ST. LOUIS — Today, we can choose what kind of home, amenities, and neighborhood we want to live in and buy it if we can afford it. This hasn’t always been the case in the St. Louis region, but a 1948 landmark case ended restrictive racial covenants in housing.
In this Black History moment, we are remembering a St. Louis family who put up a fight to live in a two-story house on Labadie Avenue in what we now know as the Greater Ville in North City.
The Shelleys were working against racially restrictive covenants. People who owned buildings had agreed to only sell to white people. This led to the landmark Supreme Court case, Shelley versus Kraemer.
The Shelleys moved up to St. Louis from Mississippi for more opportunities and to get away from racism in the 1930s. The big family of six lived with family or rented. They quickly found they didn’t quite get away from the injustices of the South. They struggled to find a home because of the covenants blocking them. They found someone willing to sell them a home, but Louis Kraemer, owner of another property on the street, did not want them there and sued in the St. Louis Circuit Court.
The Shelleys won, Kraemer appealed, reversing the decision, and then the Shelleys took the case to the Supreme Court.
In 1948, in a sweeping six-to-zero vote, it was ruled racially restrictive covenants could no longer be enforced.
Though the ruling did not end discrimination or segregation immediately, the justices decided no state shall enforce any law abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.
This was a large step toward change in housing policies for the United States.
That modest two-story house became a home, and today it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.