Freedom to Discriminate shows the connection between two defining features of modern America that are rarely thought of together: the creation of residential segregation in every city in the country, and of a conservative counter-idea of American freedom in the 1960s – of freedom without regard to the rights of others — that has shifted America more and more to the right ever since.
Both were 20th century inventions, as invented as the airplane. Both were designed to divide Americans. Both were created by a private business organization – the nation’s realtors — to sell homes and maintain their business practices. Like so many innovations, California was at the center of these changes, from the country’s first all-white neighborhood in Berkeley, to realtors’ successful 1964 state constitutional amendment to authorize segregation that shaped the rise of Ronald Reagan.
Confidential documents from leaders of the real estate industry show how they constructed what have become many of our most intractable divides today – not only geographic, but social, economic and ideological. Far from impacting only those it excluded, residential segregation dramatically reshaped the country for all Americans, the neighborhoods where we live, and the beliefs that drive our enormous polarization today. This story shows the power of distinguishing two opposite ideas of American freedom: exclusive freedom that belongs only to yourself and those like you as your private property and that uses the language of libertarianism to enforce community conformity, versus inclusive freedom that belongs to the country as a whole and thus equally to all.
An in-person and virtual presentation by Gene Slater, author and founding principal of CSG Advisors