Newsweek, October 1, 2021, The Challenge of Defeating Illiteracy In America
The effects of redlining – a government policy instituted in the 1930s that saw Black communities prevented from receiving home loans – are still evident today in America’s unequal literacy rates.
At the time, inaccessibility to home loans drastically reduced investment into Black communities, and led to underfunded schools and libraries.
The National Community Reinvestment Coalition reports that those patterns still persist today, as 74% of neighborhoods redlined by governments eight decades ago are low- and moderate-income communities today. As a result, schools in such spaces remain low on capital, which contributes to the continuing racial gap in literacy rates seen today.
