Racism, Real Estate and Rebellion: Black Struggles for Housing Justice

This meeting will examine historical struggles for housing in African American communities as a guide to how we fight the current crisis of foreclosures and evictions. While most histories on housing discrimination have focused on various campaigns for "open" and "fair" housing, little attention has been paid to the battles within Black communities to fight the conditions of substandard housing. In both the 1930s and again in the 1960s the formation of tenant unions and rent strikes were crucial to giving voice to the grievances of the people who lived deteriorating properties. In the 1960s a new dimension to the struggle of housing rights was added when Black homeowners, primarily in Chicago, mobilized to demand an end to redlining and predatory lending practices. This panel looks to connect that history with current housing struggles.