The misunderstood consequences of Shelley v. Kraemer

• Shelley v. Kraemer (1948) is a landmark civil rights Supreme Court decision.
• Shelley held that racial covenants could not be enforced by the state to evict black buyers.
• The Shelley decision precipitated white-to-black neighborhood transitions.
• The Shelley decision changed the nature of the dual housing market for blacks and whites.
• The Shelley decision produced a sharp increase in intra-black economic segregation in the 1950s.

Shelley v. Kraemer (1948) was a landmark civil rights ruling, in which the Supreme Court held that private racial covenants could not be enforced by the state to evict black buyers of “restricted” homes. Fair housing scholars have generally dismissed or downplayed the practical effects of Shelley, since other forms of housing discrimination remained very powerful. Using spatial lag models and detailed geographic data on the location of covenants and patterns of intra-urban black migration, we compare the role of Shelley with other forces shaping mid-century neighborhood change. We find that Shelley precipitated white-to-black neighborhood transitions after 1948 and changed the nature of the dual housing market in important ways. We also show that increased black mobility produced a sharp increase in intra-black economic segregation during the 1950s and 1960s.