The story of how four black Detroiters became property owners after the Great Fire of 1805
For African Americans, the struggle to own property in Detroit is almost as old as the city itself – tactics like redlining, restrictive covenants, and mob violence were long used to prevent black Detroiters from purchasing homes. And while, the city enjoyed a higher-than-average black homeownership rate by 2000, the recent subprime mortgage and tax foreclosure crises have reduced the city's black homeownership rate to well below half.