Running and Redlining
For most of her life, Erin Flynn believed that running was an inherently inclusive sport.
A standout cross-country runner — first at her high school in Milton, Massachusetts, where she helped lead her teammates to a state championship, and later at Georgetown University, acclaimed for its highly competitive NCAA Division 1 cross-country and track and field program — Flynn, now a lecturer in Marketing at Bentley, admits she thought more about winning competitions than racial equity in running. After all, she notes, “We’ve always been told that running is the world’s most accessible sport, that anyone can do it. That participating is as easy as putting on a pair of shoes.”
Today, however, Flynn recognizes a more complicated truth. “The reality is that there are significant and systemic barriers that limit access to and opportunities for running among people of color,” she explains. As a member of the Running Industry Diversity Coalition (RIDC) — an organization that provides resources, measures progress and holds the running industry accountable to equitable employment, leadership and ownership positions and improved inclusion, visibility and access for Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) — Flynn is helping to educate others about why these barriers exist and what needs to happen to make the sport truly accessible for all.
Understanding Environmental Racism
Flynn credits RIDC co-founder Alison Mariella Désir for the original concept of how environmental racism is a persistent source of inequity in the running industry today. “Alison and I were talking about her new book, ‘Running While Black,’ which she was then in the process of writing,” Flynn recalls. “She shared that one of the topics she planned to cover was environmental racism, and I remember thinking, ‘I’ve never heard this term before.’”
Environmental racism — a phrase coined by civil rights leader Rev. Dr. Benjamin Chavis in 1982 — refers to the disproportionate impact of environmental hazards on BIPOC and lower-income communities. A reality first acknowledged in a landmark 1983 report from the General Accounting Office, which found that 75% of hazardous waste landfill sites were placed in poor, primarily Black and/or Hispanic neighborhoods, it’s been confirmed by additional research in the decades since. For example, communities of color in America today experience higher rates of air pollution — a direct result of living in closer proximity to power stations, industrial plants and major highways — and correspondingly greater risks of developing chronic health conditions such as asthma, diabetes and hypertension.
“At first, I felt ashamed that I didn’t know what environmental racism was,” Flynn explains. “But then I realized there are probably lots of other white people like me, who didn’t see these realities reflected in the communities they grew up in and didn’t learn about these topics in school. Alison was the person who originally connected environmental racism to the running industry. I was inspired by this concept and felt it was important to learn more.”
Motivated to fill in the gaps in her own knowledge as well as her students’, Flynn applied for and received a 2022 Bentley faculty summer research grant and began collecting data around specific environmental justice issues affecting BIPOC runners. Her research builds upon Désir’s concept of environmental racism’s impact on the running industry to examine how federal housing policies enacted in the 1930s created and perpetuated racially segregated neighborhoods characterized by significant health and wealth disparities.
She’s hopeful that findings from her “Running Through Redlines” study — as highlighted in the video below, which features and was co-produced by Flynn’s research assistant, Jaeschel Acheampong and was filmed by Steve Salina ’91, Bentley’s principal engineer for instructional media — can help “amplify the conversation Alison and the RIDC are already leading to raise awareness of how systemic racism has created environmental barriers to access and inclusion.”
Flynn, Acheampong and Salina produced this video to introduce her study’s findings.
All Roads Lead to Redlining
As Flynn discovered early on in her research, existing inequities can all be traced to racist housing policies enacted in the 1930s. With countless families facing foreclosure as a result of the Great Depression, the U.S. government established the Home Owner’s Loan Corporation (HOLC) in 1933 to stabilize the housing market by providing emergency loans to banks and property owners. The new agency began producing color-coded “residential security” maps classifying neighborhoods based on their perceived lending risk: “A grade” or “best” areas were shaded green, while “D grade” or “hazardous” areas were outlined in red. Given the prevalence of Jim Crow legislation at the time, it’s hardly surprising that all-white neighborhoods were graded green, while those with predominantly Black or immigrant populations were deemed red, a discriminatory practice now known as redlining. As a result, residential and commercial investment was restricted to predominantly white communities.
