Our Pillars

Narrator:

Everyone has a racial identity.

Where you live can determine your quality of life, from access to stores to the air you breathe.

And although the United States is becoming more racially diverse, most people live in segregated communities.

Living around people similar to you can promote feelings of pride and safety.

Still, racist practices have created legacies of privilege and discrimination.

To uphold segregation, white Americans used protests, violence, and the law.

In 1859, Oregon joined the union as a slavery-free state but made it illegal for black people to live or own property there.

In 1940, 80 percent of private property deeds in Chicago and Los Angeles prohibited their sale to non-white families.

And redlining ranked areas from desirable to hazardous using color-coded maps in more than 200 cities and towns across the United States.

The red hazardous areas represent black and multiracial communities, which received lower property values and became targets for invasive development projects, like interstate highways, sports stadiums, and pipelines that destroyed neighborhoods.

Often, people cannot successfully fight back, but in 1982, when North Carolina's government knowingly dumped toxic soil in predominantly black Warren County, residents took action.

Activists blocked the delivery trucks and filed legal actions against the state.

Today, a historical marker preserves their struggle against environmental racism.

Racial justice movements include the protection of the environment and the people who inhabit it, because all people should have a safe and healthy place to call home.

Join the Smithsonian's Our Shared Future: Reckoning With Our Racial Past to better understand what was and create what can be.