A recent edition of the “MTSU On the Record” radio program outlined how America’s tortured history of racial discrimination continues to ripple through society.

Dr. Louis Woods

Host Gina Logue’s interview with Dr. Louis Woods, an associate professor of history, first aired Nov. 24 on WMOT-FM (89.5 and www.wmot.org ). You can listen to their conversation here.

In a paper published in the Summer 2013 edition of “The Journal of African-American History,” Woods details the bureaucratic policies and U.S. Supreme Court decisions that made it almost impossible for blacks to get home loans between 1917 and 1960.

“Virtually ‘No Negro Veteran…Could Get a Loan:’ African-American Veterans, the GI Bill, and the NAACP’s Relentless Campaign against Residential Segregation, 1914-1960” is part of a larger book project, “Contesting Negro Exclusion: The NAACP’s Fight for Fair Housing, 1914-1965,” which examines the multifaceted institutional impediments to fair housing long endured and challenged by African-American.

Another Woods paper, co-written with Mary Shaw-Ridley and Charlotte A. Woods for the journal “Health Promotion Practice,” makes the connection between systemic housing segregation and the deterioration of African-Americans’ physical and mental health.

“If you’re trying to intervene in communities that have very little wealth based largely on policies that they didn’t control, that happened before some of their grandparents were alive, but still resonate within their family and their conditions, it’s very difficult … to argue to them that they just need to walk more,” Woods said.

To hear previous “MTSU On the Record” programs, visit the searchable “Audio Clips” archives at www.mtsunews.com.

For more information about “MTSU On the Record,” contact Logue at 615-898-5081 or WMOT-FM at 615-898-2800.

A video clip of the interview may be seen below.