation

among European ethnic groups fell steadily after 1 9 1 0 . a s native-born children of inunigrants experienced less segregation than their parents

and as spatial isolation decreased progressively with socioeconomic ad­

vancement. 54 For European immigrants. enclaves were places of absorp­ tion, adaptation. and adjustment to American society. They served as

springboards for broader mobility in society. whereas blacks were trapped

behlnd an i ncreasingly impermeabl e color line.

The emergence of severe racial segregation in the north was not pri­

marily a reflection of black housing preferences or a natural ou tcome of

migration processes. On the contrary. as the ghetto walls grew thicker

and higher, well-to-do class blacks complained bitterly and loudly about

their increasing confinement w ithin crowded, dilapidated neighborhoods

inhabited by people well below their social and economic status . 5 5 Al­

though they fought the construction of the ghetto as best they could, the

forces arrayed against them proved to be overwhelming.

Foremost among the tools that whites used to con struct the ghetto was

34 A M E R I C A N A P A R T H E I D

violence. The initial impetus for gheuo formation came from a wave of racial violence, a lready noted, that swept over northern cities in the pe­ riod between 1 900 and 1 92 0 . These disturbances were communal in nature, and victims were singled out strictly on the basis of skin color. As history has repeatedly shown, during periods of communal strife. the only safety is in numbers. B lacks living in integrated or predominantly white areas-or even simply traveling through white areas to their own homes-proved to be extremel y vu lnerabl e . 56

Blacks that survived these attacks were loath to return to their former dwell ings where they feared ( correctly) that they would be subject to fu rther violence. Following the riots, there was an outflow of blacks from o u tlying neighborhoods into the emerging ghe tto , as the old integrated elite res igned itself to the new realities of racial segrega tion. Blacks who had been contemplating a move to better housing in white areas before the riots thought better of the idea a fterward.

Racial violence did not end when the riots ceased in 1 92 0 , however; it simply assumed new, more controlled forms. As the black settlement pattern imploded and scattered areas of black residence were eliminated or consolidated, a contiguous core of solidly b lack neighborhoods fanned in most northern cities during the first decades of the century. By the time black migration quickened during the 1 920s, new arrivals had to be accommodated within a very compact and spatially restricted area that was not open to easy expansion.

After 1 92 0 the pattern of racial strife shifted from one of general ized conununal violence aimed at driving blacks out of white neighborhoods to a new pattern of targeted violence concentrated along the periphery of an expanding ghetto. As migration continued and housing pressures within the ghetto became intolerable, and as h ealth, sanitary, and social conditions deteriorated, middle-class black families were eventually driven across the color line into white neighborhoods adiacem to the ghetto. Their moves set off an escalating pat tern of racial violence. 57

The pattern typically began with threatening letters, personal harass ­ ment, and warnings of dire consequences to fo llow. Sometimes whites, through their churches, realtors, or neighborhood orgaruzations, wou ld take up a c ollection and offer to buy the black homeowner out, hinting of less civilized inducements t o follow if the offer was refused. If these entreaties failed to dislodge the resident, spo ntaneous mobs would o ften grow out of neighborhood meetings or barroom discussions, and a pack of agitated, angry whites would surround the hou se, hurling rocks and

The Construction of the Ghetto 3 5

insults and at times stormi ng the home and ransacking it. Periodic out­

bursts of mob violence would be interspersed with sporadic incidents of

rock-throwing, gunshots, cross bur nings, a nd physlcaJ attack.

If the escalating violence still failed to produce the desired result, the

last step was dramatic and guara nteed to attract the attention, not only

of the homeowner, but of the entire black community : bombing. D u ring and after World War I, a wave of bombings foll owed the expansion of black residential areas in cities thro ugho u t the north. In Chicago, fifty­ eight black homes were bombed between 1 9 1 7 and 1 92 1 , one every twenty days;58 and one black real estate agent, Jesse Binga, had his home and office bombed seven times in one year. 59 In Cleveland, a wealthy black doctor who constructed a new home in an exclusive white suburb had his house surrounded by a violent mob, and when Ihis attack Jailed to dislodge him, the home was dynamited twice.60 B ombings were also

reported to be a conunon means of combating the expansion of D etroit's ghetto . 6 l

The wave of violence and bombings crested during the 1 920s, although the sporadic use of these techniqu es has continued up to the present.62 Violence, however, has its problems as a strategy for maintaining the residential color line. Although it was employed by whites of all classes at first, those in the middle and u pper classes eventually realize d its limitations. Not only did violent actions often destroy property within neighborh oods being "defended," but inj u ries or d eath could bri ng legal charges' as well as unfavorable publicity that decreased an area's stability. After the 1 9 205, middle- class whites increasi ngly turned to more civilized and insti tutionalized methods to b uild the ghetto .

A typical organizational solution to the threat of black residential expansion was the formation of neighborhood " improvement associa­ tions." Although ostensibly chartered for the purpose of promoting neighborhood security and property values, their principal raison d'ene was the prevention of black entry and the mai ntenance of the color line. O n Chicago ' s South Side, for example, the Hyde Park Improvement and Protective Club and the Woodlawn S ociety were formed implicitly to rid their neighborhoods o f unwanted black settlers and to prevent future black entry.63 In New York, whites banded together in Harlem's Property Owners' Improvement Corporation and Brooklyn's Gates Avenue Asso­ ciation, again for the same reasons.64 In other cities, similar organizations dedicated themselves to checking the expansion of black settlement along the ghetto' S frontier.65

3 6 A M E R I C A N A PA R T HE I D

These voluntary associations employed a variety of tools i n their efforts to preserve the racial homogeneity of threatened neighborhoods. They lobbied city councils for zoning restrictions and for the dosing of hotels and rooming houses that attracted blacks; they threatened boycotts of real estate agents who sold homes to blacks; they withdrew their patron­ age from white businesses that catered to black clients; they agitated for public investments in the neighborhood in order to increase property values and keep blacks out by economic means; they collected money to create funds to buy property from black settlers or to purchase homes that remained vacant for too long; they offered cash bonuses to black renters who agreed to leave the neighborhood . In the exclusive Chicago suburb of Wilmette, a committee of citizens went so far as to ask wealthy homeowners to lodge all maids, servants, and gardeners on premises, or else to fire all Negroes in their employ.66

One of the most important functions of the neighb orho od associations, however, was to implement restrictive covenams . 67 These documents were contractual agreements among property owners stating that they would not pennit a black to own, o ccupy, or lease their property. Those signing the covenant bound themselves and their heirs to exclude blacks from the covered area for a specified period of time. In the event of the covenant's violation. any party to the agreement could call upon the courts for enforcement and could sue the transgressor for damages. As typically empJoyed, covenants took effect when some fixed percentage of property owners in a given area had signed, wh ereupon the rem aining nonsignatories were pressured to sign al s o . A typi cal covenant lasted twenty years and required the assent of 7 5 % of the property owners to become enforceable .

