The Decision of the US Supreme Court in the Louisville Segregation Case. 40 years before the Civil Rights Act was passed, Buchanan v. Warley upheld the right of African Americans to purchase real estate free from discriminatory laws.

Segregation , Law

Manuscript

A rare pamphlet published by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, New York city, April 1926, recording the Decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the Louisville Segregation Case (Buchanan v Warley 245 U.S. 60), argued in the Supreme Court of the United States April 11, 1916. 19 pages, in good condition, with Institutional ink stamp on title page, and minor toning. 40 years before the Civil Rights Act was passed, Buchanan v. Warley upheld the right of African Americans to purchase real estate free from discriminatory laws.

Buchanan vs. Warley was a landmark case involving forced, goverment-instituted segregation. The Supreme Court's unanimous opinion found that a Lousiville, Kentucky ordinance which prohibited the sale of real estate to African Americans in predominantly white neighborhoods violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. Adopted in 1868 as one of the Reconstruction Amendments, the Fourteenth Amendment defines citizenship and equal protection under the law, limiting government from depriving citizens of life, liberty, or property, without legislative authorization.

The document includes a foreward by Arthur B. Spingarn, then chairman of the legal committee for the NAACP, describing the Louisville ordinance and others like it as creating "Negro Ghettos throughout the United States, with the inevitable crowding, poor lighting and worse sanitation, and the resultant higher delinquincy and crime rates...which inevitably result from adverse environment." Spingarn highlights the importance of the Court's decision, writing that it "established the principle for all time, that in the United States, no state, city, or village can by law prohibit colored men or women, because of their color, from purchasing any real property...". In very good condition. Exterior wrappers removed, stamp of the New York Bar Association Library to cover. Interior library acquisition stamp with the date May 25, 1926. At the time that this description is being written, only four copies are recorded in American institutions. OCLC search results are at best an estimate and can vary over time. An excellent document recording a seminal moment in the history of African American civil rights.

Item #15525

Price: $2,500.00