SEGREGATION

Background

As we saw in Section 6, our education landscape is deeply divided along racial and socioeconomic lines, with majority Black districts having access to a fraction of the property wealth found in majority White districts, especially districts in mid-County and West County. Why is that? What led to these patterns of concentrated wealth and Whiteness and vice-versa? In some ways, the answer is as simple as this: federal, state, and local policies made it exceedingly difficult for Black families to obtain property, and, when they did, if that property became too valuable, local forces used their authority and power to take it. Ultimately, the wild unevenness in wealth and (as we’ll see in section 8) quality in our school districts is rooted in a history of racism and public policy, and, as a result, economic decline.

Housing Policy, Nationally and Locally, Has a Long History of Racism…

For as long as Black individuals have had the right to own land, there have been limitations and conditions constraining that freedom to suit the preferences of White lawmakers and property owners. For a period, namely during the era of the New Deal, many federal, state, and local housing policies were explicitly racist. One of the starkest examples of this is the establishment of the Federal Housing Administration in 1934. The FHA is the primary way in which the federal government catalyzes home ownership. It is credited with suburbanizing America and helping to build the (White) middle class. However, for decades, it worked explicitly on the behalf of White Americans: Black homebuyers were not eligible for FHA-backed loans or received far less favorable terms. 

Arguing that Black home ownership in or even near burgeoning suburbs would drive down the property values of the White-owned homes they were insuring, the FHA drew maps of metropolitan areas in the country color-coding Black neighborhoods red to indicate that they were too risky to insure. It demanded developers build walls to keep Black individuals from crossing over into White neighborhoods. It insisted on the inclusion of restrictive covenants in the deeds for the properties they insured to guarantee that the homes would never be sold to Black individuals. The policies implemented at a national level by the FHA and other bodies set the tone for state and local policies that nurtured the racist beliefs held by countless individuals. 

As historian Colin Gordon points out, St. Louis was, in fact, a national leader in segregationist innovation. In the early 1900s, St. Louis was one of a few cities to formalize racial segregation with the so-called St. Louis Law. The boilerplate language used by the St. Louis Real Estate Exchange in their contracts outlining who could own the properties they sold included “a restriction against selling, conveying, leasing, or renting to a negro or negroes, or the delivery of possession, to or permitting to be occupied by a negro or negroes of said property.” Such restrictive covenants were found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1948 because of the St. Louis case, Shelley v. Kraemer. But the segregation they created was sustained by private discrimination in real estate and lending, and by public policies such as local land-use zoning.

The homes and neighborhoods the FHA helped develop went on to be the primary vehicle to the middle class for their owners and their families. Affordably priced at twice the median national income in 1950, today they are worth six to eight times the national median income. That increase in equity sent kids to college. It sheltered owners from financial storms as they aged. It served as a springboard for the next generation’s ambitions. These were advantages that were uniquely—and intentionally—afforded to White homeowners. They are major drivers of why, today, Black wealth is one tenth the size of White wealth.

…The Interstate System Has a Long History of Racism, Too

Highways, the FHA urged in its Underwriting Manual, were a great way of separating Black neighborhoods from White neighborhoods. The interstate highway system was created in the 1950s and 1960s. While the federal government took on most of the costs, local officials were often able to influence the paths. In metropolises across the country, those expressways, highways, and interstates were frequently pointed right through “blighted”, majority Black, low-income neighborhoods, displacing millions. St. Louis was no exception. To build Interstate 55, the Black neighborhood of Pleasant View was razed. Interstate 44 pushed Black families out of The Hill and demolished parts of Meacham Park, an established Black neighborhood in Kirkwood.

Let’s Go Back to Brentwood For a Second

Those transportation thoroughfares also shunted economic activity towards some areas, away from others, and directly through still others. Remember the Brentwood School District, home to just under 800 mostly White, wealthy students? It wasn’t always that way. At the intersection of Eager Road and Brentwood Boulevard, where you now will find a bustling commercial hub, was once the Black neighborhood of Howard-Evans Place. Established in 1907, Howard-Evans Place predated the Great Migration and was home to the workers of the Evens & Howard Fire Brick Co and their families. Recalled as one of the first places a Black family could buy a new home in St. Louis. It went on to become a bastion of the Black middle class. By the 1970s, because of its prime location, Howard-Evans Place had captured the attention of others. Highway expansion, redevelopment plans, and Metrolink expansion all threatened the neighborhood multiple times starting in 1977. Finally, in 1995, the neighborhood association agreed to a buyout, leading to the development of Brentwood Promenade.

