Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., surrounded by Chicago Freedom Movement marchers in Marquette Park, Chicago, August 1966. (Source: WBEZ Chicago / Image Credit: Bernard Kleina)
February marks the start of Black History Month — a time to honor the triumphs and struggles of African Americans throughout U.S. history. This history should be studied and remembered, not only this month, but year-round. For civil rights advocates, understanding American history — which includes Black history — is a necessary part of social justice work. We cannot address the issues we face today without first knowing the full historical context of how we got here.
History of the Fair Housing Movement
The fair housing movement owes much of its success to African Americans who fought for civil rights in housing. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a prominent leader of the Chicago Freedom Movement, also known as the Open Housing Movement, along with Al Raby and James Bevel. According to BlackPast, the Chicago Freedom Movement was created in 1965 to “challenge systemic racial segregation and discrimination in Chicago and its suburbs.” Through non-violent direct action, the movement “addressed a variety of issues facing Black Chicago residents, including segregated housing, educational deficiencies, income, employment, and health disparities based on racism and Black community development.”
On April 11, 1968, just one week after the assassination of Dr. King, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1968, better known as the Fair Housing Act. The Chicago Freedom Movement is credited with inspiring the Fair Housing Act, which seeks to eliminate housing discrimination and promote residential integration. Thanks to the tireless work of civil rights activists like Dr. King, everyone living in the U.S. is protected from housing discrimination, regardless of their race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or familial status.
Rejecting Whitewashed History
Although we know that understanding this country’s history of white supremacy, segregation, and discrimination is essential to addressing systemic inequality, some people are trying to stop the truth from being told. Currently, there are efforts to change, or ban altogether, what students are taught about American history, and Black history in particular. Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and creator of The 1619 Project, Nikole-Hannah Jones, has been outspoken about these kinds of “anti-history” laws that are being proposed throughout the U.S. Jones recently took to Twitter to express the absurdity of a recent Florida law, in which public school teachers would be “required to minimize slavery and systemic racism” when teaching history.
Under these anti-history laws, demonstrated by this “guidance” on teaching “sensitive factual content,” you are prohibited from minimizing the Holocaust but required to minimize slavery and the systemic racism HERE. https://t.co/H6ZJHTklyK
— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) January 26, 2022
Florida Senator Shevrin Jones also recently commented on his state’s latest attempt to whitewash history, saying, “What worries me the most is us not telling the truth in American history — Black history, at that — and shielding students from the civil rights movement, from slavery, from redlining and things that happened, and to ensure that we don’t go back to those times. If we don’t teach it, we’re bound to go back to those days.”
Working for a Better Future
We cannot achieve fair housing and housing equity without learning the true, yet often uncomfortable, history of our country. In order to fully understand the issues fair housing advocates are working to address, it is crucial that folks are educated on the long history of discriminatory housing policy in America. These issues did not just appear randomly. From slavery and the Jim Crow South to sundown towns, restrictive covenants, and redlining maps, there is no doubt that the housing challenges we are dealing with today stem from America’s history of racist housing policy. And no amount of censorship will make our present challenges disappear — it will only cause more harm. Knowing our history allows us to connect the dots between our country’s past and present, as we work towards a more equitable future.