Living Apart: How The Government Betrayed A Landmark Civil Rights Law

Living Apart: How The Government Betrayed A Landmark Civil Rights Law
NEW ORLEANS - DECEMBER 15: A demolition opponent attaches a sign to a fence at the St. Bernard public housing development which is slated for demolition December 15, 2007 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Demolition of 4,500 public housing units was scheduled to begin today but was temporarily halted in three of the four major public housing developments following a court ruling yesterday. The proposed demolition has sparked protests and lawsuits as affordable housing stocks have dwindled and homelessness has doubled following Hurricane Katrina. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
NEW ORLEANS - DECEMBER 15: A demolition opponent attaches a sign to a fence at the St. Bernard public housing development which is slated for demolition December 15, 2007 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Demolition of 4,500 public housing units was scheduled to begin today but was temporarily halted in three of the four major public housing developments following a court ruling yesterday. The proposed demolition has sparked protests and lawsuits as affordable housing stocks have dwindled and homelessness has doubled following Hurricane Katrina. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

A few months after Congress passed a landmark law directing the federal government to dismantle segregation in the nation's housing, President Nixon's housing chief began plotting a stealth campaign.

The plan, George Romney wrote in a confidential memo to aides, was to use his power as secretary of Housing and Urban Development to remake America's housing patterns, which he described as a "high-income white noose" around the black inner city.

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