tv Birwood Wall CSPAN June 22, 2019 1:53pm-2:01pm EDT
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it was beautiful. i was signed to see there was not some politician or something here with us today. i think lindsay should have made it a point to be with us today as well as possibly some of the gay movement organizers themselves. >> watch the 50th anniversary of the stonewall riots this sunday on c-span3's american history tv. the c-span cities tour is on the road exploring the american story. as we continue our special look at detroit, tour guide jamon jo rdon takes us down eight-mile road -- eight mile road which marks the northern border of detroit. >> we are as the eight mile wall or the birwood wall. it goes by a number of names. it was built by a white housing developer. separates two streets,
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birwood, where we're standing, and mendota, on the other side of the wall. the federal government in 1934 had passed the first national housing act which will help working-class people get home mortgages. it's part of roosevelt's new deal. national housing act. it's going to create the federal housing administration and the homeowners loan corporation. this will help streamline loans and make it more accessible during the great depression for people to get a home loan. here.ere are some issues one of the issues is to get one of these home loans, the federal housing administration states that the neighborhood has to be racially homogeneous, which means that people have to be from the same racial and ethnic group. they do not believe that a neighborhood is stable if it is integrated, so they won't give loans if the neighborhood is integrated. so there's a problem -- this is --ng to help create
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neighborhoods that have been integrated are going to become segregated and whole new neighborhoods are going to be created that are created from the beginning as segregated places. african-americans have been coming from down south since the early 1900s to get jobs in the factories in detroit. they aretom is where allowed to live. african-americans are concentrated in black bottom and black bottom is overpopulated. room in blackre bottom. some african-americans secretly moved all the way to the northwest side of detroit where this nothing but empty fields and build their own homes. they are kind of secretly living here. when the government is building these homes and backing the , developers are building homes for the federal government and begins selling them with people getting home
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loans from the federal government, backed by the federal government, but then -- the neighborhood has to be racially homogeneous. when the government discovers that the neighborhood where they are funding the building of homes on the other side is right next to, adjacent to an african-american neighborhood, a secret african-american neighborhood, they stop the funding of the building of those homes and refused to back the mortgages on those homes. they say what about building a wall, and the federal government says that is sufficient. so he builds a six-foot wall running from 8 mile to triple while, about a half mile wall, the homeparates development so the homes continue to be built and people continue to be able to get fha-backed loans on those homes because of this wall separating african-americans. african-americans will not be
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able to take advantage of these low in just rate home loans which will be increased in 1937 and increased again in the g.i. bill after world war ii. african-americans will not be able to take in most cases any part in this because the fha will continue to have policies that the neighborhood had to be racially homogeneous. as whites move away from african-americans, black neighborhoods become racially homogeneous. they become all-black because whites have been taking advantage of getting home loans. corporationrs loan has created maps of where loans can be given out. the maps are color-coded. the green area means you can get the loans. red is where we get the term redlining from and in those areas, the loans are prohibited. almost all african-american neighborhoods, especially in detroit, are in the red and they are unable to take advantage of one of the largest
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wealth-building periods in american history with the federal government is supplying home loans. income-wiseing equal wages, but 20 years later, the whites who have gotten home loans would grow in wealth, not because of their income but because they own property. who workedricans making the same kind of money would be blocked from getting home loans, so 20 years later, it would be a wealth gap. what do african-americans have 20 years later? fromhave written receipts the projects created under the same national housing act. african-americans can take advantage of moving into federally funded housing projects. whites can do that or get a home loan. as you can guess, most whites took advantage of the home loan portion rather than moving into a housing project. today, we associate housing projects with african-americans and part of the reason why is because of this housing policy which will not be overthrown until the 1968 fair housing act
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which was passed one week after the assassination of dr. martin luther king jr.. as the history of this wall became known, people in the neighborhood along with artists got together and created this art project. this public park is the largest section of the wall that is exposed without going through a person's backyard or their personal property. in this section, they did this art project, so you see all of these murals. some of them are a history, some of them are just fun pictures. some are about the wall itself. all of this together is telling a story and turning this history to a place that people will come to and look at and on one in, it's beautiful, but on the other end, it tells a horrible history. >> cities tour staff recently
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traveled to detroit, michigan, to learn about its rich history. to watch more video from detroit and other stops on our tour, c-span.org/citiestour. you are watching american history tv, all weekend every weekend on c-span3. d-day 75thbefore the anniversary, the friends of the national world war ii memorial held a commemorative event at the army and navy club in washington, d.c. kershawstorian alex gives an illustrated talk about his book "the first wave: the d-day warriors who led the way to victory in world war ii." following his lecture, he moderates a discussion with a 96-year-old world war ii veteran who landed on omaha beach three weeks after d-day and a woman whose father was killed in action on utah beach on june 7, 1944.
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