When the buyout took place, the City of Brentwood valued the property of Howard-Evans Place at $3.6 million. After Brentwood Promenade was developed, it was valued at $30 million. The Promenade also encouraged an additional $300 million in development in Brentwood over the next five years, including the redevelopment of Brentwood Square Town Center, Brentwood Pointe, and the Villas at Brentwood. Today, the economic benefits of that thriving retail center are enjoyed almost solely by the small and affluent Brentwood school district.

 A similar pattern of Black displacement to allow for development that disproportionately benefits White St. Louisans has been repeated throughout the region, from Clayton, to Mill Creek Valley, to Meacham Park.

Schools Both Contribute to and Are Impacted By Segregation

Schools were part and parcel of the overt and implicit ways in which racial lines were drawn in our region; indeed, they were among the last of our institutions to desegregate. While Brown v. Board found segregated schools to be unconstitutional in 1954, it took decades for desegregation to actually happen. This led to a second ruling by the Supreme Court in 1955, often called Brown II, that ordered states to integrate with “all deliberate speed,” which in practice was vague enough to allow segregationist states to delay. Missouri dragged its feet until it removed the language from its constitution in 1976—22 years after Brown v. Board of Education and longer than most states in the south. (If you’re wondering, some states, like Alabama, still officially require racially segregated public education under state law). While the Supreme Court decision invalidated these portions of state constitutions, their continued existence long after the nationwide order banning segregation points to an unwillingness to let go of formalized structures for excluding Black students. Meaningful desegregation in St. Louis only occurred years later in 1983 with the implementation of an interdistrict transfer program, over a decade after a court decision on the pivotal 1972 case of Liddell v. Board of Education of City of St. Louis. 

The suit argued that Black students enrolled in SLPS received a lower quality education. While school boundary lines were constantly being redrawn, they always kept Black children in Black schools and segregated classrooms. The case moved through the court system for the next two decades. In 1980, the judge overseeing the case proposed a voluntary exchange program between City and County districts. This required the support of county school districts, which many only gave when the overseeing judge threatened to consolidate City and County school districts. In 1983, a voluntary agreement was reached and approved by all 23 districts—though notably North County majority-Black districts were excluded from the exchange program—and was implemented by the Voluntary Interdistrict Coordinating Council (VICC). Pushback from the state on its culpability and financial responsibility extended the case for another decade, and, while the VICC program was up and running throughout that time, it wasn’t until 1993 that all parties in the lawsuit came to an agreement. Around the same time, the Supreme Court handed down its verdict on Missouri v. Jenkins, which invalidated the interdistrict desegregation strategy in Kansas City. Fearing that the state of Missouri would finally get its way and end the VICC program through the courts, the parties from the Liddell case agreed to a second settlement agreement. The VICC program was cemented through 2008-09 (and renewed in 2007, 2012, and 2016, for likely the last time) and became the largest and longest running desegregation program in the country. The magnet school program was also born out of the agreement. 

The backdrop to the Liddell case was the 1974 Supreme Court case Milliken v. Bradley, which is credited for allowing schools to remain segregated when it found that segregation was allowed if it was not explicitly stated in policy.

“Race Neutral” is Not Neutral

In the wake of the Civil Rights Act and other landmark legislation like the Fair Housing Act and jurisprudence like Brown v. Board of Education, we have seen a shift away from overtly (de jure) racist policy. But striking down those policies did not undo the damage they did–the inequalities they planted. Left untreated, those inequalities have flourished, fertilized by the benign neglect and passive acceptance of current day “race neutral” policies. As a result, the patterns we see in health, wealth, and well-being in the St. Louis region bear a haunting resemblance to the redlining maps of decades ago. 

What We Looked At