Redress Movement

Mission: The Redress Movement is committed to leading a multi-racial movement that empowers communities to take direct action to redress racial segregation.  We work in deep partnership with local communities to repair the harm caused by intentional policies to segregate communities and we do our work by educating, mobilizing, shifting the narrative, and winning redress victories.  Our starting point is housing, but we work in solidarity with others who are facing the facts of history, redressing harms of the past, and healing our nation by dismantling the barriers that divide us.

Vision: We envision a country where our zip code no longer predetermines our life chances, where every neighborhood has plenty of resources for us and our children, and where the opportunity to choose where we live and live how we choose is not limited by bad policy, bad economics, or bad actors.

Racial segregation in housing is as pernicious as it is pervasive. Throughout much of the 20th century, at the federal, state, and municipal levels, specific laws, policies, and programs created segregated communities across the country. In the process, private and public institutions and actors denied many African American families the opportunity to purchase an affordable home that, for white Americans, became the foundation of intergenerational wealth.

The Redress Movement was established in 2022 after a group of civil rights leaders, inspired by Richard Rothstein’s book “The Color of Law,” decided to seed a new movement focused on redressing residential segregation. The Redress Movement works in deep partnership with local communities to repair the harm caused by intentional policies that segregate communities. We do our work by educating, mobilizing, shifting the narrative, and winning redress victories.

Since the launch, Redress has been organizing in Denver, CO, Milwaukee, WI, and Charlotte, NC, creating Redress Roundtables in each city. The Roundtables have launched citywide education campaigns documenting and explaining the history of segregation in each city, coupled with consistent grassroots outreach and organizing. Additionally, the Roundtables specifically inform campaigns by identifying community needs. In Denver, Redress worked in coalition to pass statewide legislation that fights the displacement of people of color by limiting inequitable foreclosure practices. In Charlotte, Redress organized with community members and organizations to urge the city council to increase the housing trust fund. The City council approved a $100M bond measure as part of the city budget. Residents will approve or deny the bond in November. Redress Neighbors in Milwaukee successfully pushed for the passage of a first-of-its-kind ordinance creating a joint City–County Housing Committee, County and Cities Housing Committee, that will address the lack of equitable housing access. This year, we launched organizing in Nebraska and are beginning to hear community priorities through a listening session tour in north and south Omaha. 

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