Greenberg Statement on Urban Renewal

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Press Releases, Volume 5. Greenberg Statement on Urban Renewal, 1967. 65dcfc57-b892-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/e6d1ef1e-9435-4c42-9c91-79e72a374dc4/greenberg-statement-on-urban-renewal. Accessed November 25, 2025.

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    Statement by Jack Greenberg, Director-Counsel, NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. 
December 15, 1967 

Today's action raises the issue of whether the vast power of 
the federal government to reshape American cities is to be used for 
the benefit of the poor. Too often, urban renewal has been used as 
"Negro removal." If successful, this case will provide a weapon to 
combat such misuse in hundreds of projects across the country. 

The urban renewal plan attacked today would build housing at rents 
beyond the financial means of low-income Negro and Japanese presently 
Occupying the area. This would remove poor Negroes and Japanese from 
a San Francisco neighborhood which has long been their home, forcing 
them to move into substandard segregated housing elsewhere. This 
action is brought against the Secretary of the U.S. Department of 
Housing and Urban Development because it is his responsibility to 
approve and finance only those urban renewal projects which conform 
to the national goal of providing decent homes for all Americans. 
This project, unfortunately, like many others, is designed to provide 
decent homes for only those Americans who are already privileged. 

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Greenberg Statement on Urban Renewal

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