By Dr. Joy Martinez
Special To The Carolinian
Raleigh experienced our nation’s now despised legacy of explicitly race-biased policies aimed at destroying Black neighborhoods. After World War II, federally backed home loans fueled homeownership wealth in America’s sprawling suburbs, while Black neighborhoods were systematically ‘redlined’ out of approval for loans and mortgages that would have been used to buy and improve homes, to strengthen neighborhoods, and to build generational and community wealth.
One of the most effective methods of maintaining segregation, and the Jim Crow era, was implemented by the federal government in the 1930s through creating the Federal Housing Administration (FHA).
The FHA was designed to insure mortgages issued by approved lenders. This stabilized the housing market and theoretically increased opportunities for home buyers. To identify a neighborhood as eligible to be insured for mortgages, the FHA used rating systems based on factors like income, race, occupation, and immigration status to divide neighborhoods into color-coded zones. If the area was deemed a “red zone” by the rating system, it would not be eligible for new loans, allowing lenders to either refuse to extend credit altogether or offer predatory rates. Most Black neighborhoods were almost automatically “redlined” by the FHA, effectively cutting off any chance that investors would risk lending to occupants.
Almost a century after Black Triangle neighborhoods were redlined by the federal government, the process is now happening in reverse in many of the same communities -- long-distressed or historically black communities are now being transformed by gentrification.
According to U.S. Census data, downtown Durham’s ZIP code has become 51 percent more white over the last 25 years. It’s even starker in downtown Raleigh where the ZIP has become 259 percent more white in that same time.
And while many Black residents were being denied mortgages up until the late 1960’s -- investors were buying up homes in Black Raleigh neighborhoods and splitting them into multi-unit apartments where they became some of the poorest sections of the city.
On the campaign trail in 2019, Vice President Kamala Harris proposed a $100 billion plan to counteract the effects of redlining by offering assistance of up to $25,000 for down payments to those who reside in historically redlined neighborhoods. Homebuyers could then use these grants to purchase homes anywhere. But the reality is many of the residents in formerly redlined tracts are no longer predominantly Black so offering aid to those still living in these areas might not actually have significant impact.
Instead of undertaking thoughtful actions toward neighborhood stabilization, resilience, and recovery, leaders have once again chosen not to invest in the Black neighborhoods where opportunity most exists, but rather to a new kind of ‘slum clearance’, handing Raleigh’s older Black communities over to evicters, demolishers, and gentrifiers.
According to Mehrsa Baradaran, a University of California, Irvine law professor who conducted a study called Jim Crow Credit, “These are the districts where poverty is still concentrated, schools are segregated, and properties continue to be devalued. By focusing a reparations program on geography as opposed to identity, policymakers cannot only avoid the sacred cow of colorblindness, but they can link reparations with integration.”
Sociologist William Darity, director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University, explains, “By avoiding making it a program that’s directed specifically at the families that either were living in neighborhoods subject to redlining, or families that indirectly lost income as a consequence of the impact of redlining given the existence of segregated residential areas, [these plans are] not designed to provide resources specifically to those families that were victimized. It actually gives resources to current residents.”
Author Carmen Wimberly Cauthen is researching and writing to protect the historically Black neighborhoods in Raleigh. Her research has shown that Black families were often pushed to live in areas nobody wanted, neighboring cemeteries, factories, and sitting in flood zones. One Black community, called Biltmore Hills, didn’t even realize they lived in a 500-year flood plain until Hurricane Fran in 1996 sent raging waters into their community.
When gentrification creates a situation where Black families are priced out of those same neighborhoods, where historic homes are being demolished to make room for larger homes and towering developments, the outcomes are the same. Black people are being excluded from one of the most influential ways generational wealth can be created.
That’s why the article in the September 12th edition of The Carolinian, that addresses the siege of the Historic Prince Hall District in Raleigh, is important and should be alarming.
The purpose of a Historic Overlay District is to maintain and enhance the distinctive character of the area by safeguarding the architectural integrity of the various period structures within it, and to prevent intrusions and alterations within the district that would be incompatible with this established character. Creatively infilling the neighborhood in ways that honor the significance of its history, and of its architectural beauty, should be welcome. Certainly blocking a Masonic Lodge - a central community connection point - with a 7-story hotel lacks appropriateness of character?
Shortly after the 2012 designation of the Prince Hall Overlay, development interests began to break the district in pieces. Despite vocal opposition from the Raleigh Historic Development Commission, the Planning Commission, the State Historic Preservation Office, and residents, City Council removed three contributing historic buildings from the district’s boundary to make way for a hotel and opened the door for additional removals. In 2022, City Council arbitrarily removed nine parcels totaling nearly two acres without zoning conditions, leaving five of the overlay’s historic structures vulnerable. This included the long-time home of Haywood Funeral Home, as well as Cumbo’s Barber Shop and their adjacent family residence.
As parcels continue to be removed due to a highly focused and targeted development campaign these historic spaces are open to cannibalization and each one makes the case for the next. We cannot ignore our history as we fight for opportunity. It should empower and embolden us in our protection of yesterday’s experiences as we move forward. And in our “getting” we must not forget to get wisdom and understanding.
