Redlining was not a metaphor. Beginning in the 1930s, the federal Home Owners' Loan Corporation sent appraisers into American cities to draw "residential security maps" grading every neighborhood from best to "hazardous." In Atlanta, as in most cities, the grades tracked race: blocks where Black families lived were marked down regardless of the age or quality of the housing or how stable the neighborhood was.

What the grades actually did

The maps were advisory. The damage came from everything they fed. Federal mortgage insurance and then private lenders used those grades to decide where home loans and insurance would be made, and for Black neighborhoods the answer was usually no. In the 1950s and 1960s, federal highway and urban renewal money arrived in the same corridors, clearing housing for interstates, stadiums and civic buildings.

Why it still shows up in the numbers

What followed was decades of rationed credit, a shrinking tax base and displaced families. The measurable result is still visible in homeownership rates, home values and appraisal gaps between Black and white neighborhoods. Researchers continue to use the digitized HOLC maps to trace today's wealth gap back to the lines drawn on those sheets.