Redlining: Mapping Inequality in Dayton & Springfield

Explore the life of Lelia Francis, the first Black real estate agent in Ohio, who went to extraordinary lengths to help Black families secure homes during the Jim Crow era. She fought against the effects of redlining, securing mortgages for Black home buyers and integrating neighborhoods in southwest Ohio. Always an entrepreneur, she also helped found the first Black-owned bank in Dayton, Ohio.

Discover how the now-illegal practice of redlining was federal policy in the 1930’s, denying federally-backed mortgages to people of color. Find out how redlining maps were created during the New Deal, embedding racial segregation and inequality into the development of American cities and suburbs, with effects lasting to the present day.

See the shocking gap between the financial assets of white and Black families today, and how much of it traces back to the federal policy of redlining of the 1930s.

Learn how the Springfield Ohio native and real estate developer, Harry Kissell, developed one of the earliest planned suburbs in the United States. These suburbs were based on racially restrictive deeds and covenants that prevented Black people from living there. Harry Kissell took his ideas to Washington and helped lay the groundwork for policies that came to be known as redlining.

"Redlining: Mapping Inequality in Dayton and Springfield" tells the national and local story of redlining, a practice which embedded racial segregation and inequality into the development of American cities and suburbs.

This one-hour documentary tells the story of local families who were impacted by redlining, and the lasting effects of this federal policy on our region.