Any pretense that segregation was accidental is belied by the racist policies set forth by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which was created in 1934 to provide federally insured mortgages. Indeed, the agency’s official underwriting manual explicitly stated that “incompatible racial groups should not be permitted to live in the same communities.” In addition to denying loans to prospective BIPOC homeowners, the agency subsidized suburban developments specifically for white families, awarding FHA loans only to developers who promised not to sell their homes to Black families. Although the Fair Housing Act of 1968 officially prohibited discriminatory policies, their legacy is still felt today. As Flynn notes, “Investing in real estate is a key driver of generational wealth. But the entire industry was steeped in racism and privilege, as redlining practices denied people of color the same equity-building opportunities afforded to white Americans.”
For her research, Flynn focused on two Boston-area communities within a few miles of each other: Brookline, a formerly “A grade/green” neighborhood and Roxbury, a formerly “D grade/red” neighborhood. The former is one of Massachusetts’ most affluent communities, she notes, with a median household income of $113,642 and 66.8% of residents self-identifying as non-Hispanic white. By comparison, Roxbury is primarily BIPOC (41.5% Black, 30.5% Hispanic, 6% Asian/Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and 9% Other/Multiracial), with an average household income of $33,222. This aligns with national statistics, Flynn explains, which indicate 64% of formerly redlined neighborhoods have majority BIPOC populations and 74% have low-to-moderate median incomes.
The environmental disparities Flynn’s research uncovered between these neighborhoods are striking. She looked specifically at four distinct components she says “have a direct and immediate impact on the experience of the runner”: tree cover, air and land temperatures, air pollution and safe sidewalks. Brookline bested Roxbury in every category, she notes, offering more tree cover (which reduces surface temperatures by diminishing the amount of heat absorbed via concrete and asphalt), cleaner air and better-maintained infrastructure, including roads and sidewalks. Given such conditions, Flynn explains, it’s easy to understand why a 2021 report from the Sports & Fitness Industry Association found that just 34% of the estimated 50 million runners in America identify as BIPOC. But she also emphasizes that environmental differences are just one of many barriers facing communities of color. “To fully enjoy the benefits of running, you need a space where you feel safe, both physically and psychologically,” she says. “For residents of formerly redlined communities, that’s a lot more complicated than lacing up a pair of shoes.”
Forging a Pathway Forward
By supporting the RIDC’s research goals, Flynn is helping to change that. She’s currently leading a new RIDC study that will quantify existing racial and ethnic representation in employment at all levels of the running industry, from entry-level employees to business owners. The results will help establish qualitative and quantitative baseline measurements the RIDC can use to “hold the industry accountable for true equity, which would include diversity levels that align with national demographics,” she explains.
Yet, Flynn also acknowledges the inherent challenges of asking a predominantly white industry to reform itself. “Fundamentally, achieving racial justice is about shifting existing power structures,” she says. “And that’s one of the hardest things that we, as a society, can endeavor to do, since power and control are two of the biggest drivers of human behavior.” The running industry has pledged itself to improving diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), she notes, but “intent alone is not going to change the system.”
Instead, Flynn believes in empowering and supporting BIPOC entrepreneurs. “Change can be accelerated if BIPOC business owners gain traction in the marketplace,” she says. “This will put pressure on existing companies to be more authentic and transparent with their own DEI initiatives.” The success of BIPOC-owned businesses can also inspire more people of color to take up running, as the increase in representation allows them to envision themselves as active participants in the running industry.
Above all, Flynn says, we need to ensure that individuals from underserved communities have the resources, opportunity and authority to address environmental racism in their communities in the ways they see fit. “As white people, we’ve been granted access to resources and social privilege simply because of the color of our skin,” she explains. “And while we absolutely can and should leverage those advantages to advance racial justice, the decision-making needs to be driven by community leaders in the areas most affected by historical and current practices of oppression.”