January 1935

The Home Owners' Loan Corporation created residential security maps for cities nationwide, color-coding Black neighborhoods red ('D') as hazardous for mortgage lending. HOLC appraisers used language like 'infiltration of negro' in their assessments. The maps locked Black families out of federally backed home ownership for decades.

The Federal Housing Administration's 1935 and 1936 Underwriting Manuals explicitly rated neighborhoods by racial composition. Neighborhoods with Black residents received 'D' (red) ratings classified as 'Hazardous,' making them ineligible for FHA-backed mortgages. The manual stated that 'infiltration of inharmonious racial groups' degraded property values. Surveyors were instructed to mark any area with even one Black resident as high-risk. This federal policy systematized and nationalized redlining, denying an entire generation of Black families access to the wealth-building vehicle of homeownership. Reverse redlining funneled predatory contract sales into these same neighborhoods.

The Federal Housing Administration's 1935 and 1936 Underwriting Manuals explicitly rated neighborhoods by racial composition. Neighborhoods with Black residents received 'D' (red) ratings classified as 'Hazardous,' making them ineligible for FHA-backed mortgages. The manual stated that 'infiltration of inharmonious racial groups' degraded property values. This federal policy systematized and nationalized redlining, denying an entire generation of Black families access to the primary wealth-building vehicle of homeownership. Between 1934 and 1962, the FHA backed $120 billion in home loans; less than 2% went to Black borrowers.

The Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) produced 'residential security maps' for over 200 American cities between 1935 and 1940. These maps used four color grades — green (best), blue (still desirable), yellow (declining), and red (hazardous) — to rate neighborhoods for mortgage risk. Black neighborhoods in every city were consistently rated 'D' (red) regardless of the physical condition of housing. These maps were shared with private lenders and the FHA, institutionalizing racial exclusion from mortgage credit across the entire country and preventing a generation of Black wealth accumulation.

Beginning in the mid-1930s, as FHA redlining blocked Black buyers from conventional mortgages, Chicago speculators developed 'contract buying' — selling homes to Black buyers at inflated prices under contracts that required full payment before title transferred, with no equity accruing. A single missed payment meant eviction with no refund of years of payments. Sellers including Lou Fushanis operated portfolios of hundreds of properties. Beryl Satter's research documented families paying $14,500 for homes worth $12,000 via contracts while comparable FHA mortgages would have cost $10,000. Contract buyers collectively paid an estimated $3.2 billion in excess wealth extraction in Chicago alone between 1950 and 1970.

Howard Law Dean Charles Hamilton Houston became NAACP special counsel and devised the long-term strategy of attacking segregation through graduate and professional school cases before mounting the full challenge to Plessy. He trained Thurgood Marshall and documented Southern school inequality in filmed evidence.

The Costigan-Wagner Anti-Lynching Bill, introduced by Senators Edward Costigan (CO) and Robert Wagner (NY) in 1934 and 1935, would have made lynching a federal crime. President Roosevelt refused to publicly endorse the bill, telling NAACP head Walter White in private meetings that he could not risk losing Southern Democratic votes needed for his economic agenda. Eleanor Roosevelt supported the bill privately. Southern senators filibustered it to death in 1935. A federal anti-lynching law was not enacted until 2022 — 87 years after this defeat.

The Costigan-Wagner Anti-Lynching Bill, introduced by Senators Edward Costigan (CO) and Robert Wagner (NY) in 1934 and 1935, would have made lynching a federal crime. President Roosevelt refused to publicly endorse the bill, telling NAACP head Walter White in private meetings that he could not risk losing Southern Democratic votes needed for his economic agenda. Eleanor Roosevelt supported the bill privately. Southern senators filibustered it to death in 1935. Between 1882 and 1968, Congress failed to pass anti-lynching legislation despite over 200 attempts. A federal anti-lynching law was not enacted until 2022.

Zora Neale Hurston, trained in anthropology under Franz Boas at Columbia, conducted fieldwork collecting Black folklore, music, and oral traditions in the South in the early 1930s. Her 1935 collection 'Mules and Men' and her 1937 novel 'Their Eyes Were Watching God' documented Black Southern culture with unprecedented dignity and complexity, insisting on Black interior life against a white media landscape that denied it. Hurston challenged the assumption that Black culture had to be translated through white academic frameworks to be legitimate.

The New Deal's Works Progress Administration Federal Writers' Project, Federal Art Project, and Federal Theatre Project provided employment and creative infrastructure for hundreds of Black artists, writers, and performers, despite operating segregated units in the South. The Negro Unit of the Federal Theatre Project, directed by John Houseman and Orson Welles, produced 'Voodoo Macbeth' and other acclaimed productions. Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, and Jacob Lawrence all worked for WPA projects. The Slave Narrative Collection, produced 1936–1938, preserved first-hand testimony of over 2,300 formerly enslaved people — invaluable historical documentation.

Zora Neale Hurston, trained in anthropology under Franz Boas at Columbia, conducted fieldwork collecting Black folklore, music, and oral traditions in the South in the early 1930s. Her 1935 collection 'Mules and Men' and her 1937 novel 'Their Eyes Were Watching God' documented Black Southern culture with unprecedented dignity and complexity, insisting on Black interior life against a white media landscape that denied it. Hurston worked on WPA Federal Writers' Project and challenged the assumption that Black culture had to be translated through white academic frameworks to be legitimate.

The New Deal's WPA Federal Writers' Project, Federal Art Project, and Federal Theatre Project provided employment and creative infrastructure for hundreds of Black artists, writers, and performers, despite operating segregated units in the South. The Negro Unit of the Federal Theatre Project produced acclaimed productions including 'Voodoo Macbeth.' Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, and Jacob Lawrence all worked for WPA projects. The Slave Narrative Collection, produced 1936–1938, preserved first-hand testimony of over 2,300 formerly enslaved people.