Redlining: The Myth That Keeps Black America in Chains

Let me tell you what frustrates me about this whole conversation on redlining: you can’t win either way.

If banks don’t give loans to unqualified Black borrowers, it’s called discrimination. If they do give loans and those borrowers default, it’s called predatory lending. If white people move out of a struggling community, it’s white flight. If they move in, it’s gentrification.

See the pattern? No matter what happens, the narrative always revolves around victimhood. Redlining has become one of the biggest excuses in that victimhood playbook.

For years, the word redlining has been thrown around like a weapon. It’s one of those terms people love to drop in debates, in classrooms, and on social media as “proof” that Black people in America have been systematically robbed of success. But here’s the truth: the popular story about redlining is one of the most disingenuous half-truths pushed in our culture today.

It’s not told to create solutions, build a better future, or perpetuate victimhood. As long as we continue to swallow this distorted narrative, we’ll keep holding ourselves back instead of seeing the opportunities right in front of us.

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The Story You’ve Been Told

We’ve all heard the line: “The government drew red lines around Black neighborhoods to deny them loans, trapping them in poverty while whites got rich in the suburbs.”

Sounds convincing, right? Only one problem: it’s not the whole truth. In fact, it’s not even close.

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The Truth About HOLC Maps

Let’s start with facts. The infamous redlining maps were drawn in the late 1930s by the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC)—but here’s the kicker:

• They were drawn AFTER HOLC had already refinanced over a million loans. These maps weren’t even used to approve or deny mortgages (Fishback et al., 2021, NBER).

• HOLC actually helped Black homeowners by giving out loans at better rates than the private market. In 47 cities, the share of HOLC loans going to Black borrowers was higher than their share of homeowners (Fishback et al., 2021).

So, the claim that “HOLC maps were a government plot to lock Black people out of homeownership” is flat-out false.

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Who Really Lived in the Red Zones?

Here’s a fact nobody likes to mention:

• Over 95% of Black homeowners were placed in red (“D”) zones, but

• 92% of all homes in those red zones were owned by whites (Fishback et al., 2021).

Read that again. More whites lived in redlined areas than Blacks in sheer numbers. Were Blacks disproportionately affected? Yes. Were whites also heavily impacted? Absolutely.

But activists and politicians rarely tell you that part of the story. Why? Because “systematic oppression of all poor people” doesn’t fuel victimhood narratives or political power.

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Did You Know?

• The HOLC maps were drawn after most loans had already been made.

• White families made up 92% of homeowners in redlined zones.

• Racial bias explains only 4–20% of Black concentration in red zones. The rest was due to decades of prior economic disadvantage.

• In many cities, Black families got HOLC loans in greater proportion than private lenders ever offered.

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Economic Distress, Not Just Race

The NBER study makes this clear: racial bias accounted for at most 4–20% of why Black families were concentrated in redlined areas (Fishback et al., 2021).

The bigger reason? Decades of economic disadvantage. Black families were already confined to struggling neighborhoods long before the government stepped in. Poor schools, job discrimination, weak property rights, and outright violence pushed them into distressed areas.

When HOLC drew its maps, it mostly reflected these realities. Boundaries were set where there were already sharp differences in housing values, incomes, and neighborhood conditions. In other words, the maps reflected poverty more than they created it.

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The Narrative of Victimhood

Here’s the bottom line: the popular retelling of redlining is designed to trap Black Americans in a victimhood mindset. It tells us: “You can’t succeed because of what they did to you 90 years ago.”

But history tells a different story. Even in the face of discrimination, Black families bought homes, built communities, and fought back. For example, the Contract Buyers League in Chicago was organized in the 1960s to renegotiate exploitative contracts and win better terms for thousands of Black homeowners.

We don’t hear enough about that resilience because it doesn’t fit the narrative.

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What Do We Do Next?

So where do we go from here?

We stop repeating the myths and start taking responsibility for the future. Our ancestors built families, businesses, and churches under conditions far worse than anything we face today. If they could push forward when the deck was stacked against them, what excuse do we have now—when the opportunities in front of us are greater than ever?

• Build financial literacy.

• Strengthen family foundations.

• Invest in ownership, not victimhood.

• Teach our kids resilience, not resentment.

Because the truth is simple: no map drawn in the 1930s controls your destiny in 2025.

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Final Word

Redlining was real, but the narrative surrounding it has been hijacked to keep Black America in a cycle of grievance. Yes, there was discrimination. But no, it didn’t make us permanent victims. The real tragedy isn’t what happened in the past—it’s when we let myths about the past rob us of the future.

The future belongs to those who choose action over excuses, strength over weakness, and truth over lies. It’s time we stop clinging to victimhood and start walking boldly into victory.

If we keep playing the “you can’t win either way” game, we’ll already lose. But if we break free from that mindset—no excuse, no victim card—then nothing can stop us.

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Sources

• Fishback, Price V., Jessica LaVoice, Allison Shertzer, and Randall Walsh. The HOLC Maps: How Race and Poverty Influenced Real Estate Professionals’ Evaluation of Lending Risk in the 1930s. NBER Working Paper No. 28146, Revised 2021. PDF Link

• Sowell, Thomas. Discrimination and Disparities. Basic Books, 2018.