CHICAGO – If Robert York was ever bone tired, he didn’t show it. After working two jobs, the father of 11 would return home to his North Lawndale two-flat greystone on Chicago’s West Side and hose down the chalk marks his kids made while playing on the porch.

The home was his prized possession. This was the early 1960s, and like most Black people in the neighborhood who were land contract buyers, York was paying dearly for it – and living in constant fear of losing his home.

Land contract buyers were on the hook for a down payment, high monthly payments and maintenance of the house while the deed remained in the seller’s name until the very last payment was made. A single missed payment was grounds for eviction.

Many working-class Black families in the 1950s and ‘60s were forced to turn to speculative sellers after the government refused to insure mortgages in redlined African American neighborhoods. Speculators often bought homes at a discount from white families as they fled racially changing neighborhoods to sell them months later to Black families at inflated prices and high interest rates.

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