{"id":18635,"date":"2022-04-25T15:26:09","date_gmt":"2022-04-25T20:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/?p=18635"},"modified":"2022-07-25T19:28:00","modified_gmt":"2022-07-26T00:28:00","slug":"when-a-wwii-vet-returned-home-and-was-denied-fair-housing-the-course-of-history-forever-changed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/editorials\/when-a-wwii-vet-returned-home-and-was-denied-fair-housing-the-course-of-history-forever-changed\/","title":{"rendered":"When a WWII vet returned home and was denied fair housing, the course of history forever changed"},"content":{"rendered":"

April marks the passage of the Fair Housing act of 1968, which the REALTOR\u00ae population commemorates<\/a>, recomitting to expanded equal access to housing. Offering more texture to the ongoing fair housing challenge in America, the following editorial is penned by Bob Goldberg, CEO of the National Association of Realtors\u00ae, America\u2019s largest trade association:<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

The legislation was going nowhere. At least not in a form that would have done much good.<\/h3>\n

Following months of debate amid nationwide unrest, the version of H.R. 2516 that cleared the U.S. House of Representatives was diluted and largely impotent.<\/p>\n

Then it waited – idle – in the Senate for the remainder of 1967.<\/p>\n

When the upper chamber eventually (reluctantly) took up the bill, the junior Senator from Massachusetts took the floor. Edward Brooke then told a story that\u2019s as powerful today as it was 54 years ago<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Enlisting in the United States Army immediately after Japan\u2019s attack on Pearl Harbor, Edward Brooke was assigned to the segregated 366th Infantry Regiment and soon entered into European Theater from the unit\u2019s outpost in Italy. There, Brooke\u2019s fluency in Italian was a tremendous asset to Allied war efforts, his covert actions in Axis territory earning a Bronze Star Medal for service in a\u00a0combat zone.<\/p>\n

He returned home a decorated veteran, a member of the group that would reverently be known as America\u2019s \u201cGreatest Generation\u201d for its defeat of fascism and its persistence through the Great Depression.<\/p>\n

Yet Brooke, who would become the first Black American popularly elected to the U.S. Senate, found himself denied the ability to compete for certain homes in certain neighborhoods because of the color of his skin.<\/h3>\n

\u201cIn the hierarchy of American values, there can be no higher standard than equal justice for each individual,\u201d Brooke said in the winter of 1968<\/a>. \u201cBy that standard, who could question the right of every American to compete on equal terms for adequate housing for his family?\u201d<\/p>\n

For Brooke, with his new wife and a blossoming family, the experience was devastating. But it was far from unique. Even for those returning as heroes from Europe and the Pacific.<\/p>\n

While the GI bill promised to repay American soldiers for their immense sacrifices in World War II, many of those benefits were in truth only promised<\/em> to White veterans.<\/h3>\n

\u201cHere we were… fighting for freedom overseas when we did not have freedom at home. We had hoped and prayed that when the war was over\u2026 things would [be] different,\u201d he said years later<\/a>. \u201cBut when we came back, it was just business as usual.\u201d<\/p>\n

The encounter prompted Brooke to enroll in law school at Boston University, setting him on the path to public service.<\/p>\n

With redlining pervasive in post-World War II America, historian Ira Katznelson notes<\/a> that non-whites purchased \u201cfewer than 100 of the 67,000 mortgages insured by the GI bill\u201d in suburban New York City. Across 1947 Mississippi, just two of more than 3,100 VA-guaranteed home loans went to Black borrowers.<\/p>\n

Something, it was clear in Brooke\u2019s mind, had to change.<\/p>\n

\u201cFair housing [was always] a problem for me,\u201d Brooke recounted in 2007<\/a>. \u201cI lived in a time when you had redlining, where Blacks couldn\u2019t get mortgages in certain areas\u2026 And I just believed that something had to be done dramatically, but effectively, to bring about fair housing in this country. So, I introduced legislation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, Brooke and Walter Mondale are recognized as the fathers of fair housing.<\/h3>\n

Together, these Senators from opposing parties and divergent backgrounds drafted S. 1358, the Fair Housing Act of 1968<\/em>. Its language would eventually be adopted into the same H.R. 2516, legislation known officially as the Civil Rights Act of 1968<\/em>. This initial bill had been watered down so much through House debate that its only real, remaining purpose prior to the adoption of S. 1358 was to protect civil rights workers.<\/p>\n

As I outlined back in February<\/a>, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. catalyzed Congress into final, definitive action on housing, applying the public pressure and motivation lawmakers needed to move the Fair Housing Act from proposal to policy.<\/p>\n

But it was Senator Brooke\u2019s powerful experience as a Black veteran denied the inalienable right to property that helped birth the landmark law we now celebrate each April.<\/p>\n

\"Senator<\/p>\n

This fight for equal rights and equal access throughout society persists in various forms, overt and obscure. In employment and education and health care. And, still, in housing.<\/h3>\n

Today, Realtors\u00ae and real estate agents play a unique role in the realization of the Fair Housing Act. The 1.5 million members of the National Association of Realtors\u00ae are on the front lines with consumers \u2014 both buyers and sellers \u2014 and see firsthand where discrimination is experienced.<\/p>\n

Back in 2019, NAR began developing an implicit bias training video to share with our members and other industry professionals. This resource drew upon the latest scientific research to illustrate how our brains\u2019 automatic, instant association of stereotypes causes us to treat different groups of people unfairly. The video<\/a> has today been viewed by tens of thousands of Realtors\u00ae.<\/p>\n

Building off its success, NAR earlier this month unveiled a new implicit bias classroom training program, which is eligible for state-level continuing education credit. (To maintain real estate licensure, agents and brokers are required by their respective state\u2019s real estate commission to regularly complete a pre-determined amount of continuing education hours.<\/em>)<\/p>\n

The training explains how our unconscious brains immediately categorize people in the human effort to process information more quickly.<\/h3>\n

It then offers participants various tactics to help break down stereotypical thinking, ultimately allowing each client and consumer to be treated with an equal level of concern and respect.<\/p>\n

NAR invited many of the most experienced trainers already engaged with At Home with Diversity\u00ae<\/a><\/em> to complete the intensive, two-day certification process requisite to leading Realtors\u00ae through the program.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, our hope is that this effort will raise the bar on the overall quality and expectations of fair housing training in this country.<\/p>\n

But making housing fair in America requires so much more than a focus on implicit bias, a fact NAR recognizes well<\/a>.<\/h3>\n

In his memoirs, Senator Brooke wrote that \u201cthe issue of open housing went beyond politics and asked white America to cast off prejudice\u2026 and to embrace justice for all.\u201d He knew that justice, true justice, was not possible without true fair housing in America.<\/p>\n

Edward Brooke laid his life on the line to preserve the principles of freedom, democracy, and justice. His experiences \u2014 his story \u2014 remain a critical component of our broader, national story. And it\u2019s a constant, explicit example of everything our modern-day pursuit of fair housing embodies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Did you know that Fair Housing was inspired by a vet who volunteered his life to defend our nation, only to come home and be denied housing? What has happened since legislation was enacted and what is going on today? NAR CEO Bob Goldberg weighs in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":340926,"featured_media":18643,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[471,254,365],"tags":[444,2332,1234],"class_list":["post-18635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fair-housing-politics","category-editorials","category-politics","tag-fair-housing","tag-featured","tag-real-estate-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/brooke.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/340926"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18635"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18932,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18635\/revisions\/18932"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}