Nearly 90 years after it was first implemented, many cities in the United States still feel the effects of Redlining, a historically racist practice of designating neighborhoods as high or low risk for mortgage lenders, usually based on race or immigration status. Typically, it was Black residents of cities who felt this the hardest, but all minorities were treated as “risky investments” and had their neighborhoods classified as high risk, or red neighborhoods.

Started in 1934 with President Roosevelt’s New Deal, the government created the Federal Housing Administration – an organization that is part of Housing and Urban Development – which began mapping every major metropolitan area and, in partnership with the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) that had been created a year prior. They began color coding areas in these maps based on where they felt would be safe to offer mortgages.  They split these maps into four zones, split into color grades:

Green for ‘Best’, described by the HOLC as “where good mortgage lenders with available funds are willing to make their maximum loans”

Blue for ‘Still Desirable’, considered still successful for loans, but not as secure as green areas

Yellow for ‘Definitely Declining’, which was suggested for more conservative loans

Red for ‘Hazardous’, which HOLC said was “Characterized by detrimental influences in a pronounced degree, undesirable population or an infiltration of it” and they did not suggest offering loans to people in these areas

In 1935, the Omaha Home Owner Loan Corporation did their own outlining, further segregating the city from what it already was. This helped outline what is today's North and South O. Both had been their own towns in the late 1800’s before their annexation in the early 1900’s. With the government instituting redlining, these suburbs became more segregated.

South Omaha was the traditionally Roman Catholic district. Immigrants such as Irish, Czech, Italian, Greek, and Polish were more likely to be pushed into this area in the early days, with later years seeing Hispanic families finding a safe haven. North Omaha, however, was a blend of Black, German, and Jewish neighborhoods. Both of these districts were labeled with mostly lower grades by the Omaha HOLC.

These areas were surrounded by neighborhoods that were considered ‘higher income’ and were often given less funding for repairs and maintenance, leading to them often falling into disrepair. They were considered ‘dangerous’ and ‘crime ridden’ and have shown decades of evidence of persecution and hate crimes.

Omaha specifically has seen many race riots and hate crimes that have stained the city, which is part of what led to the city implementing its specific redlining. One of the more well-known are the Greek Town riot of 1909, in which a mob of over 1,000 people stormed the Greek community in South Omaha and destroyed homes and businesses, leading to almost the entirety of the Greek population of Omaha fleeing to different states.

Another well-known riot that scarred the city was the Omaha Race Riot of 1919, which was part of the infamous Red Summer where white supremacists caused race riots across the United States. The Omaha Race Riot was started with the arrest of Will Brown, a black man who was being held on suspicion of raping a 19-year-old white girl named Agnes Loebeck, although the evidence against him was flimsy at best. Somewhere between 5,000-15,000 people surrounded the Douglas County Courthouse where Brown was being held, where they stormed the building, seizing Brown and murdering him via lynching. The rioting lasted for hours, and multiple people were killed in the chaos.

In 1969, following the Civil Rights movement, the city of Omaha issued a ‘Open House Ordinance’, which made redlining illegal and allowed for integration of neighborhoods. However, this led to the phenomenon called ‘White Flight’, in which white individuals rushed out of areas that were slowly seeing minorities moving in. This led to an increase in population to West Omaha, and the growth in the areas of Millard, Elkhorn, and Ralston. Omaha schools would soon also be tried in court for working with real estate companies to continue segregating neighborhoods, slowing the integration of students (United States v. School District of Omaha, 1975).

Still even today, there is clear evidence of where redlining existed, as census data still shows clear lines in North and South O where different neighborhoods are still segregated, and where large sections of the city still have a lack of diversity.

Many cities across the country still see evidence of how redlining permanently carved up cities and even 50 or so years after integration was instituted, we are still left fighting against the harms that such racist ideology created.