1727 S. Street NW, Washington, DC
Corrigan v. Buckley
In the wake of the 1917 Supreme Court decision that racial segregation ordinances were unconstitutional, individuals and neighborhood groups adopted racial covenants and deed restrictions. In Washington, DC, Irene Corrigan, the wife of a consul serving overseas in France, signed a restrictive covenant, then moved into a residential hotel with her son. She arranged to sell their house to Helen Curtis, a Black woman who had volunteered overseas during the war while her husband, a physician, served in the military. The NAACP argued that the court should not enforce private contracts; the court ruled that it did not have standing in private contracts and allowed the lower court ruling to stand.
[DECISION]
The Chicago Defender was the nation’s leading Black newspaper.
Hansberry v. Lee
This case originated in Chicago when real estate agent Carl Hansberry rented the house at 6140 S. Rhodes south of Washington Park. Hansberry had previously been prevented from living in another house that had been covenanted. This Supreme Court ruling was made on technical grounds and not on fundamental equal protection grounds. While it did not stop the use of covenants across the country, it did help build momentum for broader attacks on covenants.
[DECISION]
The Shelley family.
Shelley v. Kraemer
The Supreme Court ruling was a decision on four covenant cases from Washington, DC, Detroit, MI, and the Shelley case from St. Louis, MO. The court ruled that covenants were unenforceable by the government. This was a tremendous victory for the NAACP and was seen as the end of such segregation. However, covenants were still enacted for years afterwards and remained obstacles to integration if they consolidated segregationist and exclusionary sentiments within a residential neighborhood.
[DECISION]