Redlining is a term that originated in the banking sector in the 1930s. Banks would outline poor neighborhoods in red on a city map and refuse to offer housing loans or mortgages on properties within the red line, because the property values there were declining, and the bank risked losing money if they invested in those neighborhoods.

These disadvantaged, "red-lined" neighborhoods were, not coincidentally, often the African-American neighborhoods of a city or metropolitan area, and the practice of redlining created a vicious cycle that trapped these neighborhoods in poverty, since no investments were made in restoring or maintaining them, and nobody would invest in the neighborhoods, because the neighborhoods were poor.

The term has been adopted to refer to numerous practices which systematically isolate and impoverish black neighborhoods, from housing discrimination (when landlords outside the red line refuse to rent to African-American tenants) to business zoning and investment (when major stores and corporations refuse to open stores within the red line). Redlining is a powerful symbol for Anderson because the arbitrary red line on a map, which separates white from black, safe from dangerous, and rich from poor, clearly reflects the core desire of white rage: to contain and restrict African-American progress, and to keep African-Americans separate and disadvantaged.