Board of Realtors Seats First Negro

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- Press Releases
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- 624703ae-b692-ee11-be37-00224827e97b

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Press Releases, Volume 3. Board of Realtors Seats First Negro, 1966. 624703ae-b692-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/b119ce4d-3ef8-45d8-9811-14a7f000b845/board-of-realtors-seats-first-negro. Accessed April 06, 2025.

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    10 Columbus Circle 
New York, N.Y. 10019 e 
JUdson 6-8397 F 

NAACP 

Legal Defense-and Educational Fund 
PRESS. RELEASE 
Presiden: 

Dr. Allan Knight Chalmers FOR RELEASE 

Director-Counsel Thursday, 
Jack Greenberg January 27, 1966 

BOARD OF REALTORS 
SEATS FIRST NEGRO 

Businesswoman Ends 11-Year Struggle in Mercer County, M.J. 

TRENTON, N.J.---‘Jhen Mrs, Carolyn D. Martin of Princeton sits down 
to dinner at the Trenton Country Club tonight, not only wii she be 
breaking bread, but she will be breaking a long tradition that 
barred Negroes from membership in the local board of realtors. 

After an ll-year struggle and a law suit pressed by the NAACP 
Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc., Mrs. Martin last month was 
accepted as the first Negro member of the Trenton and Mercer County 
Board of Realtors. 

She will attend a dinner meeting of the board for the first 
time tonight. 

A real estate broker since 1952, Mrs. Martin first applied for 
membership in the real estate board in 1954, Six times her appli- 
cations were denied without reason before she took her case to the 
Legal Defense Fund, 

Fund lawyers filed suit in Federal District Court last June 
charging the Real Estate Board with conspiracy to deny membership 
to Negroes and maintain all-white neighborhoods in restraint of 
interstate trade and commerce. 

The alleged conspiracy violated federal anti-trust laws, the 
civil rights lawyers said, because persons moving to and from 
Mercer County travel in interstate Commences as do a large part of 
the building materials and supplies used, the mortgages which 
finance housing and the insurance which covers it. 

The Legal Defense Fund suit also charged that discrimination 
practiced by the board violated New Jersey common law which prohibits 
combinations in restraint of trade, and the 14th Amendment to the 
U. S. Constitution, 

The 14th Amendment forbids discrimination on the basis of race 
by public bodies. The Board of Realtors performs official state 
functions and is thus subject to the 14th Amendment, Legal Sefense 
Fund lawyers said. 

A similar suit, in behalf of a group of Negro citizens, is 
being pressed against the Akron, Ohio, Board of Realtors. 

The Trenton suit was dismissed after out-of-court negotiations 
resulted in the acceptance of Mrs. Martin's application for Board 
membership, 

After the settlement, the Board amended its rules so that an 
application for membership can no longer be rejected by majority 
vote of Board members without reason. 

All applications are now accepted unless a special board 
committee finds good and specific reasons why an applicant should 
be rejected. 

Mrs. Martin, the mother of two teenaged sons, said membership. 
in the Board of Realtors offers these advantages: oe ay 

Access to the multiple listing system, by which Teeagors enjoy 
a large market in all neighborhoods; 

*protection by the Code of Ethics of the National. te cociation 
of Real Estate Boards (NAREB) which requires cooperation among 
Booker! 

se of the "realtor" trademark, regarded by the public as more 
Se\fabic than "broker" a 

*receipt of NAREB’ publications--including indispensable z 
bulletins, journals J ahalusss devoted to problems and trends in)» 
the real estate busiseaty 

*use of the extensive: consulting and library facilities otathe 
NAREB, and thesNew: Apesey and Trenton Real Estate Boards. 

-30- 

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

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Board of Realtors Seats First Negro

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