Prior to 1 90 0 , such covenants did not exist. Legal restrictions on the transfer of property to blacks took the form of deed restrictions, which covered single parcels and did not solve the problem of massive black entry into white neighborhoods. Deed restrictions also did not lend them­ selves to fo rceful collective action. After 1 9 1 0 , the use of restrictive cove­ nants spread widely throughout the United States, and they were em­ ployed frequently and with considerable effectiveness to maimain the color line until ] 948, when the U. S . Supreme C o u rt declared them unen­ forceable. 68

Local real estate boards often took the Jead in establishing restrictive covenants and arranging for their widespread use. In 1 92 7 , for example, the Chicago Real Estate B o a rd devised a model covenant that neighbor-

The C onstruction of the Ghetto 3 7

hood orga nizations co uld adapt for rheir own use; the board then orga­

nized a special drive to ensure its adoption by all of the "better" neigh­

borhoods in the city . 69 Although Chicago's local board may have been

unu sually active in defending the color l i n e , these actions were consistent

with official p o l icies of the National Association of Real Es tate B rokers , which in 1 9 24 adopted an article in its code of ethics stating that '.'a

Realtor should never be instrumental in introducing into a neighbor­

hood . . . members of any race or nationality . . . whose presence will

clearly be detrimental to prop erty values i n that neighborhood," a provi­

sion that remained in effect until 1 9 5 0 . 70 . The maintenance of a rigid color line in housing through violence and

institutionalized d i s crimination paradoxicalJy also created the condi tions

for ghetto expansion. Rapid black migration into a confined residential area created an intense demand for housing within the ghetto, which led to a marked inflation o f rents and home prices. The racially segmented market generated real estate values in black areas that far exceeded a n y ­ thing in white neighborhoods, and t h i s s i m p l e economic fact created a

great potential for profits al ong the color line, guaranteeing that some reaJ estate agent wouJd specia l ize i n opening u p new areas to black settlement. 7 1

White real estate boards, o f course, attempted to forestall such actions by threatening agents who violated the color line with expulsion, but because black agents were excJuded from real estate boards anyway, this threat had little effect on them. Furthermore, the pot,ential profits were great enough that many whites were wiJIing to face public opprobrium for the sake of the money to be earne d . In the end, the real estate industry settled on a practical compromise of keeping "blacks from moving into white residential areas haphazardly and to see to it that they filled a block solidly before being alJowed to move into the next one . ' 172 EssentiaJly this stra tegy represented a po licy of containment and tactical retreat before an advancing color line . For some, i[ proved to be a very profitabJe compromise.

The methods that realtors used to open up neighborhoods to black entry and to reap profits during the transition came to be known a s "blockbusting . " 7 3 T h e expansion of t h e ghetto generalJy folJowed the path of least resistance, sJowing or stopping at natural boundaries such as rivers, railroad tracks, or major thoroughfares, and moving toward low status rathe r than high status areas.74 Blockbusting agents would select a promising area for racial turnover, most often a n area adjacent

3 8 A M E R I C A N A P A R T H E I D

to the ghetto that comained older housing, poorer families, aging house­ holds, and some apartment buildings. Agents would then quietly acquire a few homes or apartments in the area, and rent or sell them to carefully chosen black families.

The inevitable reactio n of white violence and resistance was countered with deliberate attempts t o increase while fears and spur black demand.7$ Agents would go door to door warning white residents of the impending " invasion" and offer to purch ase or rent homes on generous terms . They often selected ostentatiously lower-class blacks to be the first settlers in the neighborhood in order to heighten fears and encourage panic; at times, these " settlers" were actually confederates of the realto r. In ne igh­ borhoods of family homes, a realtor might divide up the first black­ o ccupied house into small units , which were intentionally rented to poor southern arrivals who were desperate for housing and will ing to pay high rents for cramped rooms of low quality. While white panic was spreading, the realtors would advertise widely within the black commu­ nilY, pointing out the availab i l ity of good housing in a newly opened neighborhood, thereby augmenting black demand .

Given the intensity of black demand and the depths of white prejudi ce, the entry of a relatively small number of black settlers would quickly surpass the threshold of white tolerance and set off a round of racial turnover.76 No white renters or home buyers would enter the area under the cloud of a black invasion, and as the rate of white departures acceler­ ated, each departing white family would be replaced with one or more bJack families. As the threat of violence subsided and whites gave up defending the neighborhood, black demand soared and agents reaped substantial profits, because the new entrants were willing to pay prices much higher than those previ ously paid by whites.

In neighborhoods of single-family homes, the i n i tial black entrants tended to be middle- and upper-class families seeking to escape the de­ plorable conditions of the ghetto . 77 Like other middle -class people, they sought more agreeable surroundings, higher-quality schools, lower crime rates, bigger houses, larger properties, and a " b etter class of people , " Because white ba nks d i d not make loans to black applicants . rea ltors were able to augment their profits by acting as bankers as well as sales agents; and given the raCially segmented credit market. they were able to charge i nterest rates and demand down payments well above those paid by whites.78

The attempts o f black middle-class families to escape the ghetto were

The Construction of the Ghetto 3 9

continually undermined, however, b y real estate agents seeking quick profits. Often they sold homes to black families who needed qu ality hous­

ing bu t were in n o position to pay for it. As both seller and lender, the

agent would collect a cash advance and several months of mortgage

payments before the buyer defaulted; then [he family was evicted and the house was resold to another family under similar terms . In this way, agents could "sell" a home several times in the course of a year, generat­ ing extra profits . Frequently agents bought homes in si ngle-fami ly neigh­ borhoods, subdivided them into rooming houses, and then leased lhe resulting "kitchenette" apartments at high rents to poor families.79

The prevalence of these quick-profit schemes meant that the ghetto constantly followe d the black middle class as it sou ght to escape from the poverty, blight. and misery of the black slum. Following resegregation, neighborhoods fell into progressive neglect and disrepair as owners were shuffl ed in and out of homes, which sat vacant b etween sales. Nor could owners who were paying rents and mortgages beyond their means afford repairs and routine maintenance. In addition, the illegal subdivision of single-family homes brought the very poor into what were originally middle-class areas . Complaints to city inspectors by black homeowners usually went unheard, because real estate agents were typically careful to pay off local official s ; many were only too happy to tum a blind eye to problems in the black community if there was money to be made.

During the 1 92 05 and 1 9 305, therefore, black gh ettos expanded behind a leading edge of middle -class pioneers who were subsequently swamped by an influx of poor families, which caused the progressive deterioration of the neighborhood. As the decline accelerated, affluent families were prompted to seek new quarters in adjacent white neighbo rhoods , begin­ ning a new round of neighborhood transition and decay. This process, when repeated across neighborhoods, yielded a distinct class gradient in the ghetto. with the poorest families being concentrated toward the cen­ ter in the worSI, most crowded, and least desirable housing, and the middle and upper classes progressively increasing their share of the popu­ lation as one moved from the core toward the periphery of the ghetto . so

As the black ghetto became more dense and spatially concentrated, a struggle for power, influence, and ideological comrol emerged within lhe black community between the old elite and the "New Negroes" of the 1 920s and 1 93 05 . 8 1 The latter were politicians and, to a lesser extent, business owners who benefited from the spatial concentration of black demand within a racially segmented market. In ideolog ical terms ,

40 A M E R I C A N A P A R T H E I D

the struggle was symbolized by the debate between the adherents of W. E. B . Du Bois and the followers of Booker T. Washington. The former argued that blacks should fight white injustice and demand their rightful share of the fruits of American society; the latter advocated accommodating white racism while building an independent black eco­ nomic base.

