The Mapping of Race in America

Visualizing the Legacy of Slavery & Redlining, 1860-Present

 Mapping Race in America  was created as part of the 2022 Junior Fellows Program at the Library of Congress and was inspired by the work of the Geography & Map Division in support of the  U.S. House Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth. 

No good result can come from any investigation which refuses to consider the facts. A conclusion that is based upon a presumption, instead of the best evidence, is unworthy of a moments consideration.                       –Ida B. Wells, 1901

Afterall, it is not the function of geographers to merely map the earth, but to change it.” --Bill Bunge, 1969

Counting the Enslaved, 1790-1870

From the late eighteenth century detailed statistics on the number of enslaved peoples in the United States were produced by both the Federal Government and by some State institutions and as such, are critical to any study of the cartographic legacy of slavery in the United States. Many of these records were used to produce maps that are a lasting record of the spatial distribution of enslaved peoples in the US.

In September of 1861, nearly two years before the emancipation proclamation, the U.S. Coast Survey published a large map, approximately two feet by three feet, called a " Map showing the distribution of the slave population of the southern states of the United States ." Based on population statistics gathered in the 1860 Census, the map depicted the percentage of the population enslaved in each county.

Graph of the Early Statistics of Enslaved Peoples from the Census of 1790-1830. Data from the Comprehensive Atlas, Geographical, Historical & Commercial. By T.G. Bradford. Boston: American Stationers' Company. Library of Congress.

Graph of the Early Statistics of Enslaved Peoples from the Census of 1790-1830. Data from the Comprehensive Atlas, Geographical, Historical & Commercial. By T.G. Bradford. Boston: American Stationers' Company. Library of Congress.

Although not the earliest compilation of such data, the map from 1861 showed, as few of the early statistical tables could, the extent and complex spatial patterns of the economic system that at the time kept nearly 4 million people in bondage. By 1860 slavery was concentrated along the Chesapeake Bay and in eastern Virginia, and along the South Carolina and Georgia coasts. Along with the fertile farm landscape in Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, as can been readily seen on the map, its density deepened as one entered the Mississippi River Valley, with some counties, unbelievably, having more than 90 percent of their population enslaved.

Map showing the distribution of the slave population of the United States. Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress.

Map showing the distribution of the slave population of the United States. Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress.

With each county labeled with the percentage of the population enslaved it was, and still remains, one of the most poignant records of the extent of slavery in the United States during a critical period in its history, and was one of the first widely circulated government produced documents to visualize this kind of demographic data geographically.

Percentage of enslaved residents by county.

The US Coast and Geodetic Survey map of the enslaved population the United States utilized the statistical surveys conducted as part of the 1860 Census. If one takes a look at the numbers at a scale larger than the county, such as the state level, shown in the table below, one gets a more intuitive sense of just how extensive the slave trade was in the South. For example, in 1860 the state of Alabama had a total population of 964,296 people, 435,132 of which were enslaved. In South Carolina the number of enslaved Africans and African Americans was 402,541, which was 57.2% of the state's total population, with the enslaved outnumbering the free population by more than 100,000.

Statistics of the Free and Enslaved Populations from the US 1860 Census.

These early Federal Census and state statistics relating to the demographics of enslaved Africans and their descendants later appeared in many popular encyclopedic atlases, especially in the early part of the twentieth century and they took many different forms. Some of them included important geographic comparisons that contrasted the spatial distribution of slaves with free Africans and African Americans, and revealed to the general public, in dramatic fashion, the contrast between North and South.

Data on the Demographics of Enslaved and Free African and African American Populations. From Charles O. Paullin’s 1932 Atlas of Historical Geography of the United States. Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress

Data on the Demographics of Enslaved and Free African and African American Populations. From Charles O. Paullin’s 1932 Atlas of Historical Geography of the United States. Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress

Historical Beginnings of NAACP Mapping and Statistical Analysis of Racial Inequality

The use of cartography to highlight economic and racial injustice has a long history, not only among professional cartographers and geographers, but also as part of the toolbox of activists looking to make the complexity of their issues understandable to the population at-large.

Cover of A  Red Record  : tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynchings in the United States, 1892-1893-1894 by Ida B. Wells, 1895. Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division,  Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture . 

Cover of  Red Record  : tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynchings in the United States, 1892-1893-1894 by Ida B. Wells, 1895. Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division,  Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture 

An important moment in the use of the medium for this purpose, came from a small group of Black intellectuals who began to use spatially relevant demographic data to create maps in order to visualize the contributions to American culture of African Americans, including those who were formerly enslaved, and also to highlight the persistence of racial injustice in the decades after emancipation.

