Gordon Receives Mellon Grant to Study Housing and Land-Use Segregation in Iowa
Colin Gordon, distinguished faculty affiliate in the Social and Education Policy Research Program and F. Wendell Miller Professor of History, and Ashley Howard, assistant professor of history and African American studies, received $400,000 from the Mellon Foundation to study racial segregation in the state of Iowa.
Gordon and Howard submitted their project Dividing the City: Race Restrictions and the Architecture of Segregation, examining white reactions to Black migrations in Iowa, focusing on the use of race-based property restrictions in the state's metropolitan counties, resistance to these practices, and the implications for racial equity today. This project combines the interests of both researchers: Gordon's recent work focuses on racial segregation in the Midwest and white reaction to the "Great Migration" before the 1960s, while Howard is a social historian of the Black Midwest experience, particularly urban unrest from the 1960s through today.
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is the nation's largest funder of the arts, culture, and humanities. This UI proposal was one of 26 selected to develop a full proposal and receive funding, out of 280 total submissions.