The rise of the ghetto, more than anything else, brought about the eclipse of the old elite of integrationist blacks who dominated African American affairs in northern cities before 1 9 1 0. These professionals and tradespeople who catered to white clients and aspired to full membership in American society were supplanted by a class of politicians and entre­

. preneurs whose source of power and wealth lay in the black community itself. Rather than being caterers, barbers, doctors, and lawyers who served a white or racially mixed clientele, the new elite were poli ticians and business owners with a self-interested stake in the ghetto. With their ascendancy, the ideal of an integrated society and the fight against racial segregation went into a long remission. 82

These "New Negroes" induded real estate tycoons, such as Chicago's Jesse Binga and New York's Philip A. Payton, men who specialized in opening up new areas for black settlement and made millions in the process.S3 Publishing newspapers for a black audience brought wealth and influence to Robert S . Abbott, who built the Chicago Defender into the most important black newspaper in the country, and Dr. P. M. H . Savory, w h o published the Amsterdam News from the 1 9 20s until his death in the 1 965.84 With the concentration of black population, more­ over, came the concentration of black votes and buying power, and a new generation of politicians and business owners came to the fore­ people such as Oscar DePriest, who became Chicago's first black alder­ man and the first African American elected to Congress from the north,8� and New York's Madame C. J. Walker, who made a fortune with a line of black cosmetics and hair-straightening products.s6 The interests of these new economic and pOlitical leaders were tied to the ghetto and its concerns rather than to issues growing out of an attempt to pursue an integrated life within the mainstream of American society.

Meanwhile, in the south, conditions for urban blacks were consider­ ably less tolerant than in the north. The Jim Crow system of race relations was in its heyday during the early years of the twentieth century, but its paternalistic system of race relations guaranteed the subordination of blacks and paradoxically lessened the need for a rigid system of housing

The Construction of the Ghetto 4 1

segregation. Among older southern cities, in particular, the traditional

. grid pattern of while avenues and black alleys kept segregation levels

relatively low. Although direer evidence on the degree of racial segrega ­ tion in southern cities is limited, the few available studies suggest that it

was less severe in the early twentieth century than in the emerging ghet­

toS of the north. In I 9 l O, the three southern cities for which there is data in Table 2 . 1

had an average black- white dissimilarity score of only 3 8 , 2 1 points lower than the average in the north. In Charleston the level w as particularly low at about 1 7; and although this value appears to represent an increase

since the nineteenth century, it is an artifact of the exclusion of slaves from the earlier computation. When they are induded in the 1 8 60 calcu ­ lation, the index falls to 1 1 . 5 .87 Of the three cities shown in 1 9 1 0 , more­ over, none displays an index in the range generally accepted as high.

southern whites were not completely immune to threats posed by black urbanization. After 1 9 1 0 black populations also began to rise i n southern cities, for essentially the same reasons as i n the north, and whites similarly became alarmed at the influx of black migrants. In the context of Jim Crow, however, the reaction of southern whites never reached the extremes of panic and fear experienced in the north. Rather, given the tradition of legally enforced segregation in other spheres, south­ ern whites turned to the law to promote greater separation b etween the races in housing.

The movement toward legally enforced residential segregation began in 1 9 1 0 , when B altimore' s city council passed an ordinance establishing separate white and black neighborhoods in the city. Additional laws to establish legal segregation in housing were passed in Virginia between 1 9 1 I and 1 9 1 3 , when Ashland, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Richmond, and Ro'anoke all adopted ordinances emulating B altimore's. By 1 9 1 3 , the movement had spread southward to Winston-Salem and Greenville, North Carolina, and it reached Atlanta, Georgia, in the same year. By 1 9 1 6, Louisville, St. Louis, Oklahoma City, and New Orleans all had passed laws establishing separate black and white districts in their cities.88 As the movement gathered steam, some northern cities began to consider the possibility of adopting similar ordinances to resolve their racial diffi­ culties.89

In 1 9 1 6, however, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People filed suit in federal court to block the implementation of Louisville's segregation law, and one year later the u . s . Supreme Court

42 A M E R I C A N A P A R T H E I D

declared it unconstitu tiona1.9o The movemen£ [Oward legally sanctioned housing segregation ended, and thereafter racial segregation in southern cities was accompJished by the same means as in the north : through violence, collective antiblack action, racially restrictive covenants, and discriminatory real estate practices. Segregation, nonetheless, continued to develop at a slower pace than in northern cities owing to the slower pace of i ndustrialization, the unique spatial organization o f southern cities, and the greater social control of blacks afforded by J im Crow.

The 1 940 black-white segregation indices in Table 2 . 1 conceal the lower segregation in the south because they rely on block rather than ward data. Although the average score of 8 1 is eight points lower than

. in the north, it is still quite high. The use of blocks rather than wards interacts with a classic white avenue/black alley settlement pattern to produce a misleading picture of segregation in the south. When ward tabulations are used, the level of segregation in Charleston falls from 6 0 to 2 7 (compared with a ward-level index o f only 1 7 i n 1 9 1 0 ) w h il e that in Jacksonville drops from 94 to 47 ( up from 39 thiny years before ) .9 1 Although the waIls o f the ghetto were rising i n the south b y 1 940, they had not yet reached the height of those in the north, particularly in the older cities.

Shoring the Bulwarks of Segregation, 1940- 1970

The outlines and form of the modern black ghetto were in place in most northern cities by the outbreak of World War II. Events unleashed by the war would not change the frontiers of black settlement so mLlch as fill in the gaps. Once World War II wa s over, a great boom ushered in a new economic order that again dramatically transformed the social and

. spatial organization of cities, creating sprawling decentralized metropo­ lises where compact settlements once stood. This new u rban political economy mixed the public and private sectors to an u nprecedented de­ gree, and the distinguishing feature of racial segregation in the postwar era is the direct role that government played not only in maintaining the color line bu t i n strengthening the walls of the ghetto.

By 1 9 3 0 the p erimeters of black settlement were well established in most cities and the level of black-white residential dissimilarity had reached a stable and very high leve1. Blacks were nearly as unevenly distributed in American cities as they would ever be. but as late as 1 93 0 a significant number of whites still lived within the circumscribed areas

The C onstruction of the Ghetto 4 3

th a t had b e e n c e d e d to black settlement. 9 2 The Great Depression and World War II eliminated this residual white population and made nonh­ ern ghetlOs the homogeneously black communities they are today.

The advent of the Depression brought widespread unemployment to blacks in the nonh. But if northern economic conditiom were bad, they were worse in the south, and given the self-perpetuating dynamic inher­ ent in mass migration, the movement from somh to north continu e d : from 1 9 3 0 t o 1940, some 4 0 0 , 0 0 0 black migrants left t h e south for north­ ern citie s . 9 3 When they arrived, they faced unusually bleak residential circumstances, for the Great Depression had virtually ended new residen � tial construction after 1929. Although housing construction began to pick up by 194 0 , the entry of the United States inro World War II once again brought homebuilding to a halt. During th e 193 0s and 1940s, therefore, black migrants entered an urban e nvironment with an essentially fixed and very limited supply of housing.

