Jackson, J., dissenting
Government was “giving away land” on the western frontier, and with it “the opportunity for upward mobility and a more secure future,” over the 1862 Homestead Act’s three-quarter-century tenure.[1] Black people were exceedingly unlikely to be allowed to share in those benefits, which by one calculation may have advantaged approximately 46 million Americans living today.[2]
Despite these barriers, Black people persisted. Their so-called Great Migration northward accelerated during and after the First World War.[3] Like clockwork, American cities responded with racially exclusionary zoning (and similar policies).[4] As a result, Black migrants had to pay disproportionately high prices for disproportionately subpar housing.[5] Nor did migration make it more likely for Black people to access home ownership, as banks would not lend to Black people, and in the rare cases banks would fund home loans, exorbitant interest rates were charged.[6] With Black people still locked out of the Homestead Act giveaway, it is no surprise that, when the Great Depression arrived, race-based wealth, health, and opportunity gaps were the norm.[7]
Federal and State Governments’ selective intervention further exacerbated the disparities. Consider, for example,
- ↑ T. Shanks, The Homestead Act: A Major Asset-Building Policy in American History, in Inclusion in the American Dream: Assets, Poverty, and Public Policy 23–25 (M. Sherraden ed. 2005) (Shanks); see also Baradaran 18.
- ↑ Shanks 32–37; Oliver & Shapiro 37–38.
- ↑ Wilkerson 8–10; Rothstein 155.
- ↑ Id., at 43–50; Baradaran 90–92.
- ↑ Ibid.; Rothstein 172–173; Wilkerson 269–271.
- ↑ Baradaran 90.
- ↑ I. Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America 29–35 (2005) (Katznelson).
