Michigan City Must Build Low Income Housing Unit in White Neighborhood
Press Release
November 20, 1968
Cite this item
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Press Releases, Volume 5. Michigan City Must Build Low Income Housing Unit in White Neighborhood, 1968. b4d77f22-b992-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/b9d649f1-9d10-4903-87ae-e3a5d08ccf4e/michigan-city-must-build-low-income-housing-unit-in-white-neighborhood. Accessed December 04, 2025.
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ee Hion: Visnciy Rivers
PRESS RELEASE Diettor-Counead
egal efense lund Jack Greenberg
Director, Public Relations
NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. Jesse DeVore, Jr.
10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 * JUdson 6-8397 NIGHT NUMBER 212-749-8487
FOR RELEASE
WEDNESDAY
November 20, 1968
MICHIGAN CITY MUST BUILD
LOW INCOME HOUSING UNIT
IN WHITE NEIGHBORHOOD
LDF Represents Negro and Mexican-American Plaintiffs
LANSING, Mich.---This city has been ordered to build a low-income
housing development in a white single-family residential section.
Judge Noel Fox of the U.S. District Court acted in response to an
action brought by Negroes and Mexican-Americans through attorneys of
the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) this week.
LDF attorney Michael Davidson of New York City handled the case
with Paul Rosen and William Goodman of Detroit.
The Court also enjoined a referendum, which had been initiated by
white residents of the area of the proposed low-income project, to
repeal zoning variances required by the developer of the project.
Judge Fox ruled that "since the displacement of these low-income
citizens is not being delayed (by highways and industrial expansion),
neither should these plans for substitute housing be delayed."
"This decision," said LDF Director-Counsel Jack Greenberg, "pro-
vides a practical opportunity for Negroes and Mexican-Americans to
find housing outside their ghettos. It is the first ruling of its kind
“The Court's order strikes at sophisticated devices of housing
discrimination found across the country, particularly in northern
suburbs and city fringe areas.
"NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. attorneys now
have a tool to fight such devices as zoning, which segregates neighbor~
hoods by income thereby limiting entry of Negroes, Puerto Ricans,
Mexican-Americans and other minorities," he said.
This litigation is part of an LDF program to halt the more
sophisticated expressions of housing discrimination in the North.
The Court found that Negroes and Mexican-Americans are locked
into a ghetto in Lansing by a combination of poverty and race.
The Court added that 75% of the housing in the ghetto is sub-
standard; the incidence of disease is higher; the level of necessary
municipal services is lower than in the rest of the city; and, schools
are segregated.
=30-
NOTE: The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) is a
separate and distinct organization from the NAACP. Its correct
designation is NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc-., which
is shortened to LDF.