Local, state and federal legislation has been responsible for americas segregated cities. It is an honor to be here with richard for two reasons. Im a journalist and what that means is my work is deeply dependent on reporting, talking to people, getting to know people, getting into peoples lives, but its based in people who have really the time and the inclination to do the kind of deep research that richard does and demonstrate its. For all the praise i get nor work die, i try to make it clear that it its rooted in folks who do the deep, deep, research, that goes to bones of the country and unearths things were not so interested in talking about. Im deeply thankful to richard and just paying back the favor by being here in conversation with him. This second part is that there is a notion that i have been doing whatever i can to reverse in this country. For a long time we conceived of ourselves as a country with a quoteunquote racial problem and underneath of that is the notion that there are pure races that exist, a white race from europe, black race from africa, asian race from asia, latino race for i dont know where and it increasingly even arab and muslim race. It obscure this fact that race and racism in america is a done thing. That the actual name comes after the attempt to take something from somebody happens. So that allows us to dealed feel like we are dealing with a divine godmade problem when were actually dealing with the things that were done by ancestors and we continue to do to this very day. The historian barbara fields has a term for to this called racecraft and thats the way racism, people transfigured into the idea of race, an actual label. Tonight well talk about race craft and how race is increasingly was created in the past and continues to be created to this very day throughout our housing policies the country. So, richard issue thought it would be good to start there. Just talk about why housing and the place that housing occupies in the american imagination and also just in our daily lives. Let me say this way. This fact they were living separately, that every metropolitan area in this country is racially segregated, has enormous implications for the country as a whole and many of the problem wes faces. I spent a lot of time writing about the achievement gap between africanamerican and white children, but a good part of that achievement gap is attributable to the fact that when you concentrate children with serious social and economic disadvantages in single schools, they cant possibly achieve at the levels that they would achieve even with the same social and economic advantages if they were in schools where those problems werent predominant. Example, africanamerican chane have generally poorer halve than white children so theyre absent more children. If a few children are absent in a class the teacher can accommodate, pay special attention. If every child in the class is in poor health, than tipple middle class children, then theres no way to give every child special help. The curriculum as whole has to become more remedial. If a few children in the class are stressed because of economic insecurity, because their parents are unemployed and theyre acting out, teach are can deal with that. If every child in the clays coming to school under stress, much more resources resources ad attention have to be spent on behavioral issues than instruction. So facts the fact that children are concentrated with these disadvantages in single schools affect the major education problem we face. We spend a lot of time any last few years focused on confrontations between police and young africanamerican men. That struckly a function of residential segregation. If we did not have racial segregation, police would behave to serve and protect their communities, not as occupying colonial forces, and young men would not be hopeless because they were living in community where there were no jobs jobs or access to job and no transportation and attending schools where teachers have difficulty accommodating the overwhelming problems they face. So that problem stemmeds from residential segregation. Were concerned about greg inequality in this country. The growing inequality, economic inequality is driven by in part by residential segregation. We know from research, for example, that low income children who grow up in a middle class neighborhood are much more lickly to by middle class as adults than low income children who grow up a segregated neighborhood. So so many problems stem from residential segregation and thats why i thought it was important to explore how it happened and what we might do about it. Why dont you take us back actuallywhy its that segregation necessarily has to lead to worst outcomes for africanamerican . Why can it not be the old trope of separate by equal . The mere fact of living separately oar thing that come with that . Its primarily because lower income children, who are concentrated in single classrooms, reinforce each others probables and prevent teachers from being able to dress those individual problems without disrupting the entire class. To have a productive learning environment. Africanamerican children coming from lowincome houses. Yes and that is part of residential segregation i can talk about that now or later. It is it merely living apart. But this would be a long answer. [laughter] most people think of residential segregation today as something the Supreme Court coined the term something that happened because of accident because of realestate agents to steer people of different places and under that constitutional theory this record has adopted a with of purchase of the argument although not a good theory so i except this distinction if something happens through a private action there is no constitutional remedy but if it happens by federal state or local action it is day constitutional obligation. So how does this wealth gap