Predatory Lending, Contract House Sales, and the Blues in Chicago: Eddie Boyd's “Five Long Years” and Muddy Waters’ “You Can't Lose What You Ain't Never Had”

Predatory Lending, Contract House Sales, and the Blues in Chicago: Eddie Boyd's “Five Long Years” and Muddy Waters’ “You Can't Lose What You Ain't Never Had”

In support of an argument for reparations for African Americans, Ta-Nehisi Coates cites the scandal of contract house sales in Chicago. Ross's story is typical of hard-working black migrants who fled the Jim Crow South, only to be ensnared in predatory lending schemes in a maximally segregated...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of American culture (Malden, Mass.) Mass.), 2017-06, Vol.40 (2), p.145-154
Main Author: Simon, Julia
Format: Article
Language:eng
Subjects:
African Americans
betrayal
Black people
Black white relations
Blues music
blues song
Boyd, Eddie
Boyd, Eddie C
Chicago
contract
exploitation
folk literature
folk poetry
folk song
Ghettos
Great Migration (African American)
houses
Housing
Housing market
Illinois
lending
Migrants
Muddy Waters
Neighborhoods
Poverty
Predatory lending
property law
Race relations
Racial segregation
Racism
Real estate
Real estate sales
Reparations
Residential preferences
Residential segregation
Segregation
United States
Waters, Muddy (musician)
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Summary:In support of an argument for reparations for African Americans, Ta-Nehisi Coates cites the scandal of contract house sales in Chicago. Ross's story is typical of hard-working black migrants who fled the Jim Crow South, only to be ensnared in predatory lending schemes in a maximally segregated urban landscape in Chicago.1 Blues lyrics are notoriously laconic, more suggestive and associative than narrative in nature.2 Despite the fragmentary quality of blues lyrics, meaning depends in part on the indirect invocation of historical contexts that condition both the form and the content of the blues. Racially Segregated Housing in Chicago In the first two decades of the twentieth century, racial boundaries between neighborhoods took shape in Chicago with the use of restrictive covenants to bar white owners from selling to anything but white buyers, increasingly concentrating African Americans in specific geographical areas.3 As Allan Spear argues, in the 1910s "the development of a physical ghetto in Chicago, then, was not the result chiefly of poverty; nor did Negroes cluster out of choice. Citing remarks made by the Chairman of the Chicago Housing Authority at the 1944 Mayor's Conference on Race Relations concerning conditions in the black belt, Drake and Cayton estimate that "In 1939 there was an excess population of 87,300 persons, measured by citywide standards of density. The history of segregation, enforced by restrictive covenants, limited available real estate and created a dual market.4 The segregated housing market was also supported by financial and insurance institutions that engaged in a practice...
ISSN:1542-7331
1542-734X