Baltimore Invents Racial Zoning, Cities Across America Follow

Baltimore enacted the first racial residential segregation ordinance on December 20, 1910. Louisville, Richmond, Atlanta, Dallas, and dozens of other cities quickly passed similar ordinances. The Supreme Court struck down Louisville's ordinance in Buchanan v. Warley (1917), but cities responded by shifting to racially restrictive covenants in deeds, not struck down until Shelley v. Kraemer (1948). The legal architecture of residential segregation was built in this period.