UofL Libraries: Uncovering Racial Logics: Louisville's History of Racial Oppression and Activism: Housing

Housing

Introduction

Access to housing opportunities in Louisville has been, and continues to be, shaped by racist policies and racist ideas that constitute a system of practice limiting opportunities for Black residents and other people of color, while simultaneously benefitting white people. Collectively, these practices not only restricted access to safe, fair, and affordable housing opportunities for Black Louisvillians, but also actively destroyed Black land, businesses, and associated wealth and disrupted Black access to resources and services. Residential racial segregation and housing discrimination are not unique to Louisville and are reflective of a larger system of white supremacy that pervades national policy frameworks, maintaining racial inequities. However, Louisville’s history is marked by specific events that influenced the ways in which patterns of racial segregation manifested in the city, including the landmark 1917 Supreme Court decision, Buchanan v. Warley, outlawing race-based zoning ordinances, and the 1954 dynamiting of a Black family – the Wade’s – home in a racist attack during desegregation efforts tied to the work of Carl and Anne Braden, among other examples. (A 1989 oral history with Andrew Wade is available at Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History website.)

Urban Renewal Photograph collection, Box 36, Folder 17 "Fun Mobile - set up in Newburg", Photographic Archives, University of Louisville. Caption on back: "Children in the Newburg Urban Renewal Area gather around the portable Fun Mobile provided by the Agency and staffed by the Metropolitan Recreation Department, for use on Urban Renewal land waiting development."

Federal policies like redlining, which systematically denied mortgage insurance to Black households, and urban renewal, which displaced thousands of poor Black residents through the demolition of neighborhoods and business districts, worked alongside actions in the private sector including racially exclusionary covenants that did not allow the sale of homes to Black households, all of which collectively shaped racially segregated housing patterns that persist into the present day. The archival materials presented below highlight the narrative of Louisville’s history of racist housing policies and practices, including the construction of racially segregated federal public housing projects in the aftermath of the destruction of neighborhoods and displacement of communities. However, they also reveal resistance to and organizing among the Black community and white allies to fight against racist housing policies and discriminatory practices.

Housing Projects

From 1940-1944, Earl Pruitt managed Louisville’s Beecher Terrace Housing Project, which was at the time the largest housing project in Kentucky. He was also involved nationally with campaigns to improve low-income housing, and was involved with the National Association of Housing Officials, Louisville Municipal Housing Commission, the Governor's Commission on Education Desegregation, and other groups focused on equitable housing. In 1945, Pruitt traveled to England as a public housing expert and gave a lecture on the radio, the text of which is available below. Researchers working with the Earl E. Pruitt papers will find information pertaining to Beecher Terrace as well as general information related to public housing. Find more information about the Earl E. Pruitt papers by visiting the catalog record.

E. E. Pruitt Speech on Public Housing, April 9, 1945
Earl E. Pruitt Papers, (Box 1, Folder 3 "Louisville Public Housing, 1939-1955"), Archives and Special Collections, University of Louisville.

In 1945, Earl Pruitt traveled to England as an expert on public housing in the United States. He was invited to give public lectures and meet with housing officials in London. As a part of the trip, he also gave a radio address, for which he was paid $10. This document is the text of his radio address, which provides a snapshot of public housing in Louisville at the time.

List of poor conditioned ceilings and plaster walls at Beecher Terrace
Earl E. Pruitt Papers, (Box 1, Folder 3 "Louisville Public Housing, 1939-1955"), Archives and Special Collections, University of Louisville.

As manager of Beecher Terrace, Earl Pruitt would have been responsible for taking care of maintenance needs. Here are handwritten lists that include the apartment number and address, names of tenants, and whether or not repairs were needed in the unit.

PWA Low Rent Housing Brochure
Source: Earl E. Pruitt Papers, (Box 1) Archives and Special Collections, University of Louisville.

In the 1930s, the Public Works Administration (PWA) was working on behalf of the federal government to establish a system of public housing for low-income people. Brochures like this were created to advertise and generate enthusiasm for public housing, and to show people images of what these apartments looked like. Note that on the front cover are images of low-income housing before the slum clearance era, which depict such housing as "unclean" and "dangerous." On the last page of the brochure are pictures of what the new units would look like. This brochure is specifically advertising the College Court Housing Project.

Louisville Defender on housing

The Louisville Defender, a local Black newspaper founded in 1933, is an excellent resource for researching Black life in Louisville. The following short video combines clippings from the Louisville Defender with select excerpts from oral histories by Adlene Abstain and Carla Wallace housed in Archives and Special Collection's Oral History Center.

Oral histories on housing

The Oral History Center includes two series specifically on housing within Louisville, Home for Us All: Housing in Louisville & Jefferson County and A Home is not a House. Additional interviews outside of those series also discuss housing: see oral histories by Urban Axman, Lloyd Alexander, and Adelene Abstain.

African American Community Interviews
Civil Rights Movement in Louisville
Discrimination in housing
Home for Us All: Housing in Louisville & Jefferson
Perspectives on Louisville's housing history from the 1960s to 2011. Land developers, city planners, social justice activists, and other advocates for fair housing generously shared their experiences and reflections on residential patterns in Louisville in order to aid in future research and to foster knowledge about how the city arrived at its present state of housing segregation.
Home is Not a House: A History of Housing Security and Homelessness
Oral histories from participants and staff from the Permanent Supportive Housing Program at the St. John Center for Homeless Men.
Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Oppression
Several oral histories in this series discuss issues of housing and homelessness, including Gracie Lewis and Beverley Marmion, longtime members of the KAARPO.
Oral histories of Parkland residents