- Mar 11, 2015
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From DEMOS
How the GI Bill Left Out African Americans
Economic success in America is often seen as a reflection of what kind of family a person was born into, how hard they work, and what kinds of opportunites exist in the economy. Of course, though, the story goes much deeper than that. How well a person's parents were positioned financially tends to reflect the well-being of the family they grew up in and, in turn, how their parents and grandparents did.
There are lots of reasons that whites have so much more wealth than nonwhites. How the GI Bill played out is one of those reasons. Whites were able to use the government guaranteed housing loans that were a pillar of the bill to buy homes in the fast growing suburbs. Those homes subsequently rose greatly in value in coming decades, creating vast new household wealth for whites during the postwar era.
But black veterans weren't able to make use of the housing provisions of the GI Bill for the most part. Banks generally wouldn't make loans for mortgages in black neighborhoods, and African-Americans were excluded from the suburbs by a combination of deed covenants and informal racism.
In short, the GI Bill helped fostered a long-term boom in white wealth but did almost nothing to help blacks to build wealth. We are still living with the effects of that exclusion today -- and will be for a long time to come.
How the GI Bill Left Out African Americans
From your link: "But black veterans weren't able to make use of the housing provisions of the GI Bill for the most part. Banks generally wouldn't make loans for mortgages in black neighborhoods, and African-Americans were excluded from the suburbs by a combination of deed covenants and informal racism. "
Looks like it wasn't the GI Bill that was at fault, but the banks that were worried about making loans.
The banks were not "worried' about making government backed loans to whites as part if this program.