Perhaps the first of these intellectuals to collect and make use of geographically rectified data was reporter Ida B. Wells (1862-1931), who was herself enslaved until she was sixteen. After being emancipated, she, in 1889, became editor of The Free Speech and Headlight, a Black-owned newspaper established by the Reverend Taylor Nightingale (1844–1922) and published out of the Beale Street Baptist Church in Memphis, TN.

One of her most important contributions however was statistical, not editorial, and came in the form of a series of publications including A Red Record. The work was a 100-page pamphlet describing lynching in the United States from 1892 to 1894.

A Red Record used geographic and  statistical data , which Wells collected, mostly from newspapers around the United States, to document not only the high rates of unjustified lynching of Black men that had occurred in those years, but also to show how the data could be mapped and how these events unevenly were distributed in various regions of the country. When one adds up her data, Wells found that between 1864 and the final years of her study in 1894 that more than 10,000 African Americans had been killed by lynching.

Wells’ work was highly influential and became the inspiration for the use of this kind of data by Black cartographers who mapped and visualized racial inequalities over the next several decades. Even today the data that she collected can be used in the analysis of the practice of lynching in the United States as shown through the use of heat and density mapping shown in the figure below.

Ida B. Wells in the Red Record identified the locations of lynchings across the United States. The data contains the names of the victims and detailed information of locations, allowing the modern analysis of the distribution of lynchings in the late 1890s.

Ida B. Wells in the Red Record identified the locations of lynchings across the United States. The data contains the names of the victims and detailed information of locations, allowing the modern analysis of the distribution of lynchings in the late 1890s.

Cluster Analysis of Lynchings in the United States from 1892-1894 reconstructed from the data collected by Ida B. Wells and published in the Red Record. Click in any of the high density areas to get the names, alleged crimes and locations of the victims cataloged by Wells.

Perhaps the most well known of the intellectuals and activists who began to use and to create cartography in order to bring attention to racial disparities was the historian and civil-rights pioneer, W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963).

Born in Massachusetts, Du Bois did graduate work at the University of Berlin and Harvard University, and in 1890 was the first African American to earn a doctorate. He worked for a time for the US Census Bureau and in 1904, for part of  Census Bulletin #8 , he wrote an analysis of black farmers in the southern United States. Du Bois' analysis used statistics and spatial analysis to counter the racist narrative of the early twentieth century, and showed how black farmers used their land and agricultural skills to make a better life for themselves and their families. The report is full of deep economic analysis and contains a series of thematic maps that showed the extent of Black farm ownership.

Map from W.E.B. Du Bois' 1904 US Census Analysis, entitled the Negro Farmer.  Image courtesy of the US Census Bureau .

One of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and he was later a professor of history, sociology and economics at Atlanta University. His collection of essays,  The Souls of Black Folk , published in 1903, redefined the discussion of race in America, with the introduction recognizing that “the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line.”

Maps made by W.E.B. Du Bois for the 1900 Universal Exposition. Right showing the  migration of Blacks in 1890   and the  ownership of land in Georgia  from 1870-1900. Library of Congress.

W.E.B. Du Bois’s exhibition at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris was composed of two collections of data visualizations, A Series of Statistical Charts Illustrating the Condition of the Descendants of Former African Slaves Now in Residence in the United States of America and The Georgia Negro. The latter looked at the Black population of Georgia as a case study of the Black American population at large. In this collection, a few larger scale maps were created in order to contextualize the collection as a whole. The map above displays each state classed according to its total Black population at the end of the 19 th  century. The southern states have the largest Black populations, with the population decreasing the further north and west a state is from the south. Much of the west has a negligible Black population at this time, recording fewer than 10,000 people. Georgia has the largest Black population and is in a class of its own, being the only state recording over 750,000 black residents. This is one of the reasons why Du Bois chose to focus the exhibition on the Georgia study; the state could be considered the center of Black America. Also notable about this map, and evident throughout the exhibit, are the data visualization techniques. Du Bois was revolutionizing data visualization methods previously used in sociology to uphold slavery and white supremacy in order to tell a story of Black life in America. The charts and maps in this collection are visually striking with modern designs and color schemes, while bringing visibility to the agency and accomplishments of Black Americans. This map, simple in its message, is eye-catching and understandable, and sets the stage for visitors to the Exposition Universelle to learn about Black Americans through a new lens.

