Review of Living Together Living Apart

    While taking my vacation at the end of the summer this year, I was listening to a Tidewater radio station on my way to North Carolina. The speaker's topic at the time was the segregation within the communities and cites. A former councilman even joined the broadcast and spoke about "blockbusting" as well. At the time I had never heard of Blockbusting, which is the practice of persuading owners to sell property cheaply because of the fear of people of another race or class moving into the neighborhood, and thus profiting by reselling at a higher price. The speaker stated that realtors would higher black women to walk through white communities with their babies and baby strollers periodically throughout the week. The goal was to get white owners to sell and move out in order to entice the black buyers to come in and buy at a higher rate. Even the banks would loan blacks money with a higher interest rate than that which was offered for whites.

    Ever hear the saying, "that used to be a nice neighborhood?" Understand, it did not "used to be" nice because a couple of black families moved in. In fact , those families that moved in were usually middle class blacks with good jobs. It wasn't until all of the whites have moved out and the banks have raised the prices so high for the blacks, to where most are evicted and the banks allow the low incomes in the neighborhoods and then the crime rates spike from there. Blacks and whites with low incomes now flood the neighborhood and well, "that used to be a nice neighborhood." These practices were supposed to be against the law following the passing of 1968 Housing Act, which expanded on previous acts and prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, sex, handicap and family status. In addition, the Title VIII of the Act is also known as the Fair Housing Act. Let's just say just because something is changed in writing doesn't mean it is applied in the real world.  Norfolk’s segregation didn’t happen by accident. It happened by design, guided by powerful people and institutions (THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT). 

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