CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Experts said racist policies that ended decades ago are still influencing issues, ranging from policing to homeownership.
Redlining was a housing policy in the 1930s that essentially blocked many people in black neighborhoods from getting financing.
A recent study found homeowners in redlined neighborhoods have earned 52% less or more than $212,000 less in home equity over the last 40 years. That’s compared to communities that were greenlined.
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Channel 9’s Ken Lemon spoke to a historian about how the policy worked and its long-lasting impacts in Charlotte.
"After the depression the federal government wanted to literally map out good opportunities for lenders, but they put red lines around black districts like this around Biddleville which told lenders this was the worst option,” said historian Dr. Tom Hanchett.
That made it more difficult for people in black communities to own property and raised property values in places like Myers Park, a green district, to the most favorable level. It also created a deep segregation.
Sarah Knight lived in a Biddleville home built by her husband’s family just a few years after redlining.
“It was pretty much a predominantly black neighborhood when I moved over here,” Knight said.
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Hanchett literally wrote the book on redlining in Charlotte.
"Take inequality that kind of already existed and pushed it into overdrive,” he said.
Hanchett said it became easier for people to rationalize different policing tactics.
"Their default is to go, well that person must have done wrong,” he said.
Hanchett said that kind of thinking stood until a series of searing images climaxing with the death of George Floyd.
"This drum beat of video evidence has begun to convince people like me frankly that there is a problem,” Hanchett said.
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49-year-old Eric Knight, who grew up in Biddleville, said young people of all races no longer rely solely on their parents for guidance. They have social media.
“It changes the world. We didn’t have all the social media that’s going on now. We didn’t see all the things that younger youth can see,” Knight said.
He said that is what bridges the gap now, but Hanchett said there is still a big gap.
According to 2010 Mecklenburg County stats, some of those people in green districts made five to six times what people make on average in the red district.