In 1900, Paris held the Exposition Universelle, a world’s fair to celebrate the turn of the century. W.E.B prepared and organized about sixty data visualizations and infographics for the American Negro Exhibit. The exhibit aimed to demonstrate the progress that African American populations in the United States had made since Emancipation in 1863. Du Bois compiled data from existing records as well as sociological fieldwork performed by Du Bois and his students from his laboratory at Atlanta University. The map shown above is part of a collection titled A Series of Statistical Charts Illustrating the Condition of the Descendants of Former African Slaves Now in Residence in the United States of America. Approaching the data on a national scope, these maps and charts aim to illustrate African Americans’ geographical and statistical relationship to the legacy of slavery and the struggle against it. This hand-drawn map uses vibrant blocks of color to illustrate the sociological racial data in a captivating manner to attract visitors to the exhibit. In an effort to combat prevalent scientific and sociological racism, Du Bois pioneered visual sociology to subvert the social Darwinist paradigm and chronicle African American growth and development. Here, the growing distribution of African Americans in the United States is shown using cartographic methods, with Du Bois reclaiming the historically harmful Eurocentric tool of mapmaking to highlight Black history and existence. The colorful design choice, still relatively new in data visualization at this point, creates a striking and effective rhetorical impact and inspires social innovation and action.

Du Bois was the main organizer of one of the exhibits from the US at the Exposition Universelle called, The Exhibit of American Negroes, held in Paris between April and November 1900. Working with demographic data for both the United States as a whole, and the state of Georgia, he put together a collection of photographs, maps, and created stylized data visualizations, in an effort to challenge racist stereotypes and to make clear the inequality that still existed in the US decades after emancipation.

Selection of the  Data Visualisations  made by W.E.B. Du Bois. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress. Click on the images to enlarge.

After the formation and founding of the NAACP by Du Bois, Wells, and others, the group continued to use cartography and geospatial statistics to illustrate the continued racial inequalities that remained across the country.

In the group's magazine, called The Crisis, maps appeared in order to graphically highlight important statistical information. In the February 1922 issue, Madeline Allison, DuBois' secretary at the NAACP mapped 3,456 lynchings that took place over the previous 32 years and placed them on a map of the United States using what she called, "dots of shame."

Cover of The Crisis, from February 1922, and part of the map drawn by Madeline Allison to illustrate 32 years of documented lynchings in the United States.

One of the most influential publications by the NAACP in its early years, called   Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States  , employed maps to show the wide regional differences in the numbers of lynchings that existed across the US, in much the same way as Ida B. Wells had earlier sought to highlight.

Although the maps in the book are hand drawn and simple, their use of shading, which grows more dramatic as the cases of lynching increase, shows more than any narrative possibly could, the regional concentration of such horrific events.

The Early United States Census Bureau's Mapping of Race

The most readily accessible data on the historical mapping of race and the statistical demographics of both the free and enslaved populations in the United States was produced by the US Census starting in 1790. This data, which was  compiled and released in critically important atlases , has been digitized and made available through the  National Historical GIS Project  at the University of Minnesota.

The questions asked by the Census varied as time went on, especially after emancipation and have been archived by the  National Archives of the United States . The earliest questionnaires and Census forms list the numbers of the enslaved and the names of their owners and are important demographic sources even through the names of the enslaved are not typically recorded.

Schedule 2 Form for the 1850 Census of the United States Showing the Counting of Enslaved Residents of Maryland. Image ourtesy the United States National Archives

Selection of Early Post-Emancipation Census Maps and Data Visualizations

1870

1880

1890

1900

Redlining & the Legacy of Institutionalized Cartographic Racism and Inequality

Redlining was a practice that began in the mid-1930s and was a cartographic project through which federal and local governments, along with private housing mortgage companies and banks, identified areas if high risk and levels of loans defaults. The maps catalyzed a process of denial of financial services to mainly minority groups based on the evaluation of a property's location. It is an example of government-endorsed structural racism that has had a lasting influence on mobility and wealth generation in certain areas, especially inner cities. 

In response to the Great Depression, the U.S. government created the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC), with the purpose of refinancing home mortgages in default and expanding home-buying opportunities. In the 1930s, the HOLC assessed the level of security for real-estate investments in more than 200 cities across the United States. The “residential security” maps that were created categorized neighborhoods according to how desirable they were for mortgage lending.

Gallery of Redlining Maps

Baltimore, MD

Tampa

New Orleans

Atlanta, GA

Lynchberg, VA.

