Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black America | By Beryl Satter | Metropolitan Books | 512 pages, $30

Every now and then, the zeitgeist smiles down upon a writer and makes the subject she’s been toiling over for a decade a hot topic at the time of publication. Such is the case with Beryl Satter’s Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black America. Through the lens of history, Satter sheds crucial light on both the current subprime-mortgage crisis and the importance of community organizing in Chicago. If anyone still questions the significance of such organizing in the inner city, she should read Family Properties for a lesson in just how hard a job it is.

The narrative—and the author’s inspiration—begins at home. “ ‘If there’s no limit to how much a man can make, and it doesn’t matter how he makes it, God help us,’ ” Satter’s grandfather, Isaac, used to say. But it was her father, Mark Satter, who put this philosophy into action by representing disenfranchised African Americans in Chicago.

The son of a Russian-Jewish immigrant, Mark Satter was born in 1916 and raised in the Lawndale section of Chicago. His father lost his small business during the Great Depression and struggled the rest of his life to support his large family. This, the author suggests, explains Mark’s desire to succeed. She traces his compassion for the underdog to a childhood injury.

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