On Wednesday, Aug. 11, employees of the Department of Planning, Neighborhoods & Development took a tour of Undesign the Redline, a new exhibit at the downtown Dayton Metro Library. Redlining was a government-backed policy of the 1930s that was used to assess and assign grades to neighborhoods in cities across the country. Homes in neighborhoods assigned a low grade of “red” were deemed ineligible by mortgage lenders for home loans. Because the presence of people of color was one of the factors that would earn a neighborhood a low score, minorities were denied mortgage loans at a high rate simply based on where they lived. While the practice of redlining has been outlawed since 1968, the ramifications of the discrimination that took place 90 years ago still affect lives in our city today. Dayton is one of the few cities in America where people of color continue to be denied mortgage loans at a higher rate than white people.

Undesign the Redline will be at the library until Sept. 25 with free, docent-led tours on Tuesdays at 4:30 p.m. and Saturdays at 10:30 a.m., or self-guided tours during regular library hours. For more information, call 937-463-2665 or visit http://www.daytonmetrolibrary.org/undesign-the-redline..