Redlining in Evanston

AI Summary

This document traces the history of racial discrimination and housing segregation in Evanston, Illinois from 1860 to 1958. Key developments include Illinois repealing its 1853 act barring Black residency in 1865, though Evanston adopted Jim Crow policies between 1900 and the 1930s through exclusionary tactics and racial covenants prohibiting home sales to non-Caucasians. In 1920–1927, Chicago attorney Nathan MacChesney drafted a Code of Ethics addition forbidding realtors from introducing members of other races into certain neighborhoods and created a model racially restrictive covenant targeting "Colored" people for the Chicago Real Estate Board. The 1930 Home Owners Loan Corporation residential security maps graded lending risks across over 200 cities, with Evanston's Fifth Ward designated as redlined (D2 rating), based partly on HOLC statements characterizing Black population growth as "quite a serious problem." By 1948, a mass meeting addressed the city's failure to provide housing for Black residents, and a 1948 judgment ruled against Evanston's attempt to restrict veteran housing for Black residents. In January 1958, Martin Luther King Jr. visited Beth Emet the Free Synagogue in Evanston to speak on integration.