a rise because of day history of statesponsored segregation which is the subtitle of my book a forgotten history of how our government segregated america it is a forgotten history. There are two main aspects and to answer your question the first is Public Housing. We take of Public Housing as a place where low in, mostly minority families with the high rise, though in com unemployed that is the initial Public Housing. Is a fairly recent development during the depression as florida white middle and lower class families primarily were homeless during the depression. Some projects were built for africanamericans that is what made the Roosevelt Administration progressive. Some Public Housing was only for white people. So is in cities across the country these projects were built, the new deal Housing Program but in the early 20th century both the north and south with both races and all ethnicities so you have neighborhoods that were integrated. So i talk in the book about the autobiography. [laughter] about links did hughes Langston Hughes and that describes how he grew up his best friend was polish, the federal government came into the neighborhood and demolish that and to build a segregated Public Housing with a separate project for whites and blacks. Down skinhead now skipping ahead for a that housing for those of built by the federal government on a segregated basis with no africanamerican population so they would not creating segregation. In california very few with the big center of shipbuilding that were white the florid the war by the end were completely segregated. So now were getting closer. 1949 president truman proposed a massive expansion of the Public Housing program and in all materials were permitted to be used but then returning to the country needed housing primarily for the white families to emphasize this point in the early years of Public Housing in cities had social workers visit the white families to make sure the children were well behaved with good enough furniture and had to show a marriage certificate that was Public Housing. So no conservatives but then to defeat that Public Housing bill with the private Housing Market said the way day defeat this is the amendment was put on a bill in the hope that it would pass to make it more palatable. So the conservatives put the amendment to say now Public Housing had to be integrated. It was his secret was segregated across the country before that. The idea and also to Public Housing. In then they would abandon the bill so liberals fought against the integration led by Hubert Humphrey and Douglas Searle that housing act that the federal government so that is how we got these giant powers in chicago over the most wellknown so actually those pruitt towers it is not the fact show because africanamericans had to apply but that is not how they were decimated they were built this way after a few years but the pruitt tower had a long waiting list. But the white publichousing had the ball long waiting list. Run by the federal Housing Administration twos subsidize white families to the singlefamily homes in the suburbs. Of guaranteed loans of mass production it never could have assembled the space 17,000 homes. They got loans guaranteed by the federal government and though homes be sold to africanamerican every home in the development had to be resold to an africanamerican. The entire country was suburbanized and they became poorer because industry at this same time the whites were. Butted 1947 and then they were sold at 8,000 apiece. Those that are equally capable to pay that money with no down payment in with those charges and more of what theyre paying in rent for Public Housing. So today they sell 400,000. And renting apartments in the city without 300,000 in equities so white people gained that equity so now those polls are unaffordable for the working class people. In 1947 despite coverage they could afford to buy the homes but today they are seven times the National Median income. Middleclass families cannot even afford even within those segregated enclaves. With the ratio of syncom. African american wealth is 7 of white weld. Most families gave their wealth for housing. There is the enormous difference between the of wealth ratio it is almost entirely attributable with that federal housing policy so that wealth gap is attributable. It is a wonderful what it did but with those that are on one track of housing to give the opportunity to build wealth and with that Investment Opportunity another where africanamericans were excluded. But why . That is the difficult question to answer. Mattis nine in the archives so i can speculate. [laughter] but i think there are several reasons. First of all, the Roosevelt Administration was an expression of the white anglosaxon ruling class with their refusal to read many refugees from nazi germany. So that is how they considered whites of a superior race but and willingly or reluctantly so they were excluded from Social Security or minimumwage. Because southern democrats were content some were perfectly willing to have integration going back to the time of slavery. But basically that northwest is free to integrate so that would explain the housing issue. The other reason than why it is hard to think about this problem. But if we desegregate the buses the next day africanamericans can sit anywhere on the bus and then it was the lunch counter. Then they go to the neighborhood school. In the next day pulling through those affluent suburbs so it is very difficult to think about this problem. And as a result we come up with a myth to protect us the idea is all private action called defacto that it happened by accident. So what is it about this narrative . Is it a common idea where racism is basically with the conservative south . Do you have a situation where if they have a critique of president obama compared to roosevelt this is the high point so what does it mean that was