At first, th e newcomers took the place of whites departi ng from racially changing neighborhoods located near the fringe of the ghetto. Once these neighborhoods had become all black, however , further ghetto exp ansion proved [0 be difficult because, given the housing shortage, there was nowhere for whites on the other side of the color line to go. As whites in adjacent neighborh oods stood firm and blocked entry, the expa nsion of the ghetto slowed to a crawl, and new black arrivals were accommo­ dated by subdividing housing within the ghetto'S boundaries. Apartments were carved out of bedrooms, closets, garages, basements, and sheds. As population densities within the ghetto rose, black spatial isolation increased.94

U. S . entry into the war brought full mobilization and a shortage of factory workers in the nonh. In response to the new demand for labor, black migration from south to north soared during the 19405. The new migrants arrived in cities plagued by intense housing shonages and va­ cancy rates under 1 % , even in white areas. Population densities within the ghetto increased to new, often incredible heights, a phenomenon that Otis and B everly Duncan appropriately labeled "piling up. , , 95 This stage in the process of ghetto formation increased black isolation to new ex­ tremes , and from this time forward African Americans in large northern dties were effectively removed-socially and spatially-from the rest of American society.

World War II brought recovery from the economic malaise of the Great D epreSSion, but four years o f full employment combined with wartime

44 A M E R I C A N A P A R T H E I D

consumer shortages produced a large surplus of savings and a tremen­ dous pent-up demand for housing. Additional capital for home owner- � ship was soon made available through new loan programs at the Federal : Housing Administration and the Veterans Admini stration. The mix of surplus capital and frustrated demand ignited an unparalleled postwar · boom in residential home construction.

As home construction skyrocketed during the late 1 940s and 1 9 50s, men and women b egan t o marry and have babies at remarkable rates. After postponing marriage and childbearing during the hard times of the Depression and through the disruptions of war, American couples sought to make up for lost time: the baby boom was on. The growing families

. of the 1 9 5 0 5 sought large houses on spacious lots in areas with good

schools and plenty of room for su p ervised play, conditions that were most easily met by constructing new homes on inexpensive land located outside of central cities . The suburbanization of America proceeded at a rapid pace and the white middle class deserted inner cities in massive nu mbers . Only one- third of U . S . metropolitan residents were suburban · residents in 1 940, but by 1 970 suburbanites constituted a majority within metropolitan America.

I n making this transition from urban to suburban life, middle-class . whites demanded and got massive federal investments in h i ghway (on­ struction that permitted rapid movement to and from central cities by car. The surging demand for automobiles accelerated economic growth and contributed to the emergence of a new, decentralized spatial order. Whereas early industrialism was based on steam power, rail transporta­ tion, and rudimentary communications ( e . g . , the telegraph and surface

mai l ) , the new pol itical economy grew up around electric power, auto­ motive transport, and advanced telecommunications.

Industrial-era technology had encouraged spatial concentration in hu­

man activities. Factories were built compactly to conserve mechanical

power and agglomerated to use common steam plants; rail lines moved large numbers of people along fixed routes to a single point, and crude communications put a premium on face-to-face interaction. In the new

post-industrial order, however, the substitution of electricity for steam

power eliminated the impetus for centralized manufacturing districts, and

a growing reliance on truck transport made congested cities undesirable as centers of manufacturing and shipping. Widespread commuting by

automobile extended residential development in all directions around

the central dty, not just along fixed rail lines. As workers and factories

The Construction of the Ghetto 4 5

. took advantage o f the new technologies and moved t o the suburbs. retail activities followed . 9

6

This period of rapid economic growth and growing spatial deconcen­

tration was accompanied by relatively low levels of immigration; and with the expansion of educational opportunities and the rise in service . employment, the children of earlier immigrants increasingly left the ranks of manual workers. Employers once again turned to black migrants from the rural south to fill the demand for labor in manufacturing. heavy industry. and low-wage services. Within the south. a wave of mechaniza­ tion and capital investment spread through agriculture. which put a de­ finitive end to the sharecropping system and constricted the demand for rural labor. 97 As in earlier times. the coincidence of push and pun fattors led to extensive black out- migration. with the net flow totaling 1 . 5 mil­ lion during the 1 9 50s and 1 .4 million during the 1 960s.98

Despite this rapid transformation of American cities. however. one

feature of urban geography remained unchanged: the black ghet ro. The institu tional practices and private behaviors that had combined to main­ tain the color lin� before the war remained to support it afterward. with one significant change. Although whites were still highly resistant to racial integration in housing. withdrawal to the suburbs provided a more attractive alternative to the defense of threatened neighborhoods and led to a prevalence of flight over fight a mong whites in racially changing areas.99 The combination of rapid white suburbanization and extensive black in-migration led to an unprecedented increase in the physical size

of the ghetto during the 1 9 50 s and 1 9605. 1 00 In the postwar years, therefore, the percentage of blacks within north­

ern cities shifted rapidly upward. Between 1 9 5 0 and 1 970. the percent­ age of blacks more than doubled in most large northern cities, going from 14% to 33% in Chicago, from 16% to 3 8 % in Cleveland. from 16% to 44% in Detroit. and from 1 8% to 3 4 % i n Philadelphia. In the space of two decades Gary. Newark, and Washington were transfonned from predominantly white to predominantly black cities; Gary was 5 3 % black by 1 970. and Newark and Washington were 54% and 71 % black. respec­ tively.lOl

What is striking about these transformations is how effectively the color line was maintained despite the massive population shifts. The white strategy of ghetto containment and tactical retreat before an ad­ vancing color line. institutionalized during the 1 9 20s, was continued after 1945; the only change was the rate at which the leading edge of

46 A M E R I C A N A P A R T H E I D

th e ghetto advanced. In a few short years, the population o f vast areas of Chicago's south and west sides became virtually all black, as occurred on Cleveland's east side, Philadelphia's north and west sides, and in most of central city Newark, D etroit, B altimore, and Washington, D . C . AU the while, howeve r, the residential segregation of blacks was maintained. 102

In cities receiving large numbers of black migrants, radal turnover was so regular and so pervasive that most neighborhoods could be classified by their stage in the transition process: all white, i nvasion, succession, consolidation, or all black. In six northern cities studied by Karl and Alma Taeuber, 9 0 % of all neighborhoods inhabited by blacks in 1 960 were either all black or clearly moving in that direction, a pattern that prevailed through 1 9 70 . 1 03

The persistence of segregation despi te the massive redistribution of whites and blacks is confirmed by Table 2 . 3 , which presents indices of residential dissimilarity calculated at the block level for thirty U . S . cities

from 1 940 through 1 9 70. These measures show that racial segregation became a permanent structural feature of the spatial organization of American cities in the years after World War II. In the three decades after 1 940, black-white segregation remained high and virtually constant, averaging over 8 5 at all times in all regions. Segregation levels in the north peaked in 1 9 5 0, and then edged slightly downward by 1 9 70, whereas southern cities peaked somewhat later, in 1 960. Only one city, San Francisco, experienced a significant long-term decline in the level of racial segregation. By 1 970, at least 70% of blacks would have had to move to achieve an even residential configuration in most cities, and in many places the figure was closer to 9 0 % .

Such consistently high levels of segregation imply that blacks and whites occupied separate and wholly distinct neighborhoods at each point between 1 9 40 and 1 97 0 . Given the fact that northern cities received about 4. 5 million black migrants during the period, the only possible o utcome was a substantial increase in degree of black spatial isolation. Although no studies have computed decade -by-decade isolation indices for U . S . cities, census data allow us to carry out this task for 1 9 70. Table 2 . 4 presents our results for thirty cities, along with Lieberson's 1 9 3 0 isolation indices, which indicate long- term trends .

