Redlining Map of Wichita, 1937

The artwork recreates the red-lined map of Wichita in 1937 used to enforce discriminatory access to home ownership for all ethnic groups except white people who were born in Kansas. Green are “best” neighborhoods; blue is “still desirable”; yellow is “declining”; and red is “hazardous.” Each rectangle represents a city block.

Different stories
Same theme
Different places
Same scheme
Kansas-born whites in the green
Crushing homeowner dreams
White advantage you can’t see
Helping you and hurting me
New builds vs. ghetto streets
They created these

- Ellamonique Baccus

"In America caste is defined by color, class, by economic status. A man's color, if it is Black, is most frequently used as a means of enforcing economic limitations. It is used as a visible tool of oppression."

- Chester I. Lewis, Jr.

Redlining is the practice of discriminating against certain neighborhoods and the people who live there. Banks, real estate agents and federal agencies worked together to rate neighborhoods using color-coded maps. They refused loans and insurance to people living in neighborhoods marked in red without regard to an individual’s qualifications and creditworthiness. In 1937, Wichita was the third most redlined city in the U.S. at 64%.

Redlining began during the Great Depression, when two U.S. government agencies — the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) and the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) — began offering housing loans to buy homes. FHA offered loans for new housing in the suburbs, which were for white people only. HOLC also offered loans for buying older homes, but denied these loans to people in immigrant or predominantly African American neighborhoods. People were forced to rent housing in racially segregated neighborhoods where landlords could charge them higher rates because they had so few choices of where to live.

Even after the Supreme Court ruled in 1948 that courts could not enforce racially restrictive housing practices, these practices continued. Home ownership is the major way Americans build wealth, but the impact of this discriminatory practice preventing home ownership for Black and low-income people is still being felt today.

For more information, visit the Wichita Public Library's page on Chester I. Lewis.

Follow this link for more resources on redlining.