Michigan and Housing Discrimination, 1949-1968

Abstract

Although the Michigan Committee on Civil Rights, just before G. Mermen Williams was inaugurated as Michigan's governor in 1949, pointed to segregated housing as a civil rights issue with which the state ofMichigan should deal, Michigan did not enact a state fair-housing law until 1968.1 This was not because the state's governors during the period of inaction lacked a commitment to civil rights issues?quite the contrary?but largely because ofthe widespread opposition in the state to fair housing legislation. As Burton Levy, director of community services ofthe Michigan Civil Rights Commission, declared in 1965, although the state's whites at least claimed that they favored merit employment, there was vocal opposition to equality in housing from many segments ofthe community, including 'respectable' individuals and organizations.2 The delay in enacting a state fair-housing law did not mean that no progress had been made in Michigan in the preceding two decades in dealing with housing discrimination. By 1968 the state government had banned discrimination in public housing, the Michigan Civil Rights Commission had mounted a major attack on housing discrimination, and several Michigan cities had adopted fair housing ordinances. Just as the