Evanston is a suburb of Chicago, One of the most violent cities in the United States and with the highest rate of poverty among the African-American population, this Monday its Democratic consistory voted to grant funds to black residents as compensation for discrimination in housing. It is the first city in the United States to take that step.
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The plan has been approved by eight votes to one by the city council of this city of 75,000 people in Illinois, on the shores of Lake Michigan. The mayor’s office plans to distribute $ 400,000 from a $ 10 million fund generated by marijuana tax revenue, up to 16 families that can use it for housing. For City Councilor Robin Rue Simmons, the architect of this program, this is a “first step” after years of contributions from residents.
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“This initiative is not a complete repair. We all know that the path to reparation and justice in the black community will be the work of a generation. There will be many programs and initiatives and more funding, “the councilor explained. Under the plan, residents who qualify will receive $ 25,000 that they can use to improve their homes or finance a mortgage. Neighbors to be eligible for financial aid must be descendants of a black person who lived in Evanston between 1919 and 1969 and having suffered from policies of housing discrimination, which included the so-called red marking, a banking practice that denied mortgage loans to families without resources or without a credit history.
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President John F. Kennedy began the fight against racial segregation in the early 1960s, when the daily life of the African American population was a race of inequality and discrimination in many areas. The struggle of the civil rights movements was eventually translated into law. It was the Civil Rights Act, signed by the president Lyndon Johnson on July 2, 1964, the one that prohibited all forms of segregation in public places.
In the case of housing, and although discrimination in housing is prohibited, it persists in some states because there is no federal provision to verify this prohibition. In 1968, the Fair Housing Act prohibited discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of homes on the basis of race, color, and religion.
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