No Black Tenants
In Detroit, whites protesting the construction of a federal housing project for war workers posted a sign with American flags reading, “We want white tenants in our white community,” directly opposite the building site. On the day the first Black family moved into the Sojourner Truth homes, the protesters rioted.
Prevent Blacks from Acquiring White Neighbor’s Resources
As author Kevin Kruse has shown in his book White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism, a 1966 citizen pamphlet titled Save Sandy Springs charged that Black Atlantans’ bloc voting power was the driving force behind Atlanta Mayor William Hartsfield’s push to annex Sandy Springs, an Atlanta suburb known for its discriminatory real estate practices.
In other words, it framed annexation specifically as a Black grab for white resources that Sandy Springs could resist by maintaining its political independence.
Integration Decreases Property Value
Mayor Hartsfield once wrote: “The race question is not confined to the South alone,” while describing the Chicago Federation of Neighborhood Association’s campaign “to uphold property values in Chicago, which are being ruined by promiscuous mixture by the races.”
