Block Busting

Wikipedia says: Blockbusting was a business practice of U.S. real estate agents and building developers meant to encourage white property owners to sell their houses at a loss, by implying that racial, ethnic, or religious minorities — Blacks, Hispanics, Jews et al. — were moving into their previously racially segregated neighborhood, thus depressing real estate property values. Blockbusting became possible after the legislative dismantling of legally-protected racially-segregated real estate practices after World War II, but by the 1980s it disappeared as a business practice after changes in law and the real estate market.

In the early 60’s, some friends of mine were the first African Americans to move into their neighborhood in the suburbs of Baltimore, moving into the area of Baltimore County out on Liberty Road.

They went not as far out as Randallstown, it was close to the city line area but clearly suburban, and it was perceived that they posed a threat to the neighborhood.

I can no longer remember if there were incidents beyond the first few families who immediately put their houses up for sale, but they were full of stories for me about discrimination in Baltimore, in the early days.

The couple was older than me so they had experiences relating to the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s that were before my time as an adult, and I hadn’t realized their predicaments. They are both gone now, the wife having passed away in 1976 and her husband in 2005. However, I prefer to leave out their names because their story is probably just universal for the times.

I had many questions of them because their culture was not mine, although of course it was. I had come from growing up in a segregated background and had not really seen discrimination from their perspective. Where I lived, the discrimination against Jews was talked about but never seen much in my life.

I learned from them that they could not, for many years, enter Baltimore Department stores, save one. For the one store that let them in, they were not able to try on clothes, just look and purchase. They were not allowed to return items of clothing.

They always paid their bills at the Department store central office cashier, and when asked why, they told me that banks had never let them have checking accounts, so even after they were allowed to have them by law, they chose to continue with the old, more comfortable ways.

Learning from them was a rich cultural experience for me, and one I will always remember.

The story however, that came to mind was one where the husband was out mowing his lawn. They had a beautiful lawn and garden. A man pulled up and watched him mow for a bit, rolled down his window and beckoned my friend to come over to speak with him.

He stopped the mower and went over to speak to the man. He was told how beautiful the lawn and garden were and the man wanted to negotiate with him to come over and do his lawn.

My friend was a bit dumbfounded, but smiled politely, and suggested to the man that this was his own lawn and unlike a gardener for hire, he was just a poor schnook with a Masters Degree in Education, forced to mow his own lawn.

The man was stopped in his tracks. He would have apologized sooner we believed, but it took a while at that point in our history for the man to believe what he had just been told!