Linda Gartz

The story of how unscrupulous real estate agents and bankers conspired to discriminate against black people in Chicago in the 1960’s is an ugly story, and Linda Gartz’s family’s experience is sadly illustrative of how the process worked. And she also shows how these discriminatory practices harmed not only the black people who wanted to buy homes in decent areas, but also the white people they were about to displace. This is a story I remember well, since the author & I are approximately the same age & I, too, grew up in Chicago, albeit in the much tonier suburb of Oak Park. Still I recognize the attitudes of white people as the entire west side of Chicago was "taken over", seemingly overnight, by black people. This part of the book is excellent.

Unfortunately, Ms. Gartz also used this book as an opportunity to spin tales of her dysfunctional family, and quite honestly, I’m just not interested… (mer)

A Timely Look Back at Chicago’s Shameful Racial History through a Family that Stood Their Ground

Now that it’s been nearly a half-century, as a country we’re actively looking back at the 60’s for lessons that can be learned, or at least accurate history revealed, for how some of today’s problems began, in an attempt to solve them once and for all—particularly race relations, particularly here in Chicago.
Redlined is beautifully timed for that introspection. Set in the west side during the White Flight of the era, Gartz has fashioned an exquisite frame for how to tell the story of the insidious practice of Redlining in human terms. In a memoir of her family, inspired by the surprise discovery of hidden letters and diaries of her parents, Gartz has spun an ingenious story with macro/micro implications. As her parents refused to leave their home in a dangerously changing neighborhood rife with corrupt policies designed to keep out the very people who could have helped to stabilize the area, they served as societal stalwarts, though it cost them their marriage, and shattered a family.

In a daughter’s quest to understand, Gartz has given us an important book of the times, of people who didn’t realize they were heroes, and of a city and a family that paid the price.… (mer)