This Saturday on Melissa Harris-Perry, the Obama administration’s new effort to build on the Fair Housing Act. HUD Secretary Julian Castro announced long-awaited rules designed to repair the law’s unfulfilled promise and create racially integrated neighborhoods. As we unfold the history behind an act that was intended to dismantle discriminatory institutions and reassemble integrated, mixed-income communities, we’ll consider how things could have been if the Fair Housing Act had been properly executed in the first place.
Joining MHP to discuss housing:
- Lisa Rice, executive vice-president, National Fair Housing Alliance
- Basil Smikle, executive director, NYS Democratic Party
- James Perry, community advocate
- Thomas Sugrue, professor of Social and Cultural Analysis and History, New York University
Be sure to check out these interesting reads related to the discussion:
- Housing Apartheid, American Style
- Living Apart: How the Government Betrayed a Landmark Civil Rights Law
- “Our Nation Is Moving Toward Two Societies, One Black, One White—Separate and Unequal”: Excerpts from the Kerner Report
- America can’t talk about segregation today if we can’t say how it was created in the past
Also, we’ll discuss Donald Trump’s controversial position on immigration as he prepares to head to the critical border state of Arizona, Saturday. And we’ll examine what it means to be a sanctuary city. Joining the panel to discuss immigration and border politics are Alina Das, associate professor of Clinical Law at New York University School of Law, Juan Manuel Benítez, political reporter, NY1 Noticias, and Cristina Jimenez, co-founder of United We Dream.
And we’ll discuss the historic moment in South Carolina as the Confederate flag was removed from the state house grounds after more than 50 years.
Be sure to read what we’ve linked above, and watch Melissa Harris-Perry Saturday at 10am ET on msnbc. Join the conversation—share your thoughts about these issues on Facebook and Twitter with the hashtag #nerdland.