the exact point of this policy . From where it actually began . What is it tell us about the possibilities . That is so pervasive . I dont know if i would go that far. The new deal was the first to be actively involved in the american economy. There wasnt an opportunity to implement these policies before he and. It isnt that they were less racist although some were and some mortgage although roosevelt was explicitly racist the harding and coolidge and illustration a little less so but they were not involved in the american economy. The new deal was involved in housing the first civilian housing was built with the new deal. So i dont know this happened because roosevelt was more racist but it was relatively progressive because it did build some housing for africanamericans some only build housing only for white families. But if we followed the implication of your work that could be traced to the progressive action. Piccadilly be created if involved in the economy otherwise it could not create inequalities which is the opportunity to segregate i gave a lot of lectures doing this research i didnt want to answer philae i was pestered enough i put a chapter in here but i dont think you can think about remedies the with the myth of private causation conservatives and liberals alike that use this term the facto segregation so with our ability to think creatively because there is no political consensus to support that. So if we understood this history was statesponsored a violation of the 14th amendment even the 13th amendment we could do the following 50 is africanamerican now the federal government buys up the next 50 and sells them at 100,000 to the qualified africanamericans that would be constitutionally justified remedy in terms of the history i just described. So that can be debated so but we should do now is do everything we can to make people familiar with the history a writer for the New York Times magazine to be part of the National Conversation that remedy these people would think of that i have not thought of to have a conversation that we cannot have a conversation. But what i report in the book is most commonly use highschool textbooks of america. They lie about our history it is a very simple thing to fix them if we dont do something about it the most widely used is 1,000 pages i guess they carry in their backpack cat has one paragraph devoted to segregation of the north and in one sentence devoted to housing and reads in the north African Americans found themselves forced into segregated housing. Thats it. They figured they look out the window one morning and here we are we are segregated. [laughter] as long as we teach our young people that we can have a serious conversation about remedies but the firstever loss to understand the history before we can talk about a remedy. Related to your comment on housing and segregation due to the fact many gis returning from the border with the gi bill trying to get a mortgage . While also africanamericans also receive that bill to give them a loan or to find a school that would take them and how does that compare to the disparity that you just laid out . In the of book i received an email from somebody who told the story in the book of an African American veteran of world war two, a very ambitious and talented a surplus army truck reconditioned to call sheet rock and other Construction Materials and got a contract. But he was not permitted to buy a home there. He was better off financially than others to purchase homes as men were returning from the war but in theory if this subdivisions that the government was created would not sell homes to them then the gi bill did not do much good. I love your book. I live in this neighborhood i grew up in in washington on Dupont Circle one side of the circle was mixed but by the time i graduated college that was changed it all had gentrified. But my current question is what is the impact . I live in this neighborhood with day perfectly acceptable groundfloor flat that i could afford to rent to a family can live downstairs in a onebedroom but i cannot do it because of zoning. I would like to do that and encourage my neighbors to do that but instead of this body of full public shelter with cubicles to livid with no access to fresh food or jobs. They have to schlep their kids across town and the amount of money they are spending they could buy and help people in this neighborhood and others to read do basements to provide exclusive housing and get them on the right track instead of continuing slavery by putting people in boxes in a parking lot. Okay. [laughter] i will talk about zoning more generally. The term is exclusionary, i dont know the particulars of your neighborhood but many have exclusionary is lorals that prohibit singlefamily homes on the regular lot more of townhouses or attractive apartment units. Now live finished with your neighborhood and will talk generally but they date back to the prea new deal era and were motivated that is another part of the history that we forgot the Supreme Court ruled that since meet the cities couldnt say africanamericans could live here or there. Actually the way you ordinances were written indicated how integrated day were because a typical ordinance prohibited African Americans moving into a block that was majority white. And the city of baltimore was the city to do this. From the africanamerican church in the minister moved out of the parsonage because it made it illegal to live in his own lot. It is a because of integration but if he ago american in history in that time the Supreme Court thought the main role was to protect Property Rights. So if they interfered with up Property Rights that was the basis of the Supreme Court decision. City leaders to wanted to segregate how would they do that . When harding was elected president and the over establish the committee on zoning to be made up of prominent segregationist who had design