Kimberly Williams Crenshaw

Yes, my grandfather.

And he was obviously in a position to be able to begin to acquire property, which of course is the great American way.

So he passed this on to my mother.

But then in the 60s, there was a move to

remove what was called urban blight.

And hundreds of millions of dollars were made available to local communities from the federal government to effectuate this policy.

And in addition, there was highway development dollars that were

also made available.

So we're talking about a reality in local communities in which African Americans still didn't have the same kind of local political power as their white counterparts.

So when the debate about how to use this money

comes to the city council and to the city managers, whose property is most likely to be sacrificed to build industrial plants and to lay out highways to attract businesses.

It's the black corridor.

It's the black commercial area.

And these are often policies and practices that play out over several years.

So

If a community is designated as one that is going to eventually be raised and built over with highways, a lot of things start happening.

Banks stop lending for development in that area.

The area becomes redlined.

It becomes less valuable.

There's market forces that kick in that consistently raise