Like so many other government agencies during the New Deal, HOLC and its parent bureau, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, shaped Americans' lives and livelihoods profoundly during and after the Great Depression of the 1930s. Both proved critical to protecting and expanding home ownership, to standardizing lending practices, and to encouraging residential and commercial real estate investment in a flagging economy. Across the middle third of the twentieth century, arguably the most prosperous decades in American history, these agencies worked with public and private sector partners to create millions of jobs and help millions of Americans buy or keep their homes. At the very same time, federal housing programs helped codify and expand practices of racial and class segregation. They ensured, moreover, that rampant real estate speculation and environmental degradation would accompany America's remarkable economic recovery and growth.

This Learning Resource is based on the Bunk excerpt of The Nib's "The Black Radical You've Never Heard Of"

For a quarter century, the federal government provided funding for cities large and small to raze "blighted" or "slum" neighborhoods. Though improved housing opportunities was the ostensible goal, over time, cities used federal funds to stimulate commercial and industrial redevelopment. Through these programs, cities displaced hundreds of thousands of families from their homes and neighborhoods. Renewing Inequality visualizes those displacements and urban renewal more generally.

Lesson plan includes an audio clip, transcript, SCIM-C activity script, worksheets, and model student results. Students will be able to describe Massive Resistance in Virginia in response to the Brown v. Board of Education ​ruling (VUS.13). Requires map of U.S. and artifacts reflecting responses across the U.S. From Voices of Virginia http://hdl.handle.net/10919/96912  Feedback welcome https://bit.ly/VoicesOfVirginia