Redlining in Omaha

Welcome.

The student history projects, lesson plans, and teaching activities collected here explore how discriminatory practices, known as redlining, led to the decline of neighborhood commercial centers in communities of color in eastern Omaha.

The neighborhood history projects, created by OPS students, teachers and university students, include: detailed neighborhood historical information, a guiding question, an oral history interview with a community elder as well as youth-driven ideas for the neighborhood’s future.  The accompanying lesson plans and teaching activities provide economics, history, geography teachers means to utilize this content in their high school classroom.

 (HOLC Map of Omaha, ca 1935. Courtesy of Paula Strand.) "Beginning in 1936, the neighborhoods of Omaha’s Near North and South sides were systematically segregated from the rest of the city by means of prohibitive and discriminatory home lending practices. In Omaha, and cities across the country, red lines were literally drawn on city maps by the federally-funded Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, identifying predominantly African-American and immigrant communities as “hazardous” and unfit for investment." -Undesign the Redline

2019 PROJECTS

Central Park

2019 Projects
The Central Park neighborhood stretches from North 33rd to North 48th and Ames Avenue to Sorenson Parkway. This area, which was considered an early suburb, was settled in the 1870s and originally named West Saratoga.
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Additional Information

In this section, we have compiled articles, online educational resources, and videos to help educators and community members learn more about the history of redlining in the United States.

Interactive Maps:

 Interactive Map: Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America (University of Richmond)

https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=4/36.71/-96.93&opacity=0.8 

Interactive Map: The Racial Dot Map (University of Virginia)

Online Educational Resources:

"Teaching Tolerance" Toolkit: 

https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/fall-2018/toolkit-for-segregation-by-design  

Undesign the Redline Project (Designing the We and the UNION):

http://www.designingthewe.com/undesign-the-redline/ 

https://www.u-ca.org/redline

Helpful articles about redlining: 

"Why Are Cities Still So Segregated?"  (NPR)

The impact of the HOLC on the economic development of American neighborhoods. 

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2018/04/11/601494521/video-housing-segregation-in-everything 

"How Redlining's Racist Effects Lasted Decades" (New York Times)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/24/upshot/how-redlinings-racist-effects-lasted-for-decades.html

"Interactive Redlining Map Zooms in on America's History of Discrimination" (NPR)

Radio Interviews:

"The Color of Law Details How Housing Policy Created Segregation"  (All Things Considered)

https://www.npr.org/2017/05/17/528822128/the-color-of-law-details-how-u-s-housing-policies-created-segregation

Books

"The Color of Law" (Richard Rothstein)

https://wwnorton.com/books/The-Color-of-Law/