Columbia, SC

The criteria used to make these determinations included the quality of housing in the neighborhood, the recent history of sale and rent values, and, importantly, the racial/ethnic identity and class of residents living in the neighborhood. The four categories used were: “Type A (Best),” “Type B (Still Desirable),” “Type C (Definitely Declining),” and “Type D (Hazardous),” with corresponding color codes on the maps of green, blue, yellow, and red. Lending institutions utilized HOLC and similar maps to determine to whom they should lend.

Title page from the FHA manual written by Frederick Babcock in 1936 that utilized redlingin maps

Federal and local government produced real estate and appraisal manuals described in detail the attributes that made a neighborhood "undesirable." Frederick Babcock, a critical figure in early twentieth-century real estate appraisal standards, wrote for example, " The infiltration of inharmonious racial groups ... tend to lower the levels of land values and to lessen the desirability of residential areas ."

Real estate brokers and agents after the depression described property valuations in stark racial and ethnic terms:

"Colored infiltration a definitely adverse influence on neighborhood desirability although Negroes will buy properties at fair prices and usually rent rooms

"Italian infiltration depress residential desirability in this area,"

"Infiltration of Jewish into area have depressed values,"

"could be classed as High Yellow [C], but for infiltration of Orientals and gradual infiltration of Negroes form south to north".

As a result, people who lived in “Type D” neighborhoods were denied access to mortgages and other economic opportunities. This practice became known as  redlining  (Gross, 2017).

Redlining Case Studies of Baltimore, Maryland; Tampa, Florida; and New Orleans, Louisiana

The legacy of the  practice of redlining  continues to effect econimic development in many of the towns and cities where it was used for many decades and has had a profound effect on the mostly minority populations who live in the areas originally classified as "D". One can compare the demographics of current locations with redlining regions show that for the most part they remain majority minority areas with lower income.

Redlining Map of Baltimore, MD compared with Race and Ethinicity from the 2020 Census. Click on the map of the 2020 Census data (right) for demographic details. Data from US Census Bureau and the Environmental Racism Project.

Legend for the Baltimore Maps

Housing Vacancy in Baltimore, Md according to the 2020 US Census and Redlining Map. Click on the map of the 2020 Census data (left) for demographic details. Data from US Census Bureau and the Environmental Racism Project.

Median Household Income and Redlining Map for Baltimore, MD. Click on the map of the 2020 Census data (right) for demographic details. Data from US Census Bureau and the Environmental Racism Project.

Original Descriptions of Two Neighborhoods in Baltimore from the Residential Security Map Prepared by HOLC in 1937. Data from the Mapping Inequality Project, University of Richmond Digital Scholarship Laboratory.

The legacy of redlining extends far beyond mortgages and housing and its impact can be seen today in minority neighborhoods by looking at things like access to health care, broadband internet and the environmental aspects that influence health, like industrial particulates, flooding and extreme heat caused by lack of tree cover and accessible green spaces.

Current maximum temperatures in the historical redlined districts of Baltimore, MD. Data from US Census Bureau and the Environmental Racism Project.

One important environmental indicator is the density of diesel particulates, which are the particles that flow into the air from the diesel exhausts. They are of special concern for human health due to their size, which allows them to penetrate deep into human lungs. The composition these exhausts include many compounds that are known for their adverse health effects, including many carcinogens.

Health effects most often linked with particulate pollution, from diesel and other sources, include an increase in respiratory and cardiovascular disease and worsening of symptoms in people with asthma. Often the areas most affected by these particulates are those areas that were redlined. An example of this historical legacy can be seen in the map of Baltimore below, where the highest numbers today, are in the formerly redlined districts.

Higher levels of Diesel Particulates in the historical redlined districts of Baltimore, MD. Data from US Census Bureau and the Environmental Racism Project.

Heat is another factor influencing human health and is related to tree cover and green space. Temperature decreases nonlinearly with increasing tree canopy cover and can provide extensive cooling in the summer months, especially in urban environments. The greatest cooling is experienced when the tree canopy exceeds 40%, with the magnitude of daytime cooling also a function of spatial scale. In areas of Baltimore that record the highest temperatures there is little in the way of tree cover and in most cases these urban heat islands correspond once again to redlined zones.

Tree Canopy Coverage for the Redlined Zones in Baltimore, MD. Data from  Environmental Racism: A Tool for Exploring the Enduring Legacy of Redlining on Urban Environments , Rand Corporation.

