The Color Tax
Episode 1: The Color Tax
Air Date: April 18, 2024
Director
Based on the book: Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban America by Beryl Satter
Narrated By: Linda Kimbrough | Animation by: Nate Ziller
While the white middle class was rapidly expanding and benefiting from federal policies that promoted their home equity, Black families were forced to purchase residences via contract sales, paying premiums for homes that they could lose after missing just a single payment. This episode explores the devastating impact that these contracts had on Black wealth-building and racial comity in Chicago, and their role in jumpstarting a wealth gap that continued to widen as white affluence grew.
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