Bringing The National Urban League's Fair And Affordable Housing Advocacy To The National Stage At The Democratic National Convention

Marc H. Morial 
President and CEO
National Urban League

“The Schefflins advised that Mr. Fred Trump and other agents, including Mr. Wiss, wanted them to rent only to Jews and Executives and discouraged rental to blacks. They advised that a racial code was in effect, blacks being referred to as ''No. 9.” – United States of America v. Fred C. Trump, Donald Trump and Trump Management Inc.

“Take the application and put it in a drawer and leave it there.”

That was Donald Trump’s father’s policy about renting to Black tenants in his New York City buildings in 1963.

A decade later, Donald Trump had assumed the presidency of Trump Management, and the policy had not changed.

The Urban League was instrumental in the U.S. Justice Department's 1973 racial discrimination suit against Trump's real estate company, and on Thursday in Chicago, I had the opportunity to bring our advocacy for fair, safe, and affordable housing to the Democratic National Convention.

In my remarks, I reminded a nationwide audience of this important history and the Trump company’s role in denying Black people the American Dream. I shared the National Urban League’s support for policies that create pathways to that dream for all Americans.

Black testers sent by the Urban League were denied apartments or steered toward other buildings, and their applications were marked with a large letter “C” for “colored.”  

When a Black woman asked to rent an apartment in a Trump building in Brooklyn, the superintendent told her nothing was available.  A short time later, the same superintendent told a white tester that there were two apartments available immediately.

A young Black couple who sued the Trump company was repeatedly rejected by the Trumps’ rental agent. After the agent offered an apartment to white testers, and the young man he’d just rejected entered the room, the agent erupted in fury, and called the white woman tester a “n***er-lover” and a “traitor to the race.”
In 2016, Trump praised that agent in public remarks.

Trump’s company settled the 1973 case with a consent decree that required it to provide the New York Urban League with weekly lists of all vacancies.  But the discrimination continued and in 1978 the Justice Department accused Trump Management of violating the consent decree.  Though more Black families were now renting in Trump-owned buildings, according to the complaint, they were confined to a small number of poorly-maintained complexes with falling plaster, rusty light fixtures, and bloodstained floors.

The consent decree expired before the Department could press the case.
Half a century later, the threats to fair housing are far from over. Project 2025 would weaken the Fair Housing Act, dropping U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” rule.  It would eliminate policy reforms that address racial bias in home appraisals. It would end the use of “disparate impact,” a key tool for enforcing the Fair Housing Act and other civil rights laws.

The National Urban League’s work to sustain access to housing is more important than ever. We remain a leading advocate for affordable housing solutions and have called for a national housing trust fund to finance construction and down payment assistance, expansion of the Section 8 housing voucher program, housing counseling and home buyer education.

 

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