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• 1 2022-12-08T15:10:41+00:00 Post-Industrial Life for Minorities 19 plain 2023-02-08T20:09:54+00:00 Deindustrialization was a turning point in the history of many large and small cities that had a significant industrial base for much of the twentieth century. It is especially evident in the Midwest, with the end of large-scale industry completely changing the economic environment and leaving  cities such as Muncie worse off. While the ramifications of deindustrialization have been felt by many people, some groups were affected more than others. Black Munsonians were particularly affected by deindustrialization and today the majority Black neighborhoods in Muncie tend to experience higher rates of poverty and other inequalities due to a lack of resources. Muncie's African Americans have historically faced racial disparities in areas such as housing, education, and work, which made them more vulnerable to the negative consequences of deindustrialization. Such disparities have only been minimally addressed by the city. Segregation as an official practice and other racist policies have formally been discontinued, but the effects of decades of racial inequality have had lasting effects.
  
  Even today, predominantly Black neighborhoods in Muncie, such as Whitley and Industry, face deep poverty, with almost half of their residents living below the poverty line.[1] These districts also have lower rates of educational achievement and poorer housing conditions. With this, there is also less business ownership in these communities. According to a 2017 census report on the city, minority-owned businesses only make up about five percent of the total employers in the city despite the fact that Blacks comprise almost eleven percent of the population (and nonwhites constitute nearly twenty percent of the city’s residents).[2] This wide gap between minority and White-owned businesses shows that minority groups still face obstacles in starting a business, despite appreciable progress being made against racial inequality.
  
  The racial disparities that existed for Black people in the early twentieth century had long-term consequences for Blacks in post-industrial Muncie. The city’s historically Black neighborhoods continue to rank among the poorest in the U.S., with poverty rates higher than 90% of the country. Residents in these communities face disproportionately high pollution rates, greater health difficulties, and many other challenges. While other parts of Muncie are not immune to these difficulties, they are especially acute in Black neighborhoods.[3] The economic damage of deindustrialization has made economic mobility difficult and has left many Black Munsonians living in the poorest sections of the city. While progress has been made in terms of civil rights, it is clear that in the latter half of the twentieth century racial disparities in terms of jobs and housing remain evident in Muncie.[4]
  The impact of deindustrialization on Black residents of Muncie has been especially strong. Fewer jobs meant more competition for employment and housing between the city's minority and white residents. As white Munsonians lost their jobs they would seek cheaper housing, sometimes in the African American parts of town. The city's African-American neighborhoods largely fell into disrepair and Muncie's poorer “families fell into an underclass disproportionately made up of Blacks."[6] Employment opportunities shrunk as well, with more specialized work that required specialized degrees, something that many out-of-work Munsonians lacked.[7] As jobs left the city, community members tried to help the families left struggling through this dramatic change in their quality of life. Interviewed in 2017, Pastor Keith O’Neal of the Destiny Christian Center described how the religious community reached out to support those in need. Pastor O’Neal observed that "calls have increased significantly" from those seeking assistance. Unable to work, people would leave the city or even the state to find employment.[8]
   

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  [1] “Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool,” Council of Environmental Justice, November 22, 2022, https://screeningtool.geoplatform.gov/en/#3/33.47/-97.5.

  [2] "QuickFacts: Muncie city, Indiana," United States Census Bureau, accessed December 12, 2022, https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/munciecityindiana.

  [3] “Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool,” Council of Environmental Justice, November 22, 2022, https://screeningtool.geoplatform.gov/en/#3/33.47/-97.5.

  [4] Howard M. Bahr, Mindy Judd Pearson, and Leif G. Elder, "Erasure, Convergence, and The Great Divide: Trends in Racial Disparity in Middletown" City and Community 6: 4 (2007): 103.

  [5] Mark David Higbee, “W. E. B. Du Bois, F. B. Ransom, the Madam Walker Company, and Black Business Leadership in the 1930s,“ Indiana Magazine of History 89, no. 2 (1993): 110-111.

  [6] Bahr, et al., “Erasure, Convergence, and The Great Divide," 100-101.

  [7] Sherry Cable and Tamara L. Mix, “Imperative and Race Relations: The Rise and Fall of the American Apartheid System,“ Journal of Black Studies 34, no. 2 (2003): 200.

  [8] Pastor Keith O’Neal, interviewed by Vander Hill, February 8, 2017, transcript and recording, Muncie Faith Communities and Civic engagement Oral Histories, Ball State University Archives and Special Collections, https://dmr.bsu.edu/digital/collection/MunChCEOH/id/18/rec/14.