TIL that @FHA worked with @UNC to build a segregated subdivision for African American employees before WWII in Chapel Hill.

I think I've got the correct neighborhood below. 1/10

From the FHA's Second Quarter 1941 issue of "Insured Mortgage Portfolio," here's the whole article with a few musings from me to follow. 2/10

It's not any big revelation to discover an instance of either the FHA or Chapel Hill deeply enmeshed in racial segregation. FHA's underwriting guidelines encouraged segregation and just a few years prior UNC rejected Pauli Murray because of her race. 3/10

https://library.unc.edu/past-exhibits/pauli-murray-birth-of-an-activist/

Black people in the south at the time were incredibly poorly paid and poorly housed on average. Nonetheless, FHA mortgages were so effective at lowering the monthly outlay for new houses that these Black UNC workers could afford a solid, modest new home... 4/10

...and the federal government and the premier state institution facilitated it so long as it was in a segregated neighborhood.

Also, Carolina Housing & Mortgage Co., the mortgagee in this development, made almost 40 FHA-insured loans in Guilford County in the late 30s. 5/10

These loans were all, I think, to white borrowers as the FHA redlined Greensboro. My collection from that area shows CH&Mc held some of these and sold some to the nascent Federal National Mortgage Association and the Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company. 6/10

In other words, capital's amoral.

On the general issue of redlining, Chapel Hill did not have a HOLC map as it was less than 40k in population. It also did not have a Real Property Inventory which the FHA used in the 1930s to technocratically redline in some cities. 7/10

Instead, this case illustrates the general fact that the FHA wanted new housing built and existed to facilitate that end. Also, this anomalous case supports the FHA's contention that their concern in underwriting was racial mixing rather than African Americans per se. 8/10

In UNC's case, the mix of seemingly good intentions with white supremacy is interesting. Helping Black workers get better homes was alright. Those folks living in the same neighborhood, though, was unimaginable. 9/10

Anyway, thanks for reading this far. I've undoubtedly missed and mixed up some stuff. Support workers at universities especially now but also always! They are, or should be, our neighbors. 10/10