Chicago City Council Refuses to Pass Fair Housing Ordinance 1954

In 1954, Chicago's City Council refuses to pass a fair housing ordinance that would prohibit racial discrimination in housing sales and rentals. Real estate lobbying by the Chicago Real Estate Board, which in 1917 had recommended expelling any member who sold to Black buyers in white areas, defeats the measure. Mayor Richard J. Daley supports the defeat. No municipal fair housing law passes in Chicago until 1963, and even then enforcement is minimal. The Real Estate Board's ethical code requiring racial steering is not challenged until the late 1960s.