Among northern cities, the average level of black spatial isolation more than doubled between 1 9 3 0 and 1 970, going from 3 2 % to nearly 74% . Whereas a typical northern black resident was likely to live in a neighbor­ hood dominated by whites in 1 9 30 ( only Chicago and Cleveland were

Table 2.3 B lock-level indices of nonwhite-white segregation for thirty cities, 1 940- 1 9 70

. - Segregation indices by year

1 940 1 9 5 0 1 960 1 970

Northern dties Boston

8 6 . 3 8 6 . 5 8 3 . 9 79.9

Buffalo 87.9 89. 5 86.5 84:2

Chicago 9 5 .0 92 . 1 92 . 6 88.8

Cincinnati 90.6 9 1 .2 89.0 8 3 . 1

Cleveland 92.0 9 1 . 5 9 1 . 3 89.0

columbus 87. 1 88.9 8 5 . 3 84. 1

Detroit 89.9 88.8 84.5 80.9

Gar)' 88.3 93.8 92.8 82.9 Indianapolis 90.4 9 1 .4 9 1 . 6 8 8 . 3

Kansas City 88.0 9 1 . 3 90.8 88.0

Los Angeles 84.2 84.6 8 1 . 8 78.4

Milwaukee 92.9 9 1 . 6 88. 1 8 3 . 7

Newark 77.4 76.9 7 1 . 6 74.9

New York 8 6 . 8 8 7 . 3 79. 3 7 3 . 0

philadelphia 88.0 89.0 87. 1 8 3 . 2

Pittsburgh 82.0 84.0 84.6 8 3 . 9

St. Louis 92.6 92.9 90.5 89.3 San Francisco 82.9 79.8 69. 3 5 5 . 5

Average 87.0 88.4 8 5 . 6 8 1 .7

Southern cities Atlanta 87.4 9 1 . 5 9 3 . 6 9 1 . 5 Baltimore 90. 1 9 1 . 3 8 9 . 6 8 8 . 3

. Birmingham 86.4 88.7 92.8 9 1 . 5 Dallas 80.2 88.4 94.6 92.7 Greensboro 9 3 . 1 93.5 9 3 . 3 9 1 .4 Houston 84.5 9 1 . 5 9 3 . 7 90.0

Memphis 7 9 . 9 86.4 92.0 9 1 . 8 Miami 97.9 97.8 97.9 89.4

New Orleans 8 1 . 0 84.9 8 6 . 3 83. 1 Norfolk 96.0 95.0 94.6 90.8 Tampa 90.2 92.5 94.5 90.7 Washington 8 1 .0 80. 1 79.7 77.7

Average 87.3 90. 1 9 1 .9 89. 1

Source: Annemette S0rensen, Karl E. Taeuber, and Lesslie i Hollingsworth. Jr., "Indexes of Racial Residential Segregation for 1 0 9 Cirtes in the United States, 1940 to 1970," 50ci% oica/ Focus 8 ( 1 975 ) : 128-30.

48 A M E R I C A N A P A R T H E I D

Table 2.4 Indices of black isolation within neighborhoods of thirty cities, 1 9 3 0 - 1 9 7 0

Northern cities Southern cities

City 1 9 3 0 1 9 70 City 1 970

Boston 1 9 .2 6 6 . 1 Atlanta 88.0 Buffalo 2 4 . 2 7 5 . 2 Baltimore 84.8 Chicago 70.4 89.2 Binningham 57.9 Cincinnati 44.6 6 3 . 9 Dallas 82.0 Cleveland 5 1 . 0 8 6 . 6 Greensboro 62.0

C olumbus 6 5 . 2 Houston 7 2 . 1

Detroit 3 1 . 2 77. 1 Memphis 82.9

Gary 8 3 . 2 Miami 8 1 . 5 Indianapolis 2 6 . 1 6 5 . 5 New Orleans 7 5 . 6 Kansas City 3 1. 6 7 5 . 6 Norfolk 7 9 . 8

L o s Angeles 2 5 . 6 7 3 . 9 Tampa 62. 3

Milwaukee 1 6 .4 74.5 Washington 88.1

New York 4 1 . 8 60.2 Average 76.4 Newark 2 2 . 8 7 8 . 3

Philadelphia 2 7 . 3 7 5 . 6

Pittsburgh 2 6 . 8 7 0 . 8 St. Louis 46.6 8 5 . 1 San Francisco 1 . 7 56. 1

Average 3 1 . 7 7 3 . 5

Sources: Indices for 1 9 3 0 are computed from ward-level data and come from Stanley Lieberson, A Piece of the Pie: Blacks and White Immigrants since 1 880 ( Berkeley: University of California Press, 1 980 ) , pp. 266, 288. Indices for 1970 are computed from tract-level data and were calculated by the authors using U . S . Bureau of the Census, Census of Population and Housing 1 970, Fourth Court Summary Tapes, File A ( Washington, D . C . : U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1 97 0 ) .

exceptions ) , by 1 9 7 0 the situation had completely reversed. Now blacks in all northern cities were more likely to live with other African Ameri­ cans than with whites, and in four cities the average black person lived in a neighborhood that was over 8 0 % black (in Chicago, Cleveland, Gary, and S1. Louis ) . Unless they worked in the larger mainstream econ­ omy, blacks in these cities were very unlikely to have any contact with whites.

Although we lack an earlier reference p oint to discern long- term trends

The Construction of the Ghetto 49

in the south, black isolation was clearly an accomplished fact in southern

cities by 1 9 70 as well. The average level of black isolation within citIes

of the south was slightly higher than in the north ( 7 6 % versus 74% ) , and the index exceeded 8 0 % i n six cases (Atlanta, Baltimore, Dallas,

Memphis, Miami, and Washington, D . C . ) . In all cities, blacks were very

unlikely to share a neighborhood with members of other racial groups.

Indeed, the lowest isolation index was 58% (in Birmingham) , so that blacks throughout the south tended to live in residential areas where the vast maj ority of residents were black. Patterns for 1 970, therefore, represent a complete reversal of conditions during the late nineteenth century, when residential contact between southern blacks and whites

was the rule.

Throughout the United States-in both southern and northern

cities-the ghetto had become an enduring, permanent feature of the

residential structure of black community life by 1 9 40, and over the next

thirty years the spatial isolation of African Americans only increased. The

highest isolation index ever recorded for any ethnic group in any Ameri­

can city was 56% (for Milwaukee's Italians in 1 9 1 0 ) , but by 1 970 the lowest level of spatial isolation observed for blacks anywhere, north or south, was 5 6 % (in San Francisco) . I 04

The universal emergence of the black ghetto in American cities after 1940 rests on a foundation of long-standing white racial prejudice. Al­ though attitudes cannot be studied di rectly before 1 940, after this date opinion polls are available to confirm the depth of white prejudice against blacks in the area of housing. In 1 9 42, for example, 84% of white Ameri­ cans polled answered "yes" to the question "Do you think there should be separate sections in towns and cities for Negroes to live in? " ; I 05 and in 1 9 62, 6 1 % of white respondents agreed that "white people have a right to keep blacks out of their neighborhoods if they want to, and blacks should respect that right . " lo6 It was not until 1 970 that even a bare majority of white respondents ( 5 3 % ) disagreed with the latter statement. 107

Throughout the period from 1 940 to 1 97 0 , in other words, there was widespread support among whites for racial discrimination in housing and for. the systematic exclusion of blacks from white neighborhoods. As a result, whites continued to resist any attempt at black entry through acts of harassment and violence, and once entry was achieved, the neigh­ borhood was avoided by subsequent white homeseekers, thereby guaran­ teeing racial turnover and resegregation. 108 The only difference from ear-

5 0 A M E R I C A N A P A RT H E I D

lier times was that the racial turnover was quicker and the ghetto's physical expansion more rapid.