Redlining Case Study of Tampa, Florida

As shown in the examples from Baltimore, local environmental factors are a lasting part of the practice and legacy of redlining. Below we see examples from Tampa, Florida where we have mapped the urban tree cover and surface permeability to rain, and from New Orleans were flooding in formerly redlined zones is an important a constantly changing variable, as climate change and sea level rise increase the region's vulnerability.

Legends for the Comparative Maps Below

When comparing redlining maps of Tampa to modern spatial data, associations emerge between historically poorly rated neighborhoods and factors that can have negative impacts on peoples’ health. This first map of urban heat health demonstrate that the neighborhoods that would benefit most from measures to break up heat islands, such as planting trees, are formerly redlined, or ‘D’ grade, neighborhoods. Neighborhoods rated with C and B grades just east of the river, and B and A grade neighborhoods to the southwest, have the best heat health by comparison. Urban heat health is not a trivial matter when it comes to the health of residents. Heat islands have higher daytime temperatures, cool less effectively in the night than surrounding areas, have poorer water quality, and higher levels of air pollution, all of which can contribute to heat-related and pollution-related illness.

Redlining Comparison of Urban Heat Levels and Tree Cover in Redlining Zones for Tampa, Florida. Data from ESRI. Click on Map to interact with demographic data.

Superfund sites are sites contaminated with hazardous materials and designated by the EPA for clean-up. In Tampa, these sites are located largely in previously redlined neighborhoods, with no Superfund sites appearing in neighborhoods given an A or B grade by the HOLC, and only 3 appear in C graded neighborhoods. The health impacts of these sites can vary based on the extent and effectiveness of clean-up efforts. The most well-known Superfund sites often have reached suchnotoriety due to the severe health impacts they have had on the surrounding area, such as the cancer clusters associated with sites in Tom’s River, NJ, and Woburn, MA. The potential for adverse health outcomes, and the heavy industry often associated with these sites (whether presently or in the past), means that those who can afford to avoid those areas do.

Superfund Sites in Tampa, Florida and Redlining Districts. Data courtesy of the EPA.

Finally, looking to modern spatial data on access to health insurance, similar patterns can be seen where neighborhoods that were redlined have higher rates of the population without health insurance. This is particularly clear when comparing the redlined neighborhoods of Ybor City and West Tampa to Palma Ceia, which was given A and B grades by the HOLC. Without insurance, people may avoid medical care and forego preventive care, which can lead to worse health outcomes. When people without health insurance do seek care, they may not be able to afford the highest level of care, or they may be more heavily impacted by financial toxicity and suffer poorer outcomes as a result.

Redlining Comparison of Access to Health Insurance in Redlining Zones for Tampa, Florida. Data from ESRI. Click on Map to interact with demographic data.

Redlining Case Study of New Orleans, Louisiana

Redlining’s perpetual effects on the systems that comprise the city of New Orleans are expansive. Historically redlined neighborhoods, especially in the eastern area of the city are generally more susceptible to flooding, health disparities, and lower income levels. Flooding concerns in New Orleans increase every year, as hurricane season becomes more severe. The disparity between neighborhoods in higher areas and those at risk for flooding creates a prominent difference in ability to inhabit houses during rainy seasons. The map feature below that compares redlining zones with median household income is striking. In D neighborhoods like Mid-City and New Orleans East (large red blocks) median income stays steadily around the $23,000 mark. The city as a whole has a median income of about $43,000. Income discrepancies mirror racial population make-up and display the long-lasting effects of redlining and other racist political and geographical measures. 

Normalized Flood Risk and Redlined Zones for New Orleans Louisiana. Click on Map to interact with demographic data.

Median Household Levels Compare with Redlined Zones for New Orleans Louisiana. Click on Map to interact with demographic data. Data from US Census and the

The uneven distribution of minority populations that inhabit areas formerly classified as hazardous is perhaps the most lasting legacy of the these maps and has been an area of a great deal of commentary and demographic research in the last few decades. One project, called the  Lasting Legacy of Redlining  has compiled detailed demographics and comparisons that show the disproportionate impact the practise continues to have in minority communities.

Just a Beginning

This story map application was created as part of the 2022 Junior Fellows Program at the Library of Congress and was inspired by the work of the Geography & Map Division in support of the  U.S. House Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth . It is intended to serve as the beginning of a larger survey of historical cartography and of primary historic geospatial data that could be used for the study of economic disparity and inequality in growth for particular regions of the United States as its exists today. It was guided by a four simple questions that have not yet been completely explored or answered:

  1. What does the history of mapping of race look like in the United States?
  2. Who was doing it?
  3. Who was using it?
  4. What were they using it for?”

