state authorities didn’t punish brokers
for racial discrimination; and they rarely
do so even today, when racial steering
and discriminatory practices remain
widespread.
Local officials played roles as well. In
northern cities and suburbs, police and
prosecutors conspired with vigilantes
and leaders of white mobs to force out
black families who succeeded in purchasing or renting in white neighborhoods. Arrests were almost never made,
and prosecutions were even rarer
(Rubinowitz & Perry, 2002).
White homeowners’ resistance to
black neighbors was fed by deteriorating ghetto conditions, supported by
municipalities’ discriminatory denial of
adequate public services. In the ghetto,
garbage was collected less frequently;
neighborhoods were rezoned for mixed
(that is, industrial or even toxic) use;
streets remained unpaved; and even
water and power were less often provided (Kerner Commission, 1968).
White homeowners came to see these
conditions as characteristics of black
residents, not as results of racially motivated city policy.
State-Sponsored Segregation
These federal, state, and local actions
combined to segregate our metropolitan
areas and have been documented,
to varying degrees, in virtually every
northern city. Examples abound in
Louisville and Seattle as well.
In Louisville, a 1960s urban renewal
project relocated 885 black families
from near downtown to a neighborhood
that planners designated for black residence. In fact, the neighborhood had
been opened to black residence only in
1937, after a catastrophic flood induced
whites to leave. During World War II,
the federal government placed housing
in that barely habitable neighborhood
for black workers who came to Louisville from rural areas to work in military
supply plants (Blum,;2006).
Federally regulated banks in
Louisville didn’t approve loans for
TRENDS of the TIMES
Poverty by race: ■ 39 percent of black children ■ 34 percent of Hispanic children ■ 13 percent of ;sian children ■ 12 percent of ;hite children
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of
the Census, 2011 Current Population Survey.
blacks in other neighborhoods, and
the FHA and VA ensured that developing areas were covered by racial deed
restrictions. In 1954, when a black man
moved to a white neighborhood, his
home was bombed— and Kentucky
put the seller on trial for sedition. In
general, when black families attempted
to break out of the ghetto, movers
received no police protection, and violence drove them back.
Seattle, as elsewhere, developed
suburbs that were closed to blacks
and with deeds that barred resale to
them. Restrictions were included in
formal plat plans recorded with the
city and county. Enforcement was
strict. In 1948, the Seattle Real Estate
Board expelled a broker for the rare
act of selling to a black purchaser in a
white neighborhood; the state licensing
agency did not object. In 1957, a state
law prohibited racial discrimination in
FHA-insured housing, but the Washington Supreme Court overturned
the law and the U.S. Supreme Court
declined to review it (Taylor, 1994).
In 1963, the Seattle City Council
adopted a fair housing law, but a
successful campaign to repeal it was
accompanied by violent attacks against
blacks who had purchased homes
outside Seattle’s ghetto. Discriminatory
policy does not become constitutional
simply because voters approve it.
When black basketball star Bill
Russell moved to an affluent Seattle
suburb in 1973, police routinely
harassed him by following him and any
cars driven by blacks into the suburb
(Russell, 1987). Recent reports by the
Seattle Office for Civil Rights charge
that black homeowners and renters
still face discriminatory treatment by
regulated banks and state-licensed real
estate agents when these black families
attempt to move out of predominantly
black neighborhoods (City of Seattle,
2012; Davis, 2005).
An Obligation to Fulfill
Racial segregation’s persistence is
attributable to these policies, some continuing to this day. Segregation is now
locked in place by exclusionary zoning
laws in suburbs where black families
once could have afforded to move in the
absence of official segregation but can
afford to do so no longer, given appreciated property values.
Had the Louisville and Seattle districts documented how their school segregation resulted from state-sponsored
residential segregation, the Supreme
Court majority might still have barred
desegregation, but at least Justice Breyer
might have made a stronger case in his
dissent. As it is, even the most committed advocates of racial diversity
in schools have forgotten, or failed to
learn, the history of residential racial
segregation, and so rely on weaker
arguments.
Reacquainting ourselves with that
history is a step toward confronting
it. When knowledge of that history
becomes commonplace, we will conclude that Louisville, Seattle, and other
