Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_l6gn.pdf
Page Number: 215.0

Cite as:  600 U. S. ____ (2023) 

7 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

Government  was  “giving  away  land”  on  the western  fron-
tier, and with it “the opportunity for upward mobility and a 
more secure future,” over the 1862 Homestead Act’s three-
quarter-century  tenure.19    Black  people  were  exceedingly 
unlikely to be allowed to share in those benefits, which by 
one  calculation  may  have  advantaged  approximately  46
million Americans living today.20 

Despite these barriers, Black people persisted.  Their so-
called  Great  Migration  northward  accelerated  during  and
after the First World War.21  Like clockwork, American cit-
ies responded with racially exclusionary zoning (and simi-
lar policies).22  As a result, Black migrants had to pay dis-
proportionately  high  prices  for  disproportionately  subpar 
housing.23  Nor did migration make it more likely for Black 
people to access home ownership, as banks would not lend 
to  Black  people,  and  in  the  rare  cases  banks  would  fund 
home loans, exorbitant interest rates were charged.24  With 
Black  people  still  locked  out  of  the  Homestead  Act  givea-
way, it is no surprise that, when the Great Depression ar-
rived,  race-based  wealth,  health,  and  opportunity  gaps
were the norm.25 

Federal  and  State  Governments’  selective  intervention 
further exacerbated the disparities.  Consider, for example, 

—————— 

19 T.  Shanks,  The  Homestead  Act:  A  Major  Asset-Building  Policy  in 
American History, in Inclusion in the American Dream: Assets, Poverty, 
and Public Policy 23–25 (M. Sherraden ed. 2005) (Shanks); see also Bara-
daran 18. 

20 Shanks 32–37; Oliver & Shapiro 37–38. 
21 Wilkerson 8–10; Rothstein 155. 
22 Id., at 43–50; Baradaran 90–92. 
23 Ibid.; Rothstein 172–173; Wilkerson 269–271. 
24 Baradaran 90. 
25 I. Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold His-
tory  of  Racial  Inequality  in  Twentieth-Century  America  29–35  (2005)
(Katznelson).