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Buchanan V. Warley

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The Neglected Case of Buchanan v. Warley.

Emily Patrick
Junior Division
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The Land Ordinance of Louisville In 1916 there was a Land Ordinance in Louisville, KY, which stated that African Americans where prohibited from living on a block where the majority of residents were white. It also prohibited whites from living on a block where the majority of residents were black. In order to challenge this law, Warley, a black man, agreed to purchase Buchanan 's house. Buchanan was white. Just by this simple action, Warley and Buchanan 's lives would change, and would indeed challenge not only the law, but the court as well.
Pre-case
When it came time to purchase the house, Buchanan had Warley sign a …show more content…

The Case Comes to an End The result of the case was finally decided on November 5, 1917, over a year after the incident happened. In reaching the result, the Court rejected the idea that racial segregation applied to the sale of real estate. The Court still upheld that different races should be segregated in public, but in real estate this should not apply, as there was no attempt to mix races in a social setting. The Court declared that it could not change the views of people about white superiority to blacks, but that it in upholding the right of people to buy and sell property, it was merely allowing citizens to exercise ‘‘their constitutional rights and privileges’’ to own land. So, did the court prove that Louisville 's Ordinance was unconstitutional? Yes. In a unanimous decision, the Court concluded that the Ordinance violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. According to the Court, The Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Fourteenth Amendment "assured to the colored race the enjoyment of all the civil rights…enjoyed by white persons." Louisville 's interest did

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