August 6, 1965, Voting Rights Act

This act was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson. It outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting.

July 2, 1964, Civil Rights Act

“My fellow citizens, we have come now to a time of testing. We must not fail. Let us close the springs of racial poison. Let us pray for wise and understanding hearts. Let us lay aside irrelevant differences and make our nation whole.”

– President Lyndon B. Johnson

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination in public places, provided for the integration of schools and other public facilities, and made employment discrimination illegal. It was the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction.

One year prior, in a nationally televised address on June 6, 1963, former President John F. Kennedy had urged the nation to take action toward guaranteeing equal treatment of every American regardless of race.

Kennedy then proposed that Congress consider civil rights legislation that would address voting rights, public accommodations, school desegregation, nondiscrimination in federally assisted programs, and more.

Despite Kennedy’s assassination in November of 1963, his proposal culminated in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. President Lyndon Johnson signed it into law just a few hours after it was passed by Congress on July 2, 1964.

1962, Equal Opportunity in Housing

Executive Order 11063: Titled “Equal Opportunity in Housing” and issued by President Kennedy prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental, or use of all residential property that was owned, operated, or financed by the federal government. It had little impact because it did not provide for enforcement.

1954, Brown vs. Board of Education

Upon realizing that separate does NOT mean equal, the courts overturned Plessy vs. Ferguson and outlawed school segregation.

1943, Immigration Laws

The 1943 immigration laws established a quota on Chinese immigrants (105 a year), which was not lifted until the 1965 Immigration Act.

1936, The Negro Motorist Green Book

Commonly referred to simply as the “Green Book” it was an annual, segregation-era guidebook for African-American motorists, published by Hackensack, New Jersey letter carrier turned New York travel agent Victor H. Green between 1936 and 1966. During the Jim Crow era road trips for African- Americans were fraught with dangers in the overtly racist context of racial segregation, racial profiling by police as well as the general White population, the common phenomenon of travelers “disappearing,” and the existence of numerous sundown towns.

1936, Promoting Racial Segregation

Frederick Babcock and Homer Hoyt are credited with establishing the first Underwriting Manual for FHA. The Manual promoted racial segregation touting the use of racially restrictive covenants to guarantee the most “favorable condition” for neighborhoods. The Manual stated that deed restrictions should include a “prohibition of the occupancy of properties except by the race for which they are intended,” and that “inharmonious racial groups” and “incompatible racial elements” would cause the devaluation of a neighborhood.

June 27, 1934, The Federal Housing Administration

From 1934 to 1968, the Federal Housing Administration’s housing policies created the segregated system of housing as we know it. The FHA made homeownership accessible to White people by guaranteeing their loans, but explicitly refused to back loans to Black people or even other people who lived near Black people. FHA and its other actors’ (lenders, realtors, insurers, etc.) Redlining destroyed the possibility of investment wherever Black people lived.

June 13, 1933, The Home Loan Corporation

Established in 1933, this institution helped segregate the United States through housing loans. The HOLC Loan Corporation specified race and immigrant status as considerations, and agency records showed that from 1933 to 1936, the period it was authorized to issue loans, 44% of its help went to areas designated “native White,” 42% to “native White and foreign,” and only 1% to “Negro.”

1933, Racial Housing Hierarchy

Homer Hoyt, the first Principal Housing Economist for the Federal Housing Administration, perfected a system of ranking races and nationalities in order to illustrate their beneficial effect or negative impact on land values with groups more favorable listed at the top (Western Europeans) and groups less favorable being listed at the bottom (Blacks, Italians and Mexicans).

1932, The Valuation Of Real Estate

Real estate expert, Frederick M. Babcock, who helped start the Federal Housing Administration, wrote his racist segregationist housing valuation policy in The Valuation of Real Estate. He suggested that declines in property values could be “partially avoided by segregation and this device has always been in common usage in the South where White and Negro populations have been separated.”

June 2, 1924, Indigenous People Are Granted Citizenship

In spite of the fact that they were here before colonizing Europeans arrived and stole their land, Indigenous people were granted citizenship in the United States in 1924.