The institutionalization of discrimination within the real estate industry likewise continued in the postwar era. Although racially restrictive cove­ nants were declared unenforceable by the U . S . Supreme Court in 1 948, a comprehensive study of real estate policies in the 1 9 5 0 s by Rose Helper revealed a pervasive pattern of discrimination against blacks in most American cities . 1 09 In her survey of real estate agents in Chicago, she found that 80% of realtors refused to sell blacks property in white neigh­ borhoods, and 68% refused to rent them such property. Moreover, among those agents who did sell or rent to blacks, half said they would do so only under restrictive conditions, such as when a significant number of blacks had already entered the area. 1 10 Another survey of Chicago's real estate agents carried out by Harvey Molotch in the mid - 1 960� found that only 29% of agents were willing to rent to blacks unconditionally ( regardless of local market conditions or racial composition) , and half of these open-minded agents were black. 1 1 1

Helper presented similar findings from studies of housing discrimina­ tion in other cities during the 1 9 50s. 1 1 2 One study carried out in suburban New York identified forty -six separate techniques used by white realtors to exclude blacks fro m neighborhoods, and Helper identified twenty-six different methods in her Chicago survey; most could be grouped in one of two basic categories: 56% used a flat refusal and 24% employed some kind of subterfuge ( e . g . , saying a unit was sold when it was not) . l l 3 When handling properties i n black areas, 2 2 % said they were more care­ ful screening black applicants than whites, 1 4% said they required secu­ rity deposits of blacks but not whites, and 2 5 % said they charged higher rents to blacks . 1 1 4

In their personal views, the realtors studied by Helper appeared to share the prejudices of their white clients. Some 5 9 % of her resp ondents rejected racial integration in principle, 1 1 5 and 84% espoused an ideologi­ cal stance that supported the exclusion o f blacks from white neighbor­ hoods . 1 l 6 Some 6 5 % said they believed that the entry of blacks was bad for neighborhoods; 1 1 7 and among realtors who were members of Chicago' s Real Estate B oard, support for the exclusion of blacks was even stronger: 9 1 % held views consistent with an exclusionary ideology. 1 18

In her interviews with realtors, Helper also uncovered considerable evidence of discrimination by banks and savings institutions in denying loans to black homeseekers. Among realtors offering information on the

The C onstruction of the Ghetto 5 1

issue, 6 2 % felt that few or very few banks were willing to make loans to blacks, and half of the agents confirmed that banks would not make

loans to areas that were black, turning black, or threatened with the

possibility of black entry. l l 9

There is, in summary, considerable evidence pointing to the persistence

of prej udice against blacks in the postwar period, and to the widespread translation of this sentiment into systematic, institutionalized racial dis­ crimination within urban housing markets. These private beliefs and ac­ tions, however, were not the only forces shoring the walls of ghetto between 1 940 and 1 9 7 0 . What was new about the postwar era was the extent to which the federal government became involved in perpetuating

racial segregation.

B eginning in the 1 9 30 s , the federal government launched a series of programs designed to increase employment in the construction industry and make home ownership widely available to the American public. The

Home Owners' Loan C orporation ( HO L C ) was the first of these pro- I

grams, and it served as a model for later efforts. Passed in the depression

year of 1 9 3 3 , it provided funds for refinancing urban mortgages in danger of default and granted low -interest loans to former owners who had lost their homes through foreclosure to enable them to regain their prop erties. The HOLC was the first government-sponsored program to introduce, on

a mass scale, the use of long-term, self-amortizing mortgages with uni­ form payments. 120

unfortunately for blacks, the H O L C also initiated and institutionalized

the practice of "redlining. " 1 2 1 This discriminatory practice grew out of a ratings system HOLC developed to evaluate . the risks associated with loans made to specific urban neighborhoods. Four categories of neighbor­ hood quality were established, and lowest was coded with the color red; it and the next-lowest category virtually nev�r received HOLC loans. The vast maj ority of mortgages went to the top two categories, the highest of which included areas that were "new, homogenous, and in demand in good times and bad" (to HOLC this meant areas inhabited by "American business and profes sional men" ) ; the second category consisted of areas that had reached their peak, but were still desirable and could b e ex­ pected to remain stable. 122

The HOLC's rating procedures thus systematically undervalued older central city neighborhoods that were racially or ethnically mixed. Jewish areas, for example , were generally placed in category two if their eco­ nomic status was high enough, but if they were working class or located

5 2 A M E R I C A N A P A RT HE I D :l near a black settlement they would fa ll into the third category because

' l

{hey were " w ithin such a low price or rent range as to attract an undesir."7 able el ement. " 1 23 Black areas were invariably rated as fourth gra de and i " redlined . " As Kenneth Jackson poi nts out, the HOLC did not invend these standards of racial worth in real estate-they were already welH establis hed by the 1 9 20s-it bureaucratized them and applied them on .; an exceptional scale . 1 24 It lent the power, prestige. and support of the ' federa l government to the systematic practice of ra cial discrimination in ' housing.

According to Jackson, HOLC underwri ters were far more concerned .• a bout the location and movement of blacks than about any other demo. graphic trend. He cites a confi dential 1 94 1 HOLC survey of rea l estate prospects in the St. Louis area that repeatedly mentions "the rapi dly . increasing Negro p op u lation" and the consequent "problem in the main. tenance of real estate values." Every neighborhood analysis in the report includes maps of the density of black settlement. Black neighborhoods are always coded red; and even those with small black percentages were usually rated as "hazardous" and placed in the lowest category . 125

Through this discriminatory ratings system, HOLC mortgage funds were i nvariably channeled away from established black areas and were usually redirected away from neighborhoods that looked as though they might con ta in blacks in the future. But funds distrtbuted through the HOLe program itself were modest, and the major role that the agency played lay in serving as a model for other credit institutions, both private and public.

During the 1 9 30s and 1 9 40s, private banks relied heavily on the HOLe system to make their own loan decisi ons, and the agency' s " Residential Security Maps" were widely circulated throughout the lending indus­ try. 126 Banks adopted the H O L e ' s procedures ( and preju dices) in con­ structing their own maps and ratings, thereby institutionalizing and dis­ seminating the practice of redUning. Thus HOLC not only channeled federal funds away from black neighborhoods but was also responsible for a much larger and more significa nt disinvestment in black areas by private institutions.

