Resource: The Fair Housing Act: Enacted Despite the Mainstream Media, Neutered by the Federal Government's Unwillingness to Enforce It

This article examines the 1968 Fair Housing Act from two perspectives. The first Part discusses the urban riots of the mid-1960s; the failure of the white press to examine the connection between the riots and systemic social problems, particularly segregation; and the Kerner Commission's devastating indictment of mainstream media coverage of the riots, the Black ghetto, and African Americans. The article argues the mainstream media's poor coverage of the problems caused by inner-city ghettos made it more difficult to win popular and political support for the Fair Housing Act. The second Part examines the creation of a separate and unequal system of federally-subsidized housing in the two decades following enactment of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1968 Fair Housing Act. The article argues erecting and maintaining a national system of taxpayer assisted housing that blatantly violated federal fair housing laws, demonstrates the unwillingness of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and five presidential administrations to enforce the Fair Housing Act.