The Advocates for Racial Equity (ARE) at Pilgrim are studying the terrorism perpetrated on Nellie and William Francis one hundred years ago in their home just blocks from Pilgrim. By confronting the reality of what happened in our backyard one hundred years ago, we hope to break through the denial that still today keeps us from owning our individual and local community accountability for the destruction that comes from racism. Many groups are engaging in this same work. This forum will help us learn about two of them.
The Mapping Prejudice project at the University of MN has created a huge data set on racial covenants and redlining practices in Hennepin County real estate. Data analysis demonstrates the ways in which these practices segregated communities and created corridors of de-valued housing and economic struggle. Some of those corridors were then destroyed to make way for parts of highways 94 and 35W.
St. Catherine University, in a project called Welcoming the Dear Neighbor, is working toward completing the Ramsey County part of the racial covenant and redlining data collection as well as adding new approaches to understanding historic racist real estate practices in Ramsey County. The Forum will be presented by members of the project team at SCU.
Come to this Forum to join ARE in learning more about racism in real estate patterns and practices and to consider participating as a “citizen scientist” by reading warranty deeds and entering information (both online) to help expand the data set.