Rosa Parks, celebrated for her iconic role in the American civil rights movement, relocated to Detroit in August 1957. She took this risk with the support of her husband, Raymond Parks. The couple lived at 3201 Virginia Park Street from 1961 through 1988. Today, their old home sits empty. It stands as a powerful memorial to the systemic injustices that have long defined housing policies in Detroit and around the country.
The City of Detroit has a long and painful history of overtaxing homeowners. In fact, between the years of 2009 and 2015, the city overtaxed homeowners by a staggering $600 million, at minimum. This is a blatant violation of the Michigan state constitution, which mandates that no house be taxed over half of its true market value. The Parks’ home vividly illustrates this discouraging reality. It’s reality that today it’s worth less than $50,000 — but still they’re subjected to the unfair tax obligation of $2,058.
Bernadette Atuahene, a Duggan Professor at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, has documented this dismal truth. She is dedicated to discovering what it really means. She points out that as many as 84% of houses in the city were overtaxed in this time. “The taxation system in Detroit has disproportionately affected Black homeowners, contributing to a wider pattern of economic disenfranchisement,” Atuahene stated.
The consequences of these policies go beyond just the increased cost of doing business. By 1950, the median income for Black households in Detroit reached just $2,298. By comparison, the national median for Black households was just $952, a difference of more than $1,000. Yet historical practices, such as redlining, have exacerbated this economic inequality. The Federal Housing Administration limited access to capital by circling neighborhoods largely inhabited by Black Americans in red ink—hence the term “redlining.” These discriminatory policies not only limited access to mortgages, but actively set back development in these communities for decades.
Caught up in that lack of political will is the legacy of damaging urban renewal programs. These initiatives were intended as a way to remove blight in Detroit. Sadly, they frequently resulted in the destruction of hundreds of established communities, uprooting families and severing decades-old community connections. The practice of blockbusting had a large hand in this period as well. Realtors told white homeowners that if Black families moved into their neighborhoods, the value of their homes would plummet. This fostered a culture of fear and division within their community.
Rosa Parks’ own experience was fraught with danger following her courageous refusal to give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama. She and her husband endured ongoing assassination attempts as they turned into icons of the movement for civil rights. Their Detroit house, therefore, was not merely a domicile; it served as sanctuary during a wave of racial terror.
Given this history, it is important to recognize the modern-day consequences of systemic racism in property taxation. New research shows an amazing inequality in how property taxes are levied. Black and Hispanic home buyers and renters typically pay 10% to 13% more than white people for similar homes. This wide gap begs the question of just how fair and equitable a city that is still coming to terms with its past can be.
Dr. Mindy Fullilove, an expert on urban social issues, succinctly describes the emotional toll of such systemic injustices: “the traumatic stress reaction to the destruction of all or part of one’s emotional eco-system.”
Rosa Parks’ home on Virginia Park Street today stands as a very real and living testament to the fruits of her legacy. It represents the larger struggle against racial inequities in housing and assessment policies. Detroit is allowing at least some of these suppurating historical injustices to heal. The ongoing struggles of this once-vibrant community serve as a cruel testament that we still have a long way to go towards achieving equity and justice for all residents.