Part 2
So the situation was not all that great for black people in the South. That, along with the declining profit margin in farming, meant a lot of black people started moving north. This created a lot of conflict for northern whites - it was a lot easier to support black people when they were a thousand miles away. What to do?
The Federal Housing Authority helped provide an answer. Created in response to the Great Depression, it helped protect lenders and spur home ownership. It was quite successful at this, but they had the policy of not inuring mortgages in communities with large black populations (redlining). Combined with various other policies (the GI Bill, Federal Highway Act), the era of suburbs began. White neighborhoods typically had a restrictive covenant or home owners association that prevented black people from moving into them. This helped create the black people in urban environments/white people in suburbs type of segregation that persists to this day.
Time is getting compressed somewhat here.
White Southern economic and social practices continued to impoverish most people--black and white alike--of the region, just as they had before the abolition of slavery.
Blacks moving out of the South into northern, midwestern, and even western cities is what historians call the Great Migration. (The same name is given to the wave of Puritans coming to New England in the 1630s.) It started during World War I as industry ramped up to supply the Allies even before we were in the war (which began in April 1917).
In the destination cities, not only was there tension between rural blacks and urban whites, but also between rural blacks and urban blacks. Racial tension and cultural tension.
The FHA (Federal Housing Administration) came along as part of FDR's New Deal in 1934. And it had racist policies as described. It turned integrated neighborhoods into segregated ones. FDR was a Democrat. This is another part of the Democratic Party's history that I wish current Democrats would acknowledge.
During World War II, the FDR administration enacted the GI Bill of Rights. And it had racist impacts as described. Again, FDR was a Democrat.
Jonah Goldberg has made a good point about who gets blamed for America's sins. Because those who set the standards of historical/intellectual assessment of America are overwhelmingly liberal Democrats, it works like this. When liberals and/or Democrats have pursued racialist policies, that's America's fault. When conservatives and/or Republicans have pursued such policies, that's their fault. Liberal Democrats are never at fault. Of if they are, it's only in falling short, as in failing to appropriate enough money to create the Eden that they have promised. But they always try to do the right thing. Of course they do. Just ask 95% of college history professors.
None of this excuses the racism/white nationalism of the alt-right, or the Republican in the White House who appeals to the alt-right and will not issue a word of criticism of that movement. Or of the Republicans in Congress who lick his boots.
But, historically, up to 1964, Republicans had a far better record on civil rights and racial equality than Democrats did. The Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960--the first such since Reconstruction--were products of the Eisenhower (R) administration, watered down by Senate Democrats, who were led by Lyndon B. Johnson. Even the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had greater Republican support than Democratic.
Unfortunately, the GOP has pretty much dropped the ball on racial issues since 1964. Even when GOP economic policies produced rising living standards among black Americans, Republicans have failed to do much outreach to blacks or make blacks feel welcome in the party. And now preserving the names of Confederate "heroes" in the names of military bases seems to be the hill that the POTUS and his lackeys in Congress are willing to die on.
