Sixty years ago, the goal of minority populations in cities like Chattanooga as the Civil Rights Era neared its end was to live wherever they chose across the area.
That, of course, was why the federal Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968, prohibiting race discrimination in sales and rentals of housing. That legally outlawed the practice of redlining, which literally meant minorities couldn’t live in neighborhoods beyond a certain red line on a map.
The significance was even captured in culture in 1975 when television’s Louise and George Jefferson were “movin’ on up to the east side,” where they “finally got a piece of the pie-ie-ie.”
Today’s Chattanooga minorities, according to a story in this newspaper following the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on “colorblind” districts, are afraid they’re going to lose a piece of their pie if they, in fact, do move out of the neighborhoods where they’ve always been.
What if the majority Republican Hamilton County Commission wants to merge the two majority-minority county districts? said the Rev. Ernest Reid, pastor of Second Missionary Baptist Church. If those seats are drawn together, Black people will likely have little representation in county governance, he said.