BPI’s housing work began in 1970 when attorney Alexander Polikoff joined BPI and brought with him the Gautreaux litigation. Filed by Polikoff in 1966, against the background of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Chicago open housing marches, Gautreaux et al. v. Chicago Housing Authority was the nation’s first major public housing desegregation lawsuit.
https://www.bpichicago.org/programs/housing-community-development/public-housing/gautreaux-lawsuit/