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Jonathan Daniels Center for Social Responsiblity: Fair Housing Act

Introduction

Text-to-speech Audio

The Fair Housing Act of 1968 prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin or sex. The Fair Housing Act stands as the final great legislative achievement of the civil rights era. From 1950 to 1980, the total Black population in America’s urban centers increased from 6.1 million to 15.3 million. When the white Americans could not keep the Blacks out of the white neighborhoods, they steadily moved out of the cities into the suburbs, taking many of the employment opportunities Blacks needed into communities where they were not welcome to live. This trend led to the growth in urban America of ghettos, or inner city communities with high minority populations that were plagued by unemployment, crime and other social ills.

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Backstory and Context

Text-to-speech Audio

Meanwhile, while a growing number of African-American and Hispanic members of the armed forces fought and died in the Vietnam War, on the home front their families had trouble renting or purchasing homes in certain residential areas because of their race or national origin.

In this climate, different organizations lobbied for new fair housing legislation to be passed. In early April 1968 the bill passed the U.S. Senate and then went too the House of Representatives. Congress had already rejected two earlier versions of the law, and the 1968 Act seemed destined for a similar fate. However, on the day of Senate vote on April 4, the civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.

Amid a wave of emotion—including riots, burning and looting in more than 100 cities around the country—President Lyndon b. Johnson increased pressure on Congress to pass the new civil rights legislation. After a strictly limited debate, the House passed the Fair Housing Act on April 10, and President Johnson signed it into law the following day.

Sources

Adams, Michelle. "The Unfulfilled Promise of the Fair Housing Act." The New Yorker April 11th 2018.

History.com Editors. Fair Housing Act, History. September 12th 2018. Accessed July 16th 2020. https://www.history.com/topics/Black-history/fair-housing-act.

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