Wechsler's Levittown

As he pointed out in the very early part of his article, for instance Clyde Ross, resident of North Lawndale Chicago, was denied when he first tried to get a legitimate mortgage; mortgages were effectively not available to black people (Coates, June 2014). Also, just like what we talked about in class last week, Ross and many other black families were forced to live in those redlined neighborhoods with “contract house.” Basically, Ross had not signed a normal mortgage. He’d bought “on contract”: a predatory agreement that combined all the responsibilities of homeownership with all the disadvantages of renting—while offering the benefits of neither (Coates, June 2014). This is a perfect example of how these ghetto-neighborhoods were created; it was created by white supremacists and people in the government who chose to ignore “the elephant in the room.” All these black families left with no choice. They ran from the South, thinking that they could finally go the land of the free. They quickly found out that, it was no different in the North, or even the West. They were forced to stuck with the

In literature, characters encounter and react to obstacles created by environmental changes. To successfully navigate these changes, characters must gain awareness of their environments and gain the power to effectively take action. Thus, Janie most successfully adjusts to different environments because she develops self-awareness, attains power, and initiates action; she takes action more efficiently than Young Ju, and she is more self-aware of her circumstances than the Hunger Artist.

The Large Kneeling Statue of Hatshepsut displays the progression of art throughout the decades. The Kneeling Statue of Hatshepsut shows continuity through its religious influence, its depiction of royalty, and its connection between nature and human life. Hatshepsut was the fifth pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty of Egypt, but was the second confirmed female pharaoh. As pharaoh, Hatshepsut embraced new building ventures, especially in the range around Thebes. Her most prominent accomplishment was the huge commemoration sanctuary at Deir el-Bahri, considered one of the compositional miracles of Ancient Egypt. Another incredible accomplishment of her rule was a trading endeavor she approved that brought back immense riches, including ivory, coal

This essay will explicate a section of Beryl Satter’s book Family Properties. This section argues that the white population of Chicago took part in restrictive covenants or legally binding contracts that prevented the sale of properties to colored people in an effort to confine Chicago’s colored population to specific sections in the city. The purpose of this paper is to explicate a section of Family Properties through analysis of structure, tone, and imagery. It will then identify how the evidence relate to one another, and possibilities of meaning. Lastly this essay will conclude with summarizing my results and examining how using explication as a textual tool affects my approach to a reading.

Tenement life was tough in New York City at the turn of the nineteenth century, as portrayed in the historical novel, City of Orphans. This portrayal depicted an immigrant family that was living hand to mouth in a tenement. This depiction is very accurate to the harsh reality that many families had to come to face. It was tough from the conditions, lifestyles, and space. Maks ' family was barely living off their earnings and was susceptible to disease and fraud. The immigrants were easy targets for poverty and sickness, and all too often fell through cracks in the floor. Their lives, as bad as they were, were not as bad as the ones they led in the countries they fled from to escape prosecution and to seek a better life.

In Vance’s society (the white working class in the Rust Belt), there was not much hope for economic success. In the book, Vance mentions the Pew Economic Mobility Project, which studies the financial well-being of American families and how their characteristics (race, gender, class, etc…) relate to both short-term financial stability and longer-term economic mobility. According to the project, only 44% of white working-class Americans believe that their children will fare better economically than them. This means that there was not much hope for the society’s children to be financially stable.

In the nineteenth century, families of all different kinds of races resided in tenements. The tenements I will be writing about are located on 96 Orchard Street in the lower east side of New York City. Every room tells a remarkable story of the lives

For far too long, African Americans have been neglected the rights to decent and fair housing. In “In Darkness and Confusion,” William Jones expresses his discontentment with the almost cruel living conditions of the ghettos in Harlem as he stated, “It ain’t a fit place to live, though” (Petry 261). William was especially motivated to move to a better home to protect his wife, Pink’s, ailing health. William and Pink searched high and low for more decent places to live – however, they simply could not afford decent. Though marketed to those with lower than average incomes, the ‘better’ housing for blacks were still deficient and extremely pricy. In

During the mid-20th century there was much racial discrimination, specifically in home ownership. During this period there was mass immigration of Southern blacks to the north. In Lawndale Chicago, there was adverse reactions to this. As the

