April 2009 is the 41st anniversary of the passage of the Fair Housing Act. On April 11, 1968, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Title VIII of that law is referred to as the Fair Housing Act (FHA). The FHA in its original form prohibited discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, color, religion, and national origin. Since 1968, the FHA has been expanded to include sex, handicap and familial status. 41 years since its passage, many of us enjoy and take for granted the FHA’s protections. However, the road to passage of the Act was a long one, and the efforts of those who advocated for it should not be forgotten.
After the Civil War, the 13th Amendment was enacted to abolish slavery and to give Congress the authority to enact legislation to enforce the abolishment. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which provides that all citizens shall have the same rights as white citizens to inherit, purchase, and sell real and personal property. In 1868, state action discrimination was also prohibited by the 14th Amendment. Irrespective of the 1866 Act, for over a century the courts prohibited discrimination based on race only with respect to state discrimination (zoning, and state enforcement of a private restrictive covenant).
In November 1962, President Kennedy signed an executive order, “Equal Opportunity in Housing,” prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, creed, or national origin in housing that is owned, operated or assisted by the federal government. Congress then enacted Title VI to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibitd discrimination in programs receiving federal funding. These initiatives however did not govern private housing.
Fair housing bills were introduced in Congress in 1966 and 1967, but were never passed. The assination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968, and subsequent rioting, served as the impetus to memorialize his efforts to desegregate neighborhoods in America. Also leading to the passage of the FHA was the inability of returning African American and Hispanic Vietnam veterans and their families to purchase or rent homes in certain regions because of their race or national origin. In advocating for the passage of the Act, Senator Edward Brooke, the first frican-American to be elected to the Senate by popular vote and a World War II veteran, spoke of his inability upon his return from World War II to provide a home of his choice for his new family because of his race. As a result of these events, House of Representatives passed the FHA, followed by the Senate without debate. The FHA was signed into law by President Johnson before Dr. King’s funeral took place in Atlanta. Shortly thereafter, in June 1968 the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., and held that the Civil Rights Act of 1866 banned private, as well as state, racial discrimination in housing.
The Washington Law Against Discrimination (WLAD), is a state law that is substanially equivalent to the federal Fair Housing Act. The WLAD also prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, military status, and marital status. |
