Introduction of the Fair Housing Memorial Authorization Act

Floor Speech

* Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today I introduce, together with the co-sponsor Representative Ken Calvert, the Fair Housing Memorial Authorization Act, to commemorate the accomplishments of the fair housing movement in the United States with a memorial on federal land in the nation's capital. The bipartisan bill authorizes the Fair Housing Commemorative Foundation, established by the National Association of Realtors, to raise funds to build the memorial in accordance with the Commemorative Works Act. No federal funds could be used for the memorial. This may be the first time that a sector of our economy has decided to establish a memorial commemorating a movement that led to the enactment of statutes that regulate some of its practices. The foundation's precedent is commendable.

* Fair housing and the movement to bring equal opportunity in the real estate markets are intertwined with our nation's history. The federal government has both been a part of the problem and an integral part of the solution, and every branch of the federal government has played a key role in our nation's progress towards fair housing. It is, therefore, fitting that we commemorate the fair housing movement's efforts to achieve equal opportunity in housing.

* The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution establishes a right to own private property that the government cannot take without just compensation. Early immigrants sought a place where they could own and transfer real estate without the arbitrary interference of the government. That right, however, was not universal. Slavery denied basic rights to a whole class of Americans based on their race, and reduced many African Americans to the status of property. Among other things, slaves were denied the right to own and use real property.

* The Civil War and the constitutional amendment prohibiting slavery were accompanied by laws that gave all citizens the same rights to own and use real property. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was our nation's first ``fair housing'' law, but that law was ignored and severely limited by court decisions, culminating with the philosophy of ``separate but equal'' in the U.S. Supreme Court Plessey v. Ferguson decision. In addition, Congress and some states passed laws that restricted private property ownership and use by Latinos and Asian Americans. In the early 20th century, social scientists and leaders within the real estate community established guides for neighborhood desirability based on racial composition. Homogeneous neighborhoods of whites from northern European backgrounds were seen as the best investment for homeowners and others. Some early zoning laws sought to limit, by race, the people who could live in certain communities, as did some practices of the real estate industry. Although the U.S. Supreme Court, in its 1917 Buchanan v. Worley decision, struck down these racial restrictions, racial bias formed the basis for many restrictive covenants on real estate.

* Following the World War II, returning GIs, through the GI Bill, were offered a path to homeownership. African Americans and other minorities, however, could not take advantage of these benefits in many communities. The great migration of the middle class to suburbs created segregated white suburbs and large isolated urban minority communities. There was little response by the federal government or the courts until, most notably, the 1948 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Shelley v. Kraemer ended judicial enforcement of racially restrictive covenants. The Civil Rights Movement, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s work in Chicago, brought renewed attention to housing discrimination. The federal government, first through executive order and then through the Civil Rights Act of 1964, banned discrimination in federally funded housing. By 1961, seventeen states had passed fair or open housing laws. However, it was not until April 1968, following the assassination of Dr. King, that Congress passed the Fair Housing Act.

* Also in April 1968, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Jones v. Mayer, held that the Civil Rights Act of 1866 prohibited discrimination in private real estate transactions. The Court noted that the law, which lacked an effective government enforcement mechanism, covered racial and religious discrimination. The federal government banned gender discrimination in housing in 1974, during the height of the Women's Rights Movement. And in 1988, in response to growing awareness of the housing issues faced the disabled, Congress amended the Fair Housing Act to protect the disabled.

* A memorial to the fair housing movement would celebrate the distance the nation has come to achieve fair housing and would remind us of the distance we still have to travel.

* Mr. Speaker, in light of this long battle for fair housing, I ask the House to pass this bill.

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