Buchanan v. Warley (1917) was the first case won by the NAACP. One hundred years ago, America was entrenched in Jim Crow segregation. In this context, why did the U.S. Supreme Court strike down a Louisville, Kentucky ordinance that prohibited Black Americans from living on majority-White blocks and vice versa? Because it violated the property rights of White homeowners–it did not allow Charles Buchanan (a White man sympathetic to the plight of Black people) to sell his home. Buchanan v. Warley was a test case cleverly orchestrated to pit White property rights against Jim Crow. Professor Elizabeth A. Herbin-Triant of the University of Massachusetts Lowell discusses it further right here.
