Abstract
Plessy v. Ferguson provided the foundation for a system of segregation and exclusion that adversely affected African Americans throughout the twentieth century. Segregation was perpetuated by federal policies. During the 1940s and 1950s, the federal government facilitated the construction of suburban communities with Veterans Administration– and Federal Housing Authority–insured mortgages. These agencies invented redlining and required lending institutions to insert racially restrictive covenants in deeds for properties they insured. In the 1950s and 1960s, the federal government facilitated the construction of the interstate highway system. The freeways were frequently constructed through African American neighborhoods, displacing the residents. Urban renewal programs caused the destruction of African American communities across the nation. This long and tragic history of structural racism continues to adversely affect the well-being of African American families.
- segregation
- redlining
- restrictive covenants
- exclusionary zoning
- urban renewal
- school desegregation
- busing
- suburbanization
- Veterans Administration
- Federal Housing Authority
- social determinants of health
- structural racism
- implicit bias
- interstate highway system
- slums
- blight
- © 2021 Russell Sage Foundation. Ware, Leland. 2021. “Plessy’s Legacy: The Government’s Role in the Development and Perpetuation of Segregated Neighborhoods.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 7(1): 92–109. DOI: 10.7758/RSF.2021.7.1.06. Direct correspondence to: Leland Ware at lware{at}udel.edu, University of Delaware, 180 Graham Hall, 111 Academy St., Newark, DE 19716, United States.
Open Access Policy: RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences is an open access journal. This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.