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Noon Edition

Where America Lives: The Fair Housing Act And Racial Segregation

President Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968, also known as the Fair Housing Act of 1968. (Wikimedia Commons)

The Fair Housing Act of 1968 was passed 50 years ago this month and was the last legislative victory of the Civil Rights era.

The law was two-fold. It was supposed to stop racial discrimination in the procurement of housing and to actively promote racial integration.

It was an ambitious piece of legislation aimed at ending inequality where Americans live. How much has changed in our neighborhoods since the bill's passing?

This week on Noon Edition, our panelists will discuss housing segregation and the Fair Housing Act.

You can follow us on Twitter @NoonEdition or join us on the air by calling in at 812-855-0811 or toll-free at 1-877-285-9348. You can also send us questions for the show at news@indianapublicmedia.org.

Guests:



Samuel Kye: Ph.D. Candidate, IU Department of Sociology, Bloomington, IN

Richard Pierce: Associate Professor of History and American Studies, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN

Conversation: The Fair Housing Act And Racial Segregation



In this hour of Noon Edition, our panel experts scratched the surface of the complex issue of housing segregation.

Richard Pierce is an associate professor of history and American studies at the University of Notre Dame. He is also the author of the book "Polite Protest: The Political Economy of Race in Indianapolis, 1920-1970."

Pierce says the Fair Housing Act has had an insufficient effect because the law isn't being enforced.

"George Romney in 1970 was the head of HUD. He tried to enforce the Fair Housing Act by telling cities if they didn't adhere to the Fair Housing act, you would not get federal subsidies or federal loans or federal grants," Pierce says.

Pierce says Nixon put a stop to its enforcement and since then, there have been few attempts to enforce the law.

Another reason we still see disparities in where people live along racial lines is due to white flight. It's typically a phenomenon of white city-dwellers moving to the suburbs after an influx of minorities.

Samuel Kye is a sociologist at Indiana University and recently studied white flight. Some scholars have argued the behavior is not motivated by race but by a desire to live in a better, prosperous neighborhood.

Kye's research found that white flight is more likely to occur in middle-class neighborhoods than poor neighborhoods.

"What this allows us to do is say that white flight is tied more so to racial than socioeconomic factors, at least when it pertains to suburban neighborhoods," Kye says.

Though white flight is a phenomenon that reproduces segregated neighborhoods, Kye says there is a positive aspect. More white millennials are showing migration patterns that produce more integrated neighborhoods.

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