Black Residential Segregation Since the 1948 Shelley V. Kraemer Decision

On May 3, 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that private agreements to exclude persons of designated race or color from the use or occupancy of real estate for residential purposes do not violate the Fourteenth Amendment, but it is violative of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment for state courts to enforce them (Shelley v. Kraemer, 1948, p. 1). The U.S. Supreme Court decision overruled the decision of two state supreme courts in Missouri and Michigan. The Missouri Supreme Court held that a restrictive covenant barring Shelley and other Blacks from ownership of property in the city of St. Louis was an effective agreement and that enforcement of its provisions violated no rights guaranteed to Blacks by the federal Constitution (Kraemer v. Shelley, 1946). The circumstances presented in the Michigan case are similar to those in the Missouri case. The Michigan Supreme Court decided against the contentions made by Blacks in Detroit that they had been denied rights protected by the Fourteenth Amendment when a restrictive agreement had been signed that barred Blacks from ownership of property located in a section of that city (Sipes v. McGhee, 1947). There is little doubt that such restrictions on Black ownership of property had the effect of segregating Blacks to certain sections of cities prior to 1948. The purpose of this article is to assess the state of Black residential segregation since Shelley v. Kraemer. The focus