Zoom forum at Stan State will revisit Modesto’s history of segregated neighborhoods
An online forum will reopen a painful topic – how people of color were barred from some Modesto neighborhoods.
It will take place from 2 to 3 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 18, on a Zoom link sponsored by the geography department at California State University, Stanislaus.
Sharon and David Froba will share their research into property deeds that kept Blacks, Latinos and other minorities from buying many homes from the 1930s to the 1950s.
This government-sanctioned discrimination took place around the nation, even as the Civil Rights Movement made progress against racism.
The Frobas’ findings were detailed in a 2019 piece by Garth Stapley, opinion editor for The Modesto Bee.
The forum is part of Stan State’s celebration of National GIS Day. That refers to geographic information systems – computer-based tools for gathering data about places.
COVID-19 forced the usual live observance to go online. People who would like to take part should register by Sunday, Nov. 15, at www.csustan.edu/geography/gis-day.
White-only areas included La Loma
Modesto’s white-only areas included parts of the La Loma Neighborhood, just east of downtown, and some of the blocks between Coldwell and Roseburg avenues. West and south Modesto had some, too.
A typical deed said, “No part of said real property shall ever be occupied at any time by any person or persons not of the white or Caucasian race.” Newspaper ads often said “restricted” to convey that certain residents were not welcome.
The discrimination was compounded by federal policies, dating to the New Deal, that kept many people of color from getting government-backed mortgages and other help with housing.
The Frobas worked with a group of volunteer students at Modesto High School on the research. As of September 2019, they had found racial restrictions in 85 of the 169 subdivisions in Modesto at the time. The total has since risen to 91, Sharon Froba said by phone Tuesday.
They would like to continue the research, including parts of Stanislaus County outside Modesto. Pandemic rules complicate visits to the county recorder’s office, where deeds are housed.
Restrictions affect families to this day
The discrimination of the middle 20th century helps explain why median wealth for Black families is only 5% that of whites today, economist Richard Rothstein wrote.
Black owners could not amass home equity very well if they were kept from neighborhoods with higher values, Rothstein said in his 2017 book, “The Color of Law.” He is a distinguished fellow at the Economic Policy Institute at the University of California, Berkeley.
Rothstein was scheduled to speak at Modesto Junior College in March of this year. COVID-19 canceled the event.
This year has also brought new attention to police treatment of Black people, spurred by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and other cases. Protesters in Modesto and many other places urged a deep look at poverty and other underlying reasons for the tensions. The Stan State forum will continue the conversation.
“There’s no better way to prove to people that there’s systemic racism than showing them these maps,” Sharon Froba said.