By far the greatest effect of the HOLC rating system, however, came from its influence on the underwriting practices of the Federal Hous ing Administration (FHA) and the Vetera ns Administration (VA) du ring the 1 9405 and 1 9 50s. The FHA loan program was created by the National Housing Act in 1 93 7 , and the VA program was authortzed by the Ser-

The Construction of the G h etto 5 3

'cernen' s Read justment Act o f 1 9 44 . L 2 7 These loan programs together � mpletely reshaped the residential housing market of the United States ��d pumped million s of dollars into the housing industl)' during the

ostwar era. Loans made by the FHA and the VA were a major impetus �ehind the rapid suburbanization of the United States after 1 94 5 . The FHA program operated by guaranteei ng t h e v a l u e o f c o l l a teral for

loans made by private banks. Before this program, mortgages generally were gran ted for no more t h a n two - th irds of the appraised valu e of a home, so buyers needed to acquire at least 3 3 % of the value of a propeny

in order to make a down payment; frequently banks required half the assessed value of a home before makling a loan. The FHA program, in contrast, guaranteed over 9 0 % of the value of collateral so that down payments of 1 0 % became the norm. The FHA also extended the repay­ ment period 10 twenty - five o r thirty years, resulting in low monthly payments, and insisted that all loans be fully amortized. 128 The greater security afforded by FHA gua rantees virtua lly eliminated the risk to bankS, which lowered the interest rates they charged borrowers. When

the VA progra m was established, it followed practices established by the earlier FHA program. L 29

As the cost and ease of purchasing a house dropped, home ownership became a mass phenomenon for the first time in American history. B e ­ tween 1 9 3 4 and 1 969 the percentage of families living in owner-occupied dwellings increased from 44% to 6 3 % ; and du ring the 1 940s and 1 9 50 s , the marriage of FHA financi ng a n d new construction techniques made i t cheaper t o buy new suburban homes than t o rent comparable older dwellings in me central city. no As a result, the FHA and V A contributed Significantly to the decline of the inner city by encouraging the selective out- migration of middle-class whites to the suburbs.

The bias in favor of the suburbs was evident in FHA practices and regulations, which favored the construction of single-family homes but discouraged the building of multi-fam i ly units. In addition, FHA loans for the remodeling of existing structures were small and had a short amortiZation period, making it easier and cheaper for a family to pur­ chase a new home than to renovate a n older one. L 3 L But the most impor­ tant factor encouraging white suburbanization and reinforcing the segre­ gation of blacks was the FHA requirement for an " unbiased," profeSSional appraisal of insured properties, which naturally induded a rating of the neighborhood.

In rating the home, the FHA established minimum standards for lot

54 A M E R I C A N A P A R T H E I D

size. setbacks. and separation from existing structures that essentially eliminated from el igibil ity many inner-city dwellings. notably row houses and attached dwellings. m In evaluating neighb orhoods, the agency fol­ lowed the H O L e ' s earlier lead in racial matters; it too manifested an obsessive concern with the presence of what the 1 9 3 9 FHA Underwritin9 Manual called " inharmonious racial or nati onality groups . " Accord i ng to the manuaL "if a neighborhood is to retain stability, it is necessary that propertie s shall continue to be occupied by the same social and racial classes. " J 33

Thus, in the late 1 940s, the FHA recommended the use and a p p l ication of racially restrictive covenants as a means of ensuring the security of neighborhoods, and it did not change this recommendation until 1 9 50, two years after covenants were declared unenforceable and contrary to public policy by the Supreme Court. l 34 Like the H O LC , the FHA compi led maps and charts showing the location and movement of black 'families, and it frequentIy drew upda ted versions of the HOLe Residential Security Maps to determine the suitability of neighborhoods for FHA loans . l 3 5

A s a result o f these policies , the vast majority o f FHA and V A mortgages went to white middle-class suburbs, and very few were awarded to black neighborhood s in central cities . It is difficult to determine the full extent of the resulting disinvestment in black neighborhoo ds, however, because the FHA did not publish Joan statistics below the county level, which is curious given the agency's obsessive concern with neighborh ood data prior to making the loans . J 36 Kenneth Jackson has partially overcome this limitation by focusi ng on cases in which citi es and counties are coterminou s .

S1. Louis County, for example, is a suburban area that surrounds the City of S1. Louis, which has the status of a county in Missouri. From 1 9 34 to 1 960, the former received five times as many FHA mortgages as did the latter, and nearly six times as much loan money; per capita mo rtgage spending was 6. 3 times greater. Jackson observed similar differ­ entials in the dispersal of FHA mortgages b etween Washington, D . C . , and its suburbs. Most startling was the case of New York City and its suburbs. Per capita FHA lending in Nassau County, New York ( Le . , sub­ urban Long Island ) was eleven times that in Kings C ounty ( B rooklyn) and sixty times that in B ronx C ounty (the Bronx) . J37

As the new post-industrial urban order developed, the disinvestment in central cities at the expense of suburb s increasingly meant the di sin ­ vestment in blacks as opposed to whites. Sometimes FHA procedures

The Construction of the Ghetto 5 5

rendered whole cities ineligible for FHA-gua ranteed loans simply because of a minority presence, thereby accelerating their decline. In 1 966, for example, the FHA had no mortgages in either Paterson or C amden, New Jersey, both older dties where the non-Hispanic white population was declining during the 1 9 50s (and actually became a minority in the 1 970s ) . J 38 Given the importance of the FHA in the residential housing ma rket, such blanket redli ning sent strong si gnals to private lend ing insti­ tutions, which followed suit and avojded making loans wjiliin the af­ fected areas. The lack of loa n capital flowing imo minority areas made it impossible for owners to sell their homes, leading to steep declines in property values and a pattern of disrepair, deterioration, vacancy, and abandonment . 139

Thu s , by the late 1 9 5 0s, many cities were locked into a spiral of decline that was directly encouraged and largely supported by federal hous1ng policies. As poor blacks from the south entered cities in large numbers, middle-class whites fled w the s uburbs to escape them and to insulate themselves from the socia l p roblems that accompanied the rising tide of poor. 140 As the grow1ng demand for city services-and particularly social services-drove up the cost of local government, politicians were forced to raise taxes, which further accel erated the fUght of the white middle class, creating additional pressures for tax increases, and so on.

Nevertheless, most citie s were not compl etely stripped of their middle and upper classes . Whites associated with a variety of elite inS litutions­ universities, hospitals, libraries, foundations, busines ses-were often tied physically to the dty by large capital investments, spatially immobile facHities, and long- sta nding traditions. Faced with a steady decline in the physical stock of the city and the progressive encroachment of the black ghetto, these powerful interests turned to the federal government for

re1ief. They received it from Congress in the form of the housing acts of 1 949

and 1 9 54, which provided federal funds to local a uthorities ro acquire slum properties, assemble them into large parcels, clear them of existing structures, and prepare them for "redevelopmem. " But in order to qualify for federal funding, local redevelopment authorities had to guarantee that an adequate supply of replacement housing would be made available to displaced families at rents within their means. To satisfy the latter proVision, local planning agencies turned to public housing. 1 4 1

During the 1 9 505 a n d 1 9 60s, local elites m anipulated housing and urban re ne wal legislation to carry out w i despread slum clearance in

5 6 A M E R I C A N A P A R T H E I D

growing black neighborhoods that threatened white business districts and elite institutions. Public housing was pressed into service to house black families displaced by the razing of neighborhoods undergoing re­ newal. Although liberal planners often tried to locate the projects away from ghetto areas, white politicians and citizens mobilized to block the construction of projects within their neighborhoods; white city councils and mayors usually obtained the right of veto over any proposed project site. 1 42 As a result, proj ects were typically built on cleared land within or adjacent to existing black neighborhoods . 1 43 In order to· save money, maximize patronage jobs, and house within the ghetto as many blacks as possible, local authorities constructed multi - u ni t projects of extremely high density.

The razing of neighborhoods near threatened areas did check the spread of " urban blight, " and "saved" many areas, but black crit,ics com­ plained that " urban renewal" simply meant "Negro removaJ:' and the evidence largely bears them OUt . 1 44 As black neighborhoods adjacent to threatened white areas were torn down and converted to other uses, thereby blocking the expansion of the ghetto in that direction, public housing for displaced residents had to be constructed elsewhere. Because for political reasons proj ects could only be built in ghetto areas, other black neighborhoods were razed and high- density units constructed there to accommodate the residents of both neighborhoods.

