Black homeownership in Milwaukee has been a focal point in the city’s continued struggle with racial equity. A 2022 report by the Wisconsin Policy Forum found the city had the lowest rates of Black and Hispanic homeownership among 10 peer cities.
But Milwaukee isn’t alone in this struggle, and there have been many historical and current factors that have undercut Black Americans’ ability to buy—and keep—their homes.
Bernadette Atuahene is a professor of law at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, who specializes in property law. Her new book Plundered: How Racist Policies Undermine Black Homeownership in America explores the obstacles facing Black homeowners by following two families in Detroit, Michigan.
Atuahene is in Milwaukee today for a conversation at 6:30 p.m. at Boswell Book Company. Ahead of that, she joins Lake Effect’s Joy Powers to explore how these policies impacted Black homeowners in Detroit and throughout the nation.
"It's not just a Detroit problem, but Detroit is ground zero for a national problem," she says. "Nationally, the statistics show that Blacks and Hispanics on average pay a 10% to 13% higher property tax rate than whites for the same bundle of goods, which equals about mount $300 to $400 dollars more per year."
