- Sun-Times Media
- A mass eviction in Chicago in 1970
Ta-Nehisi Coates loves Chicago.
But again, Coates sees the systemic racial inequality of redlining and other housing policies as a national ill, not just a Chicago one. He notes that in the 1920s, 20 to 30 percent of the population were home owners. By the 1940s, that number rose to 50 to 60 percent. This era of wealth building, however, excluded blacks.
“The idea that you are reborn anew, without your history, without being dogged by your past, without who you were haunting you and you having to deal with that, is uniquely American,” Coates says. “In America, we have difficulty with acknowledging the fact that where we are in a particular moment is irrevocably tied to our past. We have great difficulty in doing that when it challenges us.”
