Bluford Library to Host Series on Redlining in Greensboro

EAST GREENSBORO, N.C. (Feb. 16, 2022) – F.D. Bluford Library at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University received a $7,450 grant from North Carolina Humanities to explore the history of redlining in Greensboro, North Carolina.

This important funding will support a series of talks among scholars, writers and Greensboro’s Black community that reflect on the history of discriminatory housing practices, such as redlining, and how this history continues to impact Black Americans and East Greensboro.

“The History of Redlining in East Greensboro: Conversations about Our City’s Past and Present” will be complemented by a traveling exhibit of documents, maps and photos from N.C. A&T State University Archives showing changes that have taken place in East Greensboro between the 1930s, when redlining practices began, to today.

F.D. Bluford Library will host an event each month by collaborating with the community and organizations like Dudley High School, Greensboro Bound and Greensboro Public Library to plan these events and launch a discussion about the ways the Greensboro community can create an equitable future in housing.

• “Redlining Today,” Feb. 17, 5:30 p.m., Dudley High School Auditorium. A panel of community leaders, including Yvonne Johnson, former mayor and current executive director of One Step Further Inc.; the Rev. Bradley Hunt, Greensboro NAACP president; and Padonda Webb, DNP, FNP-BC, director of the Student Health Center at A&T discuss redlining’s lasting effects on Greensboro.
• “Segregating Neighborhoods, Beyond Policy,” March 10, 7 p.m., Greensboro Public Library, Main Branch. Gene Slater, author of “Freedom to Discriminate: How Realtors Conspired to Segregate Housing and Divide America,” and one of the nation’s leading advisors on affordable housing, will be in conversation with Kim Cameron, executive director of the N.C. A&T Real Estate Foundation. This conversation will explore how the real estate industry systematically excluded African Americans from neighborhoods and how Greensboro can create a more equitable housing environment.
• “How Redlining Segregated Greensboro and America,” April 14, 7 p.m., Greensboro History Museum. A panel of historians, archivists and community members will discuss the history of redlining in Greensboro and America.
• “A Conversation with Nikole-Hannah Jones,” May 21, 7 p.m., Harrison Auditorium, A&T. Nikole Hannah-Jones, of The New York Times Magazine and creator of The 1619 Project, and Jelani M. Favors, Ph.D., the Henry E. Frye Distinguished Professor at A&T and award-winning author of “Shelter in a Time of Storm,” will be in a wide-ranging conversation about Hannah-Jones’ work to chronicle “the decades long failure of the federal government to enforce the landmark 1968 Fair Housing Act” and her book, “The 1619 Project.”

All events are in person and following Guilford County and A&T COVID-19 protocols. Masks are required.

This project was made possible by a grant from North Carolina Humanities, a statewide nonprofit and affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.