Supreme Court Strikes Covenants: Housing Racism Crumbles
The Supreme Court ruled in Shelley v. Kraemer on May 3, 1948, that while private parties could create racially restrictive covenants, state courts could not enforce them because doing so would constitute state action violating the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. The case involved J. D. Shelley, a Black man who purchased a house in St. Louis that was subject to a 1911 covenant barring "people of the Negro or Mongolian Race." The Kraemers, white neighbors, sued to void the sale. The Court's decision did not invalidate the covenants themselves, only their judicial enforcement. The practical effect was significant: without court enforcement, restrictive covenants became unenforceable. The FHA subsequently declared them contrary to public policy, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 banned them outright.
May 3, 1948
78 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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