At that point in time, laws were in place that allowed/supported racial and religious profiling with regards to home purchases.
Banks would not lend to 'colored' folk. Realtors would not sell to 'colored'. Both would ask the religion of the applicant on their forms.
Segregation was not simply a choice made by the individual, but was a choice *forced* upon them.
I'm throwing a flag here. I call bullsh*t. That the "system" was deliberately discriminatory against blacks in housing loans is not even slightly true. It was discriminatory against making loans to people who did not have a good probability of paying them back, (meaning with insufficient income) and it was discriminatory against making loans for houses which were located in high crime areas.
Middle class black folk who were buying or building in average neighborhoods had no troubles getting loans.
This argument that the loan practices of banks was discriminatory came from Jimmy the stupid F***ing dumb@$$ Carter. Bill Clinton regurgitated this crap when he became President in 1992, (Thanks again George F***ing HW Bush!) and Bill Clinton was the one that *CAUSED* the massive housing meltdown by using the power of government to change the banks' lending practices for home loans.
See this video.
https://youtu.be/1RZVw3no2A4Funny thing was, this governmental policy was greatly enriching for all the Wall Street cronies of the Democrat party. It's almost as if the actual goal was to funnel government money into Democrat Donor pockets instead of actually doing anything in the best interest of the Nation.
Government manipulation distorted the entire market and convinced a bunch of people to buy homes way beyond what they could afford. My best friend at the time was black, and he and his wife bought a house that was *FAR* too expensive for their income level, and I told him so at the time.
I told him he was crazy to buy such a large house (it was really nice, nearly a McMansion) on his salary as a Teacher and her salary as a supervisor of a Makeup section of a department store. And then they bought new cars? Each?
I told him repeatedly that he was *WAY* overextended in his finances, but they lived pretty good for a few years... till the bottom fell out of everything and their Adjustable rate mortgage started biting.
They lost everything. They lost the house, they lost the cars, and he eventually lost his job.
He's got another one now, incidentally in Charlotte North Carolina where all the riots are currently occurring.
Watch the video.