A Historical Study of American Urban Housing Problems and the Civil Rights Movement in the Mid-Twentieth Century

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K16858
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: History of Europe and America
• Research Institution: Gifu Shotoku Gakuen University
• Principal Investigator: TAKEI HIROSHI 岐阜聖徳学園大学, 外国語学部, 准教授 (10707368)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: アメリカ / 人種 / 公民権運動 / 都市史 / ジェンダー / エスニシティ / 移民 / 住宅政策

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This research project seeks to analyze African Americans' struggle for fair housing in the United States, focusing on their relations with housing reformers in the mid-twentieth century. The study involved the collection of primary sources concerning housing issues from the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Using these archival documents, this project considered the significance of the Shelley v. Kraemer decision in 1948, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that no court could enforce a racial restrictive covenant, and which was a watershed for the social uplift of African Americans. By reconsidering the Chicago Freedom Movement in 1966 as an urban housing issue in the civil rights era, this study also showed that urban housing problems had close relations to the civil rights movement.

Free Research Field

西洋史