In the end, urban renewal almost always destroyed more housing than it replaced. 14� Many poor b lacks were permanently displaced into other crowded ghetto neighborhoods, which contributed to their instability and further decline. Moreover, delays between the time when neighborhoods were torn down and new projects were erected displaced many others into the ghetto on a temporary basis, Thus urban renewal programs fre­ quently only shifted the problems of blight, crime, and instability from areas adjacent to elite white neighborhoods to locations deeper inside the black ghetto .

Established black neighborhoods, however, could not absorb all the families displaced by urban renewal and public housing construction, and some were forced to seek entry within working-class white neighbor­ hoods located at points along the ghetto's periphery. An important sec­ ondary effect of urban renewal was to accelerate racial turnover, expand the ghetto, and shift the threat of ghetto expansion from elite white districts to working-class white neighborhoods. 1 46

The Construction of the Ghetto 5 7

By 1 970, after t w o decades of urban renewal. public housing projects

in most large cities had become black reservations, highly segregated from the rest of society and characterized by extreme social isolation. 147

The replacement of low-density slums with high-density towers of poor

families also reduced the class diversity of the ghetto and brought about

a geographic concentration of poverty that was previously unimagin­ able. 148 This new segregarion of blacks-in economic as well a s social terms- was the direct result of an unprecedented collaboration between

local and national government.

This unholy marriage came about when private actions to maintain the color line were overwhelmed by the massive population shifts of the 1 9 50s and 1 9 605. The degree of racial segregation in public housing is directly and unambiguously linked to the differential growth of black and white urban populations in the postwar era : blacks are now most segregated in public housing precisely in the urban areas where their numbers were growing most rapidly compared with whites during the 1 9 605. 149 Public housing, in the words of the historian Arnold Hirsch, represents a new, federally sponsored "second ghett o , " one "solidly insti­ tutionalized and frozen in concrete , " where " government took an active hand not merely in reinforcing prevailing p atterns of segregation, but in lending them a permanence never seen before : d so

Epilogue: The Riots and Their Aftermath

By the late 1 9 60s, virtually all American cities with significant black popu lations had come to house large ghettos characterized b y extreme segregation and spatial isolation. Whereas before 1 940 no racial or ethnic group in American history had ever experienced an isolation index above 60%, by 1 970 this level was normal for blacks in large American cities. By the end of the 1 9 60s, in other words, the average black city dweller lived in a neighborhood where the vast maj ority of his or her neighbors were also black.

Not only was the segregation of European ethnic groups lower, i t was also temporary. Whereas Europeans' isolation indices began to drop shortly after 1 92 0, the spatial isolation characteristic of blacks had b e ­ come a permanent fea ture o f the residential structure o f large American cities by 1 9 40. This profound segregation reversed nineteenth- century patterns, where neighborhoods were racially integrated and the social

5 8 A M E R I C A N A P A R T H E I D

worlds o f blacks and whites overlapped. Under the residential configura­ tions prevailing in 1 9 7 0 , meaningful contact between blacks and whites outside the work force would be extremely unlikely.

These conditions came about because of decisions taken by whites to deny blacks access to urban housing markets and to exclude them from white neighborhoods. Throughout the postwar era, whites displayed a high degree of prejudice against black neighbors, and this sentiment was repeatedly expressed in violence directed at blacks who attempted to leave the ghetto . Restrictive covenants and deed restrictions were em­ ployed by neighborhood "improvement" associations to exclude blacks fro m housing outside the ghetto, boycotts were organized to punish mer­ chants or agents who sold to blacks, and social pressure was applied to realtors, property owners, and public officials who did not adhere to the principle of racial exclusion. Discrimination in the real estate. industry was institutionalized from 1 9 2 0 onward.

After 1 9 4 0 , the federal government was drawn into the defense of the residential color line. Federally sponsored mortgage programs systemati­ cally channeled funds away from minority neighborhoods, bringing about a wholesale disinvestment in black communities during the 1 9 5 0s and 1 9 6 0 s . Meanwhile, local officials, using funds from the U . S . Depart­ ment of Housing and Urban Development, carried out systematic slum clearance in ghetto neighborhoods adjacent to threatened white districts and then built large blocks of high- denSity public housing in other black neighborhoods to contain black families displaced by this "renewal . " The result was a new, more permanent, fe derally sponsored "second ghetto" in which blacks were isolated by class as well as by race.

The economic deprivation, social isolation, and psychological alien­ ation produced by decades of segregation bore bitter fruit in a series of violent urban riots during the 1 9 6 05. The violence began in Birmingham, Alabama, in the summer of 1 9 6 3 , but the real bellwether was the Los Angeles riot of August 1 96 5 , which did $ 3 5 million worth of damage and left 4,000 injured and 34 dead. l 5 l After sporadic violence in Chicago and Cleveland during the summer of 1 96 6 , a convulsive wave of mob violence erupted during July and August of 1 96 7 , when black ghettos in sixty U . S . cities exploded in a cataclysm of frustration and rage . 1 52 The violence was particularly destructive in Detroit, Newark, and Milwaukee; Chicago's inferno followed Martin Luther King's assassination in April of 1 96 8 . 1 53

Unlike the communal race riots of early 1 900s, these disturbances

The Construction of the Ghetto 5 9

arose from within the black community itself and were "commodity riots," directed at property rather than people . 1 54 Outside of confront a­ tions with police and guardsmen, there was little black-an-white Or

white-on-black violence. Attacks were confined largely to the ghetto and

were directed at white property, institutions, Or authority symbols. Loot­

ing became the characteristic act of the disturbances. White people were

not singled out for assault, and black rioters did not attempt to leave the

ghetto. The participants did not express a racial hatred of whites per

se, but an anger with the conditions of racial oppression and economic deprivation that had been allowed to fester in the ghetto for sixty years . 1 5S

In the wake of the violence and destruction, President Johnson ap­ pointed a national commission of elected officials and public figures

chaired by Governor Otto Kerner of Illinois. The Kerner Commission issued its report in March 1 9 68 and firmly concluded that the riots stemmed from the persistence of racial discrimination and a historical legacy of disadvantages in employment. education, and welfare; but one additional factor was clearly identified by the commissioners as underly­ ing all other social and economic problems: segregation. 1 56

A point "fundamental to the Commission's recommendations" was that "federal housing programs must be given a new thrust aimed at overcoming the prevailing pattern of racial segregation. If tms is not done, those programs will continue to concentrate the most impoverished and dependent segments of the population into central- city ghettos where there is already a critical gap between the needs of the population and the public resources to deal with them , " 1 57 To accomplish this aim, the commission recommended that the federal government "enact a compre­ hensive and enforceable open housing law to cover the sale or rental of all housing," and that it "reorient federal housing programs to place more low and moderate income housing outside of ghetto areas." 1 58

Within months of the commission's report, the nation seemed to be moving decisively toward the implementation of these recommenda­ tions. In April 1 96 8 the Fair Housing Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by the President; it banned discrimination in the sale or rental of housing. The following year a federal judge in Chicago ruled favorably on a major lawsuit alleging discrimination in public housing and ordered the Chicago Housing Authority to take remedial action. 1 59 Given these new tools in the fight against residential segregation, observ­ ers looked forward to the dismantling of the ghetto during the 1 9 70s and to a reversal of historical trends toward segregation.