Legal Defense Fund Sues to End Akron Ohio Housing Bias

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AD New York, N.¥. 10019 

PX? JUdson 6-8397 
\ NAACP 

Legal Defense and Educational F. und 
PRESS RELEASE 

President 

Dr. Allan Knight Chalmers 

a Ciecabers For Release 
WEDNESDAY, 
April 7, 1965 

LEGAL DEFENSE FUND SUES TO 
END AKRON OHIO HOUSING BIAS 

Conspiracy of White Realtors Charged in Suit 

CLEVELAND, Ohio---Discriminatory practices of the 1,800 member 

Akron Area Board of Realtors were attacked in Federal District 

Court here today by attorneys of the NAACP Legal Defense and 

Educational Fund, Inc. 

In the first suit of its kind, Legal Defense Fund lawyers asked 

that the Board be “permanently enjoined and restrained" because its 

members are operating in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman 

Antitrust Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act. 

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund was established by the NAACP in 

1939 as a separate and independent civil rights legal agency. 

Legal Defense Fund attorneys assert that the realtors "have 

engaged in an unlawful combination and conspiracy in restraint of 

interstate trade and commerce." 

This “combination and conspiracy has continuously had as its 

purpose and objective the prevention of Negro persons from owning 

real property in parts of Akron occupied solely or primarily by 

white persons." 

To this end, the Realtors are charged with: 

v** Refusing their services to Negroes desirous of living 

in areas the Realtors have delineated as "white" 

neighborhoods; 

** Quoting prices to Negroes far greater than those 

quoted to prospective white purchasers or renters of 

the same property; 

“** Falsely informing Negroes that whites would not sell 

to them; 

(more) 

Jesse DeVore, Jr., Director of Public Information—Night Number 212 Riverside 9-8487 Ss 



Legal Defense Fund Sues To =2+ April 7, 1965 

End Akron Ohio Housing Bias 

** Declining to list property where the owner requests 

an "open" listing; 

** Refusing to show property to Negroes after purporting 

to accept it on an “open” basis; 

** Misrepresenting to Negroes the reasons for failure to 

consummate a sale; 

{ ** Excluding Negro real estate brokers from the 

advantages and opportunities associated weeh member= 

ship in the Akron Area Board of realtors. , 

The Legal Devense Fund suit comes at a moment when Fair 

Housing ordinance, passed last July by the City Council, is facing 

a test to see whether it remains valid, 

The ordinance, which banned "discrimination in housing on the 

basis of race," was purportedly repealed by a referendum in 

November. This referendum was supported and financed by Akron 

realtors. It amended the City Charter stating that Council 

ordinances which "regulate" property transactions on the basis of 

race, religion, or national origin must first be passed by the public, 

The validity of this amendment, and the issue of whether or 

not it repeals the July ordinance are at stake in a court case 

currently pending. 

Charged with conspiring to discriminate are 28 Akron zeald 

estate firms as well as the Akron Area Board itself, an 

organization which does not list a single Negro among its 1, 800-odd 

members’. 

*henal Defense Fund attorneys charge that Negroes are 

discriminated when: 
> 

** Negro brokers have been denied benefits of member- 

s th ship on the Akron, thereby restraining the sale and 

rental of real property by Negroes; 

** Negro persons have been discouraged from mcving to the 

Akron area because they have been unable,to buy or 

ane teily 
rent. 

(more) 



Legal Defense Fund Sues To -3- April 7, 1965 

End Akron Ohio Housing Bias 
wei i ‘ 

% 

Among the plaintiffs on whose behalf the Legal Defense Fund 

filed the suit were a Negro Ph.D. who was denied housing listed 

"for sale or rent", and a white professor from a lily-white suburb 

who failed in his attempt to have his house listed with brokers on 

a non-discriminatory basis. 

The Legal Defense Fund complaint seeks to demonstrate that the 

real estate business ig in large measure interstate commerce and 

thus subject to the federal anti-trust laws, 

Filed along with the Legal Defense Fund complaint was a 

motion asking that the court order the Board and the real estate 

firms to submit all papers and records pertinent to Negro attempts 

to purchase or rent homes, all documents referring to the 1964 

Ordinance and referendum, and many other records. 

Jack Greenberg, Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense 

Fund, led a group of lawyers including James M. Nabrit III, Leroy 

D. Clark and Sheila Rush of the Fund staff; Henry M. Aronson of 

Jackson, Mississippi; Jay Topkis of N.Y.; Jack Day of Cleveland; 

Norman Purnell and Bernard R, Roetzel of Akron. 

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