Yes, local power brokers mattered in all of this. Yes, the Democratic (and Republican) parties supported racist policies throughout their histories. But federal policies incentivizing certain types of local uses of power (such as adopting the logic of Residential Security Maps in order to keep federal dollars flowing to localities), created an institutional context that drove urban residential segregation. It’s not as simple as blaming this party or that party, this is the wrong lens to view the history of ghetto formation and housing segregation in general. This is more about white supremacy and the drawing of the color line than anything to do with either major political party. To the extent that white supremacist public policy can find a home, it won’t discriminate based on the R or D by your name.