1924, Prohibition of Integration

The National Association of Real Estate Board’s Code of Ethics Prohibits Integration. Under Article 34 of Part III of the Code of Ethics, the guiding document for all real estate professionals in the U.S., stated “A Realtor should never be instrumental in introducing into a neighborhood a character of property or occupancy, members of any race or nationality, or any individuals whose presence will clearly be detrimental to property values in that neighborhood.”

May 18, 1896, Plessy v Ferguson (Separate But Equal)

Plessy vs. Ferguson opened the door for institutionalized segregation known as the “separate but equal” doctrine that legalized segregation.

January 1, 1877, The Reconstruction Era Ends

The Compromise of 1877 began allowing for the election of Rutherford B. Hayes as President of the United States. As a part of the Compromise, Republicans agreed to withdraw the remaining federal troops from the South. As a result, a succession of segregationist policies and Jim Crow laws were implemented creating systems of de facto and de jure slavery and segregation.

January 1, 1874, Freedman’s Bank Closes

Mismanagement and outright fraud by white senior leaders weakened the bank significantly. Politician Henry D. Cooke approved unsecured loans to his own business while on the bank’s board; he ultimately could not pay back the loans, went bankrupt, and the bank was devastated.

In 1872 U.S. Congress voted to permanently close the Freedman’s Bureau. The Bank however remained operational and in March of 1874 Frederick Douglass became the last president of the Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company.

In a desperate attempt to stabilize the Bank, Douglass invested $10,000 of his own money. Still, in June of 1874 the bank failed against the backdrop of the racially motivated political forces that undermined Reconstruction.

The 61,000 people who had deposited $3 million (over $63 million in today’s dollars) into the system lost what they had when the bank closed.

On January 7, 2016, the Treasury Annex Building in Washington DC was publicly renamed The Freedman’s Bank Building by Secretary of the Treasury, Jack Lew, in honor of the site where the Freedman’s Saving Bank once stood.

“The failure of this bank has done more to harm the future of freed black slaves than 10 additional years of slavery.”

– Frederick Douglass, African-American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, statesman and President of the Freedmans Savings and Trust co

January 1, 1872, Homestead Act Amended

During the Reconstruction Era, the Homestead Act of 1862 was amended in 1872 to prohibit making a “distinction on account of race or color” in the issuance of Homestead grants thereby opening up the program to settle western lands in the U.S. to those who were not White.

July 9, 1868, The Fourteenth Amendment

The U.S. Constitution was amended, ratified in 1868, granting citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States, including former slaves, and guaranteed all citizens “equal protection of the laws.” (See next panel for further info.)

April 9, 1866, The Civil Rights Act

On April 9, 1866, the Civil Rights Act guaranteed equal rights under the law. “All citizens of the United States shall have the same right, in every State and Territory, as is enjoyed by White citizens thereof to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property.” The courts interpreted the law to prohibit public or governmental discrimination only.

1865-1866, The Black Codes

The Black Codes were laws passed by many states after the Civil War with the intent and the effect of restricting African- Americans’ freedom.

December 6, 1865, The Abolition of Slavery

The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in the United States on December 6, 1865. While there were thousands of free Black people in the U.S., most were enslaved without the right to purchase property, enter into contracts, or exercise many other freedoms enjoyed by White citizens.

May 9, 1865, An End to The Civil War

President Andrew Johnson declares the Civil War over.

March 8, 1865, The Freedman’s Bank

Abolitionists compelled Congress to establish a banking system for people of color and particularly Black soldiers who had no place to keep their Union Army compensation. To support the land grants and other elements of the Freedman’s Bureau Act, President Lincoln established the Freedman’s Bank on March 8, 1865 so that formerly enslaved Black Americans might navigate their financial lives. President Lincoln was assassinated five weeks later.

The Freedman’s Bank was a separate and unequal financial system. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency did not regulate the Freedman’s Bank. It was instead, supervised by a Board of Trustees largely comprised of Wall Street investors and real estate moguls, some of whom stole the depositors’ savings for their own purposes.

1863, Emancipation Proclamation

Signed by President Abraham Lincoln, the Emancipation Proclamation granted freedom to all enslaved people held in states that had seceded from the Union.