“The Apartment You Can Own with Pride”: Federally Insured Black Housing Cooperatives, 1950–1955

Nicholas Shatan — 2025-11-25T06:00:00Z

Postwar Black cooperatives insured by the federal government trouble the binary of public and private in housing development.
---- Series: Provincializing the “Real-Estate Turn” In October 1950, civil-rights leader Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune spoke when the cornerstone was laid for Parkway Gardens, perhaps the first apartment development cooperatively owned by African Americans in Chicago (Chicago Defender 1950). Built next to the “L” rapid-transit station at 63rd St and South Park Avenue on the

- Essays / race, segregation, residential segregation, housing, cooperative housing, Federal Housing Administration, United States, Black neighborhoods, real estate

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“The Apartment You Can Own with Pride”: Federally Insured Black Housing Cooperatives, 1950–1955