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The student history projects, lesson plans, and teaching activities collected here explore how discriminatory practices, known as redlining, led to the decline of neighborhood commercial centers in communities of color in eastern Omaha.

The neighborhood history projects, created by OPS students, teachers and university students, include: detailed neighborhood historical information, a guiding question, an oral history interview with a community elder as well as youth-driven ideas for the neighborhood’s future.  The accompanying lesson plans and teaching activities provide economics, history, geography teachers means to utilize this content in their high school classroom.

 (HOLC Map of Omaha, ca 1935. Courtesy of Paula Strand.) "Beginning in 1936, the neighborhoods of Omaha’s Near North and South sides were systematically segregated from the rest of the city by means of prohibitive and discriminatory home lending practices. In Omaha, and cities across the country, red lines were literally drawn on city maps by the federally-funded Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, identifying predominantly African-American and immigrant communities as “hazardous” and unfit for investment." -Undesign the Redline