- Sundown Towns.
Sundown towns, also known as sunset towns, gray towns, or sundowner towns, are all-white municipalities or neighborhoods in the United States that practice a form of racial segregation by excluding non-whites via some combination of discriminatory local laws, intimidation or violence. The term came from signs posted that "colored people" had to leave town by sundown.
Discriminatory policies and actions distinguish sundown towns from towns that have no black residents for demographic reasons. Historically, towns have been confirmed as sundown towns by newspaper articles, county histories, and Works Progress Administration files, corroborated by tax or U.S. Census records showing an absence of black people or sharp drop in the black population between two censuses.
- Exclusionary Covenants.
In the United States, deed restrictions and restrictive covenants became an important instrument for enforcing racial segregation in most towns and cities, becoming widespread in the 1920s and proliferating until they were declared unenforceable in 1948[20] in the Supreme Court case Shelley v. Kraemer. They prohibited a buyer of real property from allowing use or occupancy by members of a given race, ethnic origin, and/or religion as specified in the title deed. Such covenants were employed by many real estate developers to "protect" entire subdivisions, with the primary intent to keep "white" neighborhoods "white". Ninety percent of the housing projects built in the years following World War II were racially restricted by such covenants.[21] Cities known for their widespread use of racial covenants include Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, Milwaukee,[22] Los Angeles, Seattle, and St. Louis.
- Shelley v Kramer.
Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1 (1948), is a landmark[1] United States Supreme Court case that struck down racially restrictive housing covenants.
The case arose after an African-American family purchased a house in St. Louis that was subject to a restrictive covenant preventing "people of the Negro or Mongolian Race" from occupying the property. The purchase was challenged in court by a neighboring resident, and was blocked by the Supreme Court of Missouri before going to the U.S. Supreme Court on appeal.
In a majority opinion that was joined by the other five participating justices, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Fred Vinson struck down the covenant, holding that the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause prohibits racially restrictive housing covenants from being enforced. Vinson held that private parties could abide by the terms of a racially restrictive covenant, but that judicial enforcement of the covenant qualified as a state action and was thus prohibited by the Equal Protection Clause.
- The Negro Motorist Green Book.
The Negro Motorist Green Book (also The Negro Motorist Green-Book, The Negro Travelers' Green Book, or simply the Green Book) was an annual guidebook for African-American roadtrippers. It was originated and published by African-American New York City mailman Victor Hugo Green from 1936 to 1966, during the era of Jim Crow laws, when open and often legally prescribed discrimination against African Americans especially and other non-whites was widespread. Although pervasive racial discrimination and poverty limited black car ownership, the emerging African-American middle class bought automobiles as soon as they could, but faced a variety of dangers and inconveniences along the road, from refusal of food and lodging to arbitrary arrest. In response, Green wrote his guide to services and places relatively friendly to African-Americans, eventually expanding its coverage from the New York area to much of North America, as well as founding a travel agency.
