The first 8 or so years after the Civil War, blacks relatively had decent lives. Blacks were able to own land, black men were able to vote. Black men held major public offices including being appointed to the US Senate and Congress. President Grant deployed US troops to the south to oversee and protect. Then jacked up Hayes compromise kicked in when he got elected president and he removed the troops and basically the Jim Crow was born.
Jim Crow are was detrimental to blacks now. The KKK was now formed. Many blacks were lynched. Racists made it hard for blacks to vote with stupid laws like counting the number of jelly beans in a jar among other laws. Blacks could not hold public office. Blacks could not go to the public schools.
By the time of WW1 on through the 20s and 30s the Great Migration began where blacks from the south came up to the northern cities hoping for better opportunities like schools and jobs. Unfortunately blacks faces as much segregation in the north as they did in the south. Housing segregation now led to blacks living together in certain parts of the cities. Employment segregation led to poverty in these areas.
Poverty leads to despair. Despair leads to substance, abuse and crime. By the 60s, the black family is starting lose is grip. Young people are choosing the streets. Also, by the 60s blacks are now allowed access to the welfare system that FDR did not include for them. Vietnam war, substance abuse, incarceration etc lead to the rise in single mothers. The 1964 and 1965 Voting and Civil rights bills ended Jim Crow. However, segregation and discrimination in employment, housing/redling, loans still exists going into the 70s. Throughout the 70s crime and the number of gangs increases as these folks still live in despair in the same communities.
By the 80s the 3rd and forth generations are still living in poverty as the cycle continues. Single motherhood continues. Also, by the 80s the crack cocaine epidemic hits the inner cities badly. Substance abuse is at at all time high now. Incarceration due to crack cocaine takes away a lot of men away from the families as well as gang related warfare selling the crack is exacerbated.
Children born under these conditions brains do not get fully developed due to poor prenatal care. Most I believe are inflicted with PTSD from the fail violence that they experience. This leads to poor academic performance and poor behavior in schools.
A brief introduction to America's long history of racist housing policy.
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Were black ghettos a product of white reaction to the Great Migration in the 1920s and 1930s, or did the ghettoization process have earlier roots? This presentation takes advantage of recently available data on black and white residential patterns ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov