In the United States, property has always been more than land and lumber. It has been a proxy for power, access, and stability—a silent determinant of who belongs and who prospers. Yet as of the second quarter of 2025, the Black homeownership rate stands at 43.9 percent, its lowest point since 2021, according to Redfin. By contrast, the White homeownership rate remains above 72 percent. That nearly 30-point gap is not just a statistic; it is a mirror reflecting how systemic inequality continues to shape economic opportunity in America.
The Legacy of Exclusion
To understand why this gap persists, one must first acknowledge its historical roots. For generations, government policy codified racial exclusion from redlining maps that starved Black neighborhoods of mortgage capital, to the GI B

The Chicago Defender

Daily Gazette
America News
WRAL News
AlterNet
Raw Story
The Conversation