Appeals Court Hears Detroit Housing Bias Base
Press Release
April 20, 1955

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Press Releases, Loose Pages. Appeals Court Hears Detroit Housing Bias Base, 1955. df27fd0e-bc92-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/792855e1-065e-464a-a56e-e6dda6e3dfbb/appeals-court-hears-detroit-housing-bias-base. Accessed June 17, 2025.
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PRESS RELEASE ® e@ NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND 107 WEST 43 STREET + NEW YORK 36, N. Y. © JUdson 6-8397 ARTHUR B. SPINGARN oa THURGOOD MARSHALL President Director and Counsel WALTER WHITE ROBERT L. CARTER Secretory Assistant Counsel ALLAN KNIGHT CHALMERS ARNOLD De MILLE Treasurer Press Relations Apr#l 20, 1955 APPEALS COURT HEARS DETROIT HOUSING BIAS CASE CINCINNATI, April 21,--The U. S, Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit at Cincinnati, Ohio, will hear argument of the lawyers for the Detroit Housing Commission today on why a federal injunction order restraining the Commission from discriminating against Negroes should be modified, and also why the Commission needs time in which to bring about gradual integration of public housing projects. The injunction order enjoining racial segregation in the Detroit public housing projects was issued on June 21, 195 by Federal District Judge Arthur Lederle, but upon application of the lawyers for the Detroit Housing Commission, final injunction was stayed pending an appeal to the U. S. Court of Appeals, The Detroit Housing Commission argued that the U. S. Supreme Court had not formulated its final decrees in the school segregation cases spelling out the methods by which desegregation should be brought about in those cases, The stay was sought on the ¢round that the district court should have waited until the decrees were handed down. The injunction was won by NAACP attorneys representing the Negro families, The suit was brought on June 5, 1950, by NAACP attorneys repre- senting Negro families who had been refused admission to certain public housing projects because of the racial segregation policy enforced by the Detroit Housing Commission, The district court indicated immediately after the filing of the complaint that it was of the opinion that racial segregation could not be enforced in public housing. However, the court pointed out at the time it issued its final injunction that it gave the Detroit Housing Commission every opportun- ity to voluntarily change its segregation policy, The final injunction enjoined discrimination in the selection of tenants, the maintenance of separate lists of eligible Negro and white occupants and the main-~ tenance of separate public housing projects. se ® ® In 1952, following a preliminary hearing in the case, the Commis- sion adopted a resolution which purported to do away with the racial segregation policy in public housing. Pursuant to this resolution, two new public housing projects which opened in Detroit since 1952, the Douglass Homes and the Jeffries Homes, have been integrated and a third project presently under construction is designated for interracial occupancy. However, four older permanent projects remain segregated. With respect to integration of these older projects, the Detroit Housing Commission contends that it is necessary to first condition both the adult occupants of public housing and the home owners in areas surrounding public housing units. Such conditioning is more difficult and more acute in housing than in schools where the integration of children alone is involved, the Commission argued. NAACP attorneys argue that it is not necessary to grant time in which to integrate since integration in public housing is necessarily gradual, Eligible Negro families cannot be admitted to vacancies in white projects any faster than vacancies occur in these projects. The attorneys argue that the district court has already allowed the Detroit Housing Commission four years in which to integrate. They say also that the district court has given consideration to the possibility of racial conflicts arising from integration of public housing projects and from his personal knowledge of the situation has concluded that race relations in Detroit have advanced to the point where it is apparent that Negroes are able to move not only into white projects without fric- tion, as in the case of Douglas and Jeffries Homes, but are also able to move into formerly all-white private residential areas without conflict. Attorneys for the Negro families in this case are Thurgood Marshall and Constance Baker Motley of NAACP Legal Defense staff in New York, and Francis M. Dent, Willis M. Graves and Edward Turner of the Detroit Branch of the NAACP, =30=