Mapping Reparative Legal Efforts
The advocacy of Black Ann Arbor residents, community leaders, and organizations such as the NAACP, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Ann Arbor Area Fair Housing Association -- CORE eventually led to the passage of Ann Arbor's local Fair Housing Ordinance in 1963, five years before the federal Fair Housing Act was passed. However, Ann Arbor still had a long way to go in achieving fair housing. Despite its passing in 1963, other records of the period indicate that the ordinance was inadequately enforced years later.
Ann Arbor Fair Housing Ordinance (Proposed): Public Hearing / Ann Arbor Common Council; ([R289B]) - 1963 March 19
This audio recording features parts of one of the first hearings for the City of Ann Arbor’s proposed Fair Housing Ordinance. In the beginning of this clip, you can hear a speech in support of the ordinance by Albert Wheeler, who was representing the NAACP and would go on to become Ann Arbor’s first Black mayor in 1975. Wheeler describes many of the types of housing discrimination that Black residents of Ann Arbor faced in seeking homes.
The documents below tell the story of urban renewal efforts in Ann Arbor, in which leasing companies and local landlords purchased houses in North Central far below their value and turned them into poorly-maintained rental units. This phenomenon took advantage of local Black residents and pushed several of them out of the neighborhood. The documents below provide anecdotal evidence of such tactics and show ways that residents helped protect each other against manipulation and fraud.
Letter from Harriet Fusfeld
This letter describes a variety of ongoing tacit policies creating barriers to fair housing in the city. One anecdote describes a local landlord who constructed apartments out of various homes in Ann Arbor - all of which he neglected to service while keeping rent high. Fusfeld notes that local organizations, such as the NAACP, were planning to work on or grow outreach efforts to residents to ensure their rights remained respected and protected.
"What is happening to property in your neighborhood?” Flyer
This flyer from the Human Relations Commission warns Ann Arbor residents about multiple schemes designed to push residents to sell their properties and offers resources for getting accurate financial advice. One ploy mentioned involved a local landlord who was increasingly buying houses in the North Central Area, an act of gentrification which began changing the value of homes in the neighborhood and pushing the original Black residents out.
Criteria Worries Aired to Housing Commission
This newspaper clipping describes the proceedings of a Housing Commission meeting about seeking Public Housing Administration funds to provide housing for economically disadvantaged members of the community. It contains information from a letter written by Emma Wheeler, then-President of the local NAACP, about how housing rights are related to rights in education, especially for Black students who were displaced with the closing of the Jones School.