Mapping Inequality: Minnesota’s Geography of Race

 

Mapping Inequality: Minnesota’s Geography of Race

Our readings explore how geography and power intertwine—through redlining, blockbusting, and both de jure (by law) and de facto (by practice) segregation. These are not abstract terms from far-off cities; they shaped our own neighborhoods.

To see how, watch Jim Crow of the North (Twin Cities PBS):
👉 Jim Crow of the North – YouTube

The film traces how, in early-to-mid-20th-century Minnesota, racism was mapped into the landscape itself. Mortgage lenders and developers drew red lines around Black neighborhoods, denying loans and insurance there. These color-coded maps guided federal agencies, banks, and homebuyers alike—creating what we now call institutional segregation.

Real-estate agents practiced blockbusting, convincing white homeowners that Black families moving in would lower property values. When panic-selling began, speculators bought houses cheaply and resold them at inflated prices to the very families who’d been excluded elsewhere. It was a system that looked like economics but functioned as social engineering.

Though de jure segregation (segregation enforced by law) was never written into Minnesota’s statutes the way it was in the Deep South, de facto segregation—maintained by restrictive covenants, predatory lending, and neighborhood pressure—produced the same result: racial boundaries visible from space, measurable in wealth, education, and health to this day. Highways like I-94 later reinforced those divides, cutting through historically Black communities such as Rondo in St. Paul.

The video also introduces key terms like racial covenant, urban renewal, and white flight—each a small gear in a vast machine of segregation. Together, they show how geography isn’t just the study of where things are, but why they are where they are.

And that brings us to the moral: these maps were drawn by human hands. They can be redrawn. Every zoning meeting, every new development, is another chance to decide whether our geography reflects fear—or fairness.

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