In the mid-20th century, protesters began challenging long-established inequitable practices in housing. Racially restrictive housing covenants and discriminatory lending (“redlining”) excluded people of color from buying or renting housing in most of Seattle’s neighborhoods. Seattle passed an open housing law in 1968, making redlining illegal, but it often continued in secret and its effects have continued for decades.

This photo, taken in August 1975, shows a group of Central Area residents painting a literal red line around their neighborhood to protest banks refusing to grant home-improvement loans in the area. Residents also wanted to show their neighbors on the other side of the line that they were shut out of money markets. The line stretched down Roy Street from 18th Avenue East to Broadway. Bernice Moreland, one of the painters, described the project: "We're red-lining the Central Area. The banks did it to us by not lending us money, so we're showing everybody where they're at."

Caption information source: "The Central Area Gets Red-Lined - Literally," by Richard Hardesty, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, August 18, 1975, page D1.