Thomas J. Sugrue’s book, The
Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit, he
touches on the integration of African Americans into white society in post war
Detroit. Two main topics in the work of
Thomas J. Sugrue’s book caught my attention.
Whites moved out of their neighborhoods once integration began to take
place in order to avoid integration, and secondly real estate agencies took
advantage of integration to make money and prevent African Americans from
integrating into certain white suburbs.
Coming back
from the war, many African Americans looked forward to buying their own homes
in the suburbs, especially now that they were capable of moving out of the
inner city. With America supposedly
being modernized, integration was a large part of the movement of African
Americans into originally white Suburbs.
Unfortunately, not all white Americans in Detroit at the time were ok
with that. Once African Americans began
to integrate into these suburbs, whites immediately put their houses for sales
and began to move out to other suburbs.
But if African Americans were supposedly allowed to move into all
suburbs where would these whites go?
Well, that
was not the case. Real estate agencies
had the upper hand in the integration situation. Once African Americans began moving into the
suburbs, housing values began to decline.
Because of the decline in property value in integrated suburbs, whites
immediately wanted to sell their houses to avoid the loss of wealth. A majority of families’ wealth at the time
resided in the value of their homes.
Furthermore, all white suburbs were still out and about. When African American families tried to buy
houses in certain all white suburbs, real estate agents would inform the buyers
that the owners weren’t sure if they really wanted to sell the house, which was
completely a lie.
Overall,
its amazing, not in a good way, how African Americans were deceived into being
equals when it comes to purchasing of homes into integrated suburbs. In the end, integrated suburbs would end up
just being full ethnic families because all whites would move out in fear of
property value decline.
Work Cited
Work Cited
Thomas J. Sugrue,The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and
Inequality in Postwar
Detroit(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996).
It is extremely interesting the efforts taken by whites to continue to perpetuate racial stereotypes by denying African Americans the opportunity to be equal. Developers, such as Disneyland, specifically chose to locate in white suburbs and as you say real estate agencies would go out of their way to ensure the whiteness of these communities. I am shocked to be just now finding this information out. African Americans are forced into the inner cities by whites just as whites forced Indians onto Indian Reservations all to preserve white American culture.
ReplyDeletePS I laughed at your title