I the article Race the Power of an Illusion, Dalton Conley says, “the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s really marks both an opportunity and a new danger in terms of racial relations in America. On the one hand, the Civil Rights era officially ended inequality of opportunity. It officially ended de jure legal inequality, so it was no longer legal for employers, for landlords, or for any public institution or accommodations to discriminate based on race. At the same time, those civil rights triumphs did nothing to address the underlying economic and social inequalities that had already been in place because of hundreds of years of inequality.” (Conley pp 1). What goes on in the American ghetto is not as glamorous as Hollywood makes it out to be now, this film does a great job at depicting what life in the ghetto for black teens is really like. The ghettos in America are full of broken culture that is left behind from centuries of oppression by the white man. Most teens like those in the movie never make it out of their neighborhoods alive. Thousands of kids die every years from gang on gang violence, damaging all chances of them escaping the ghetto and making something of themselves. Death, gangs, and drugs is the more common way that young people are left with to deal with a life of poverty and survival that seems to have no escape.

Housing was the most serious community problem in Harlem. The Negro's labor dollar was further taken by the steep rental characteristic of the segregated areas where most Negroes lived. Ellison makes this quite clear to the audience as Scofield and Dupre steal coal oil and buckets from the hardware store and set them on fire in the apartment building where they live. They make sure to get everyone to safety before they burn the building down, shouting, "You didn't think I'd do it but there it is. You wouldn't fix it up. Now see how you like it." (Ellison 548). African American's were also treated unfairly in their living quarters. There are more examples of this mistreatment in the book when The Invisible Man awakens to the sound of tenants beating on the pipes, due to no heat, at Mary's apartment building and also the eviction of the elderly couple, the Provo's.

Lorraine Hansberry develops the theme that racial discrimination makes it hard to obtain the American Dream through the use of setting. The play takes place in Southside Chicago 1950. During this time the south was segregated by racist Jim Crow Laws. Jim Crow Laws were laws requiring the separation of whites from persons of color. Many African Americans faced unofficial racial barriers in the North. Black and white communities were even segregated from each other. Black and white communities were very different. Buying a house in a black community was different from buying a house in a white community. Black communities were more expensive and were less well-kept, in contrast to white communities being cheaper, very clean, and well-kept. Linder states, “I want you to believe me when I tell you that race prejudice simply doesn’t enter into it. It is a matter of the people of Clybourne Park believing, rightly or wrongly, as I say, that for the happiness of all concerned that our Negro families are happier when they live in their own communities.” Linder is trying to say that they are not trying to be racist but clearly are because they are telling the Younger’s that they can not live there because it is an all white community and blacks have their own communities. Linder offers money for the Younger’s to leave just so that they don’t have any blacks in their all white community. Galens states, “Mama Younger has the money to pay for a house she wants, but people attempt to

In the very first vignette Esperanza discusses how her family moved around a lot and even though the house on Mango Street was not the house of their dreams, it was a great achievement to own it. Although Esperanza knew they were not moving anytime soon, she recognized one advantage; her family was free of landlord management. In my community home ownership is a constant battle and for many simply a dream. I learn the value of home ownership in a similar sequence as Esperanza. My little sister and I were moved to and from apartment to family member’s houses until our first small home. A home with no back yard and only four stairs and side walk out front. None the

The purpose for writing this essay is to demonstrate how gentrification is shaping the Culture and identity for Halrmites from the socio-economic perspective. Harlem has changed dramatically over the last two decades due to improvement in housing stock and outside investments into the community. However, in my essay, I articulated my ideas toward the economic aspect of gentrification because gentrification is driven by class, not race. My audience would be the lower income Harlem residents who have been displaced or on the verge of displacement because their wealth is not contributing to the economy. The people who have been preserving the cultural identity of Harlem for decades now forced to leave the community. I tried my best to connect a broader audience by explaining the deteriorated housing condition of Harlem and how it led to gentrification. This will help reader

Tissot claims that “Gentrifies want to elaborate a way of life different from that of the suburbs, translating certain liberal ideas into action. At the same time, they still have a deep-rooted fear of the “ghettos” and of “the other” especially as embodied by black men. (p. 250)” Upper middle class came to the South End not because they could no longer afford to live in the suburbs or the higher end side of the town, but because they wanted a different scenery, a more diverse scenery. But as Tissot states, their “love of diversity goes hand in hand with its strict limitation and control. (p. 246)” Prior to moving to South End, these pioneers had their own residential norms embedded in them.