Sam Ziemba Free Response 4: Living Apart Exhibit

    For my "Writing about the Environment" course, we went to the "Living Apart" exhibit in the Ferguson Center. This exhibit examines the impact of redlining in the community. Newport News has a history of racism that continues to impact the community today. The communities labeled to be in bad condition in the 1920s were labeled so based on the race of the people there. Neighborhoods with more diversity were given a lower grade, while predominantly white neighborhoods were given higher grades. Throughout the years, less investment has been put into the diverse neighborhoods and those neighborhoods receive less funding from the city for green spaces, causing heat islands to form. Pollution sources are also placed in these neighborhoods. While the entire exhibit was fascinating and important, the part I found most impactful was the book of neighborhood descriptions from the 1920s. In this book, the neighborhoods are given a rating and are described based on their average income, demographics, and infrastructure of the neighborhood. These reports include a summary on each page for the reason of the ranking. In these summaries, there is clear racism exhibited. This exhibit showed that even though many years have passed since the redlining occurred, people are still suffering from its effects.