Upholding the spirit and provisions of the Fair Housing Act is a responsibility that every REALTOR® shares, and though the effort to ensure equal treatment for all is centuries old, federal protections that guarantee unbiased access to housing are a relatively modern creation. Read on or watch the short video below to learn more about the history of Fair Housing laws in the United States.

The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was ratified in 1791, protects individuals from self-incrimination, but it also shields property rights by limiting the government’s power of eminent domain and requiring “just compensation” when private property is claimed for public use. Because of the social structures of the time, though, property was largely owned by white men, and they benefited most from the constitutional protections

Following the Civil War, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 became law and enacted two major changes. All people born in the United States were declared U.S. citizens, regardless of whether they had been previously enslaved. Second, and all U.S. citizens were granted various rights, including the right to own real and personal property “without regard to race, color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude.” It was the first federal law to grant broad protections that included former slaves.

A few months later, the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, and it granted citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the United States, including former slaves. This was important because a previous U.S. Supreme Court ruling had found that former slaves were not citizens and denied them many legal protections as a result. The Fourteenth Amendment also expanded the rights of all U.S. citizens, including equal protection under the law, the right to due process, and others.

In response to the Civil Rights Act of 1866, many areas of the country began to institute race-based zoning policies, thereby circumventing the law’s requirements. In 1917, the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed race-based zoning, but deed restrictions rooted in race and religion resulted and continued the inequality in housing availability. In 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court prohibited enforcement of deed restrictions based on race, religion, or national origin, which signaled a new era was on the horizon. 

The 1950s and 1960s were marked by the Civil Rights Movement, which sought to end long traditions of racial segregation and discrimination. The earlier years of the movement were marked by the rise of non-violent demonstrations, such as the Montgomery bus boycott, lunch counter sit-ins, and the March on Washington, and those efforts eventually began to pay off in the form of legislative change. Most significantly, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 was updated and expanded in 1957 and again in 1964, when Congress extended the protected classes to include religion, sex, and national origin.

Despite the significant expansions of civil rights in the United States, by the mid-1960s, there was still no centralized protection of housing rights. Although Congress began considering enacting such a law, its members could never reach a consensus about the specific protections to be granted. But in April of 1968, the nation was rocked by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and President Lyndon Johnson reignited the push for a federal housing law in response. Only a week after Dr. King’s assassination, Congress passed the Fair Housing Act, which prohibited discrimination in housing based on race, color, national origin, and religion. In the years since, it has been expanded to also include protection against discrimination based on sex, familial status, and disability status. These protections under federal law are also echoed in the REALTOR® Code of Ethics.