William Bunge's map from Fieldnotes III of the Detroit Geographic Expedition. The goal was to join academic geographers with “folk geographers” (Bungee’s term for people who did not have formal training in geographic methods) and members of the African American community to use geography to create “oughtness maps” – maps of how things are and maps of how things ought to be. The Expedition’s main concern was using geography for social justice and, specifically in Detroit, addressing racial injustice. As Dr. William Bunge wrote in the expedition’s first publication, Field Notes I, “Afterall, it is not the function of geographers to merely map the earth, but to change it.”

About the Authors

Originally from Tampa, Florida, Catherine Discenza is a fourth-year student at the University of Florida. They are pursuing a degree in medical geography, with a minor in health disparities. After graduation, they plan on attending graduate school, and hope to continue doing research at the intersection of space, identity, and health. 

Anika Fenn Gilman is a senior at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. She is studying Mathematics and Political Science with a concentration in International Relations and is also pursuing a certificate in Geographic Information Systems. She wants to work doing geopolitical analysis and explore how spatial data can illustrate, explain, and contextualize contemporary issues.

John Hessler retired from the Library of Congress in October of 2022 after more than 20 years as a specialist in Computational Geography & Geographic Information Science (GIS). He is currently a lecturer at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, and the Director of the  Lambda Lab  for High-Performance Computing and Policy Analysis. Their research is focused on developing new statistical and computational tools for mapping far from equilibrium spatial processes, like the spread of pandemics and the mass population movements and refugee flows brought about by war, economic hardship, and natural disasters.

Graph of the Early Statistics of Enslaved Peoples from the Census of 1790-1830. Data from the Comprehensive Atlas, Geographical, Historical & Commercial. By T.G. Bradford. Boston: American Stationers' Company. Library of Congress.

Map showing the distribution of the slave population of the United States. Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress.

Percentage of enslaved residents by county.

Statistics of the Free and Enslaved Populations from the US 1860 Census.

Data on the Demographics of Enslaved and Free African and African American Populations. From Charles O. Paullin’s 1932 Atlas of Historical Geography of the United States. Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress

Cover of  Red Record  : tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynchings in the United States, 1892-1893-1894 by Ida B. Wells, 1895. Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division,  Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture 

Ida B. Wells in the Red Record identified the locations of lynchings across the United States. The data contains the names of the victims and detailed information of locations, allowing the modern analysis of the distribution of lynchings in the late 1890s.

Map from W.E.B. Du Bois' 1904 US Census Analysis, entitled the Negro Farmer.  Image courtesy of the US Census Bureau .

Cover of The Crisis, from February 1922, and part of the map drawn by Madeline Allison to illustrate 32 years of documented lynchings in the United States.

Schedule 2 Form for the 1850 Census of the United States Showing the Counting of Enslaved Residents of Maryland. Image ourtesy the United States National Archives

Title page from the FHA manual written by Frederick Babcock in 1936 that utilized redlingin maps

Legend for the Baltimore Maps

Original Descriptions of Two Neighborhoods in Baltimore from the Residential Security Map Prepared by HOLC in 1937. Data from the Mapping Inequality Project, University of Richmond Digital Scholarship Laboratory.

Current maximum temperatures in the historical redlined districts of Baltimore, MD. Data from US Census Bureau and the Environmental Racism Project.

Higher levels of Diesel Particulates in the historical redlined districts of Baltimore, MD. Data from US Census Bureau and the Environmental Racism Project.

Tree Canopy Coverage for the Redlined Zones in Baltimore, MD. Data from  Environmental Racism: A Tool for Exploring the Enduring Legacy of Redlining on Urban Environments , Rand Corporation.

Legends for the Comparative Maps Below

William Bunge's map from Fieldnotes III of the Detroit Geographic Expedition. The goal was to join academic geographers with “folk geographers” (Bungee’s term for people who did not have formal training in geographic methods) and members of the African American community to use geography to create “oughtness maps” – maps of how things are and maps of how things ought to be. The Expedition’s main concern was using geography for social justice and, specifically in Detroit, addressing racial injustice. As Dr. William Bunge wrote in the expedition’s first publication, Field Notes I, “Afterall, it is not the function of geographers to merely map the earth, but to change it.”

Maps made by W.E.B. Du Bois for the 1900 Universal Exposition. Right showing the  migration of Blacks in 1890   and the  ownership of land in Georgia  from 1870-1900. Library of Congress.