Anti-Discrimination, Civil Rights and Racial Justice Archive: Fair Housing, Equal Employment & Institutional Racism, 1961–1975

Fair Housing Equal Employment Anti-Discrimination

Pamphlet

Civil rights law and racial justice ephemera from circa 1961 to 1975, documenting the expansion of anti discrimination policy from state and local campaigns into federal employment regulation, fair housing advocacy, administrative enforcement, and the 1970s critique of institutional racism. The six publications move from the Kentucky Advisory Committee's reporting on discrimination in Louisville, Lexington, Frankfort, and Hopkinsville through the federal legal apparatus created around the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Executive Order 11246, then into national organizing and statistical analysis of racial disparities during the following decade. By 1975, Fact Sheets on Institutional Racism framed inequalities in business ownership, banking, education, housing, media, health, and government as products of "White Control and Minority Oppression," extending the group's documentary range from laws against discriminatory acts to an analysis of the institutions in which racial inequality persisted.

Archive of six pamphlets and ephemeral publications,each approx 7 x 8 inches to 8 x 10 inches, United States, circa 1961 to 1975.

[1] Kentucky Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Kentucky. Circa 1961. Report on civil rights activity in Louisville, Lexington, Frankfort, and Hopkinsville, addressing public accommodations, employment, housing, and the development of the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights. Its introduction describes the state committee reports as "on-the-spot findings of informed and conscientious citizens seeking to discover the extent of denials of equal justice in their respective States, and possible remedies," while also recording the activity of religious groups in breaking racial barriers.

[2] Fair Housing for All: We Welcome Neighbors of Any Race, Creed or Color. Circa 1960s. Public facing fair housing advocacy piece built around the image of a house enclosing the words "FOR ALL," explicitly joining residential integration to opposition to discrimination by race, creed, or color.

[3] U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Equal Employment Opportunity Under Federal Law: A Guide to Federal Law Prohibiting Discrimination on Account of Race, Religion, or National Origin in Private and Public Employment. Clearinghouse Publication No. 17. August 1969. The guide sets out "The Duty of Nondiscrimination" and procedures for filing employment discrimination complaints, then explains coverage under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Executive Order 11246 for federal contractors and subcontractors, the National Labor Relations Act, Section 1981, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, Title VI, federal employment, state and local government employment, and "Affirmative Steps Toward Equal Employment Opportunity."

[4] State of Kansas, Commission on Civil Rights. The Kansas Act Against Discrimination. Circa 1972 or later. The introductory note traces the statute from its passage in 1953 through amendments in 1961, 1963, 1965, 1967, 1970, and 1972. Those amendments successively extended protection into employment, hotels and restaurants, broader public accommodations and real estate transactions, while enlarging the Commission's investigatory and subpoena powers and, in 1972, authorizing investigation of complaints of sex discrimination.

[5] YWCA of the U.S.A. National Convocation on Racial Justice. Americana Hotel, New York City, June 15, 1972. Program for a national meeting organized around plenary sessions and morning and afternoon panels, naming Senator Hugh Scott, Representative Ronald V. Dellums, Representative Shirley Chisholm, Dr. Reginald Wilson, Hon. Richard Hatcher, and Hon. McGeorge Bundy among its speakers.

[6] Foundation for Change, Inc., and Council for Interracial Books for Children. Fact Sheets on Institutional Racism: White Control and Minority Oppression. August 1975. Organized under the headings Economy, Health, Housing, Education, Media, Government, and Census, the publication compiles contemporary statistics from sources including the U.S. Bureau of the Census, Black Enterprise, Ebony, Jet, and the Economic Priorities Report. Its economy section reports that Black Americans owned 1.2 percent of business equity, 1.2 percent of farm equity, and 0.1 percent of stock equity; that only one of 650 seats on the American Stock Exchange belonged to a Black firm; and that Black Americans held 72 of 14,000 directorships among the 1,000 largest corporations.

The publications record successive stages in the institutional response to racial discrimination. The Kentucky report belongs to the period when state advisory committees gathered local testimony and documented unequal treatment before the principal federal civil rights legislation of the mid 1960s; the Kansas pamphlet records how one state repeatedly enlarged the jurisdiction and enforcement powers of its civil rights commission between 1953 and 1972. The 1969 federal employment guide shows the resulting network of statutes, executive authority, complaint procedures, commissions, and sanctions through which nondiscrimination became an administrative responsibility extending across private employment, public employment, organized labor, and federal contracting. The fair housing piece translates the same legal and political struggle into direct public persuasion, while the 1972 YWCA program places elected officials including Dellums and Chisholm within a national organizational campaign for racial justice. By 1975, Fact Sheets on Institutional Racism measured disparities that remained after more than a decade of civil rights legislation, citing ownership, corporate governance, banking, and income statistics to argue that formal legal equality had not altered the distribution of economic power. Light handling and edge wear, scattered toning and occasional spotting or soiling visible to wrappers; manuscript notation and institutional library markings to the Kentucky report; contents generally clean and legible. Overall good condition. A compact documentary record of the movement from prohibiting racial discrimination in law to enforcing those prohibitions through public institutions and confronting the economic and institutional inequalities that remained.

Item #23820

Price: $885.00