Redlining Exhibit Opens New Avenues for Learning
How well do you know your neighborhood? Who lives there, what infrastructure and services are available, and what health issues your community struggles with all have a long history. Take redlining: the federal policy that constricted investments in neighborhoods of color like Harlem and the South Bronx ended in the 1960s, yet its pernicious legacy continues to be felt in formerly redlined communities today. A new exhibit at Columbia Mailman makes that point clear.
Sponsored by the Office of Inclusive Excellence, the exhibit, Undesign the Redline, is on view in the Riverview Lounge on the 10th floor of the Allan Rosenfield Building through December 3. At the same time, questions the exhibit raises are being taken up in the classroom as part of the Columbia MPH Core Curriculum.
Through a series of displays combining text, graphics, and photographs, the exhibit traces the history of redlining while introducing potential levers to undo its harms. Developed in 2015 by the design studio Designing the We, Undesign the Redline debuted in the Bronx and has since been shown across the country. A guiding light for its development was Mindy Fullilove, a former professor in Psychiatry and Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and Columbia Mailman (she now serves as Helen and Robert Fullilove Professor of Community Health at the University of Orange in New Jersey). At the New School, Mindy Fullilove, author and urbanist, served as thesis advisor to Braden Crooks, co-founder of Designing the We, in 2013. According to Crooks, she also helped inspire the exhibit’s name.
Yvonne Ortiz, Associate Dean for Inclusive Excellence, first encountered the exhibit at last year's Congressional Black Caucus Foundation conference in Washington, D.C. With the support of Diamond Jackson, director of inclusive initiatives, and MPH student Aya Abdalla, the exhibit debuted in Riverside Lounge earlier in October.
“The exhibit is powerful because it shows the specific, concrete ways that structural forces impact communities. When we think about racism, what harms people’s opportunities is less the interpersonal racism that people typically think about, but rather the larger forces and policies like redlining that have shaped the health of neighborhoods for generations,” Ortiz says. “The more you learn about the history of a place and who lives there, perhaps the more willing you’ll be to listen to them and work in true partnership to solve challenges.”
This perspective matters—especially in public health, where community partnerships are paramount. By next summer, hundreds of first-year MPH students completing the Core this fall will be working alongside community members through internships as part of their Applied Practice Experience (APEx). A year later, most of them will be doing the same as public health professionals.
Ortiz developed a study guide to accompany the exhibit and worked with Patrick Kachur, professor of population and family health, and Abdalla, lead student teaching partner in the Integration of Science and Practice (ISP) component of the Core, to structure learning opportunities. The exhibit’s lessons about structural determinants line up with the objectives of Self, Social and Global Awareness, a curriculum that invites students to develop an awareness of their own identities and how they relate to systems of power and oppression—and how those forces shape the issues and institutions they will encounter in public health practice.
Helen De Pinho, Associate Dean for Educational Initiatives, and Matthew Perzanowski, Core Faculty Lead, also helped integrate learning opportunities from the exhibit into the classroom. Ultimately, all 19 ISP teaching teams made the in-class session a reality.
In class, students consider how decisions about access to resources, opportunity, safety, and political power shape population health. What resources tend to follow investment—and what resources disappear when investment is withheld? How might a historical decision about housing affect educational opportunities, economic mobility, environmental exposure, stress, and later-life health? These questions help students connect the exhibit to public health outcomes.
Interest is strong, evidenced by the steady stream of students in Riverside Lounge taking time to absorb the display’s narratives. And more learning opportunities are coming. The Office of Inclusive Excellence is hosting a November event about the exhibit and another event in December on housing and public health.
“I am encouraged by the excitement that students and teaching teams have shared about the exhibit and the discussions it’s facilitated,” says Kachur. “Undesign the Redline has a lot of potential to enhance students’ experiential learning about systems of power and oppression that shape the very neighborhoods we live, work, and study in.”
Header photo, left to right: Aya Abdalla, Yvonne Ortiz, Patrick